Well it is that time again, when all the hard work starts to get lit up and new sequences tested etc...
It is generally a great exciting time, but as the title suggests, most frustrating too.
I decided to renovate the mega tree this year, I bought a swag of stuff from the Boscoyo bulk buy including a heap of pixel strips, so with that in mind I started pushing pixels, I ended with (for this year at least) 18 strips of 75 pixels at 2inch spacing. I reused half of the pixels from last year and added a heap of new ones so there was a few different brands in amongst them, but with experience in using the f16 falcon controller that did not bother me, as I knew there were ways around everything.
After pushing the pixels I started wiring plugs and sockets, then ran out, so needed to order more, I also ran out of the correct size heatshrink. I am sure you can see where this is going!
I jumped onto Vixen and started setting up the new tree and thought it would be easiest to just create a new tree.
That was my first mistake!
while there is nothing wrong with that, I stupidly deleted the old tree, and you guessed it... All of the sequencing was gone! After much bashing myself up, I remembered that I had most of the sequences on another computer and thanks to Vixen's new feature this year, i was able to open 2 profiles and copy all of the sequences back
Then finally all my spares arrived, so back to the tree itself. I even setup a storrage mount on the ceiling of the shed so it was out of the way, but still able to test it, so finally I wired it up and...... 2 1/2 strings work, then blue leds for another 5 then another 4 strings work.... AArrggghhh
Time to setup the f16 I thought, maybe it is that the strings are different and need the settings changed.
2 hours later trying to work out why I couldn't even access the string ports in the f16 via the network interface and I realise that Internet explorer is not compatible with the board. Lucky I am already grey!
When I do manage to login with firefox, I spend the next hour setting everything up and it looks good. Time to test again.... AArrrgggghhhhh.... still the same.
Well here is where the lesson is learnt (he says with great trepidation) I found a point that was less than adequately soldered . Can you spot the mistake?
Oh. by the way, it now works as it should have 5 hours earlier
It is generally a great exciting time, but as the title suggests, most frustrating too.
I decided to renovate the mega tree this year, I bought a swag of stuff from the Boscoyo bulk buy including a heap of pixel strips, so with that in mind I started pushing pixels, I ended with (for this year at least) 18 strips of 75 pixels at 2inch spacing. I reused half of the pixels from last year and added a heap of new ones so there was a few different brands in amongst them, but with experience in using the f16 falcon controller that did not bother me, as I knew there were ways around everything.
After pushing the pixels I started wiring plugs and sockets, then ran out, so needed to order more, I also ran out of the correct size heatshrink. I am sure you can see where this is going!
I jumped onto Vixen and started setting up the new tree and thought it would be easiest to just create a new tree.
That was my first mistake!
while there is nothing wrong with that, I stupidly deleted the old tree, and you guessed it... All of the sequencing was gone! After much bashing myself up, I remembered that I had most of the sequences on another computer and thanks to Vixen's new feature this year, i was able to open 2 profiles and copy all of the sequences back
Then finally all my spares arrived, so back to the tree itself. I even setup a storrage mount on the ceiling of the shed so it was out of the way, but still able to test it, so finally I wired it up and...... 2 1/2 strings work, then blue leds for another 5 then another 4 strings work.... AArrggghhh
Time to setup the f16 I thought, maybe it is that the strings are different and need the settings changed.
2 hours later trying to work out why I couldn't even access the string ports in the f16 via the network interface and I realise that Internet explorer is not compatible with the board. Lucky I am already grey!
When I do manage to login with firefox, I spend the next hour setting everything up and it looks good. Time to test again.... AArrrgggghhhhh.... still the same.
Well here is where the lesson is learnt (he says with great trepidation) I found a point that was less than adequately soldered . Can you spot the mistake?
Oh. by the way, it now works as it should have 5 hours earlier