Katekate
Senior elf
I don't think we are talking about the same thing. Hanson boards run FPP, not WLED.
Thoughts on San Devices
- Thread starter Nova
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Notenoughlights
400,000+ twinkly lights
I wouldn't say they're buggy at all. Had no problems with mine (except for a dead output) during my 2021 display. What you're hearing and what others are saying are that you can't upload from Xlights and have everything work, i.e doing it automatically won't work 100%, but setting it up manually, it will work as intended.
Last year my Falcon failed halfway through my show. I ended up flashing 8 x ESP 8266s that evening and had the show running again the next day. Wifi was ok but not great at some of the furthest points in the garden. I think enclosures have a big part to play as well as where you located the APs.
What happened to make your Falcon fail?
Given ESP's are 2.4GHz, then good channel settings, MIMO configuration, power output selection and channel bandwidth is key to getting WiFi reliable. (Actually it goes for 5Ghz too, but more so at 2.4).
Blasting out at 100% having overlapping channels and running 3x3 MIMO might seem good, but in fact it'd be pretty average for what you're trying to achieve, which is a reliable, consistent, relatively low-bandwidth network.
Yup I understand all of that. I use Ruckus APs with beamforming and all the smart channel features. It could also be done to the fact that I had the cheapest ESP8266 from Aliexpress and I doubt the quality control was up to much. 6 of the 8 were rock solid the other two were a bit iffy and sometimes needs resets on the board to get going again.
Power supply issues, we think a surge in the network one day fried something in the plug pack and a couple of chips on the board. Had one of my electronic friends go over it and managed to repair so we are all good again for this year.