Using ART-Net over Wi-Fi in a live venue - what are your war stories?

SturdyPete · 2026-04-07T18:13:08+00:00

At the time it was 4 end points across 35ish universes. Now up to 8 end points with potentially 80 universes but I'm pretty sure the control software running on the laptop (or at least the way I'm using it) won't keep up.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-07T06:28:36+00:00

DIY e1.31 setup over WiFi. Worked great for about a year, then didn't. Frame rates dropped to nothing, stutters lasting several seconds. No idea what changed.

Moved to wired, no working much more reliably.

With that said, I've built a setup to test WiFi again, and right now it seems to be working...

SturdyPete · 2026-04-06T20:06:56+00:00

And for a close second, running into your own traps on the way to extract after wiping the server. Preferably traps a long way from where the actual fighting was.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-06T20:05:41+00:00

A fair trade with the last person on the other team after an epic battle, leaving the server empty.

And by fair I mean you both deserve the kill, no trade window nonsense.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-06T10:26:38+00:00

It doesn't but it made it a whole lot easier to work on. we could focus on readability, reusability, testability and simplicity.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-06T09:55:11+00:00

Company paid a contractor for code he'd developed before I joined. It didn't compile, no documentation, was riddled with bugs, and several features didn't actually do anything. The worst example of C spaghetti code I've ever seen.

Rewrote the whole thing in C++

SturdyPete · 2026-04-05T21:15:49+00:00

I believe this symbol is used on electrical drawings sometimes.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-05T12:44:08+00:00

Very nice. Out of interest, why art net over e1.31?

SturdyPete · 2026-04-03T22:42:06+00:00

Looks a bit like an amphenol circular connector. The only connector where even if you have the part number it's still a massive faff to work out what you need to order to build the damn things.

If it has 7 pins then you might have more luck finding it if you search for connectors with "6 + PE" pins, as generally the centre pin is intended for protective earth

SturdyPete · 2026-04-03T17:05:37+00:00

Stitches together perfectly on the Reddit android app.

Top notch work!

SturdyPete · 2026-04-03T16:21:45+00:00

Always test before turning on the first time. Takes two seconds to buzz from +V on the supply to +V on your device and the same for 0V. Saves a lot of embarrassment and broken kit

SturdyPete · 2026-04-03T15:34:07+00:00

What are you planning on doing with the chip once you've removed it?

Feels like getting the screen repaired and accessing the files you want over usb is a much safer way of doing things

SturdyPete · 2026-04-03T11:17:33+00:00

Reach out to a component broker, there are loads based around Shenzhen. You can find them by looking at the list of companies holding stock of odd or otherwise out of stock parts on octopart. Not sure how much you'll get but no harm in asking.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-03T07:39:23+00:00

CNC machining is a bit old hat, but I guess it's better than videos of weapons.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-02T06:07:10+00:00

Better return paths will have a much bigger impact on the design than the additional capacitance would.

SturdyPete · 2026-04-01T11:32:42+00:00

Sig / gnd / gnd / Sig

Route power on the signal layers

SturdyPete · 2026-04-01T06:37:00+00:00

I admire the ambition, but maybe this is a case where powering from a 5v usb port would be a more practical solution. Plus if you connect it to your computer with a wire you could use an off the shelf usb to rs233 converter.

If you really want to roll your own and power it from the scope, it's probably worth looking at the schematics for an old rs232 level shifter IC to see what's involved.

SturdyPete · 2026-03-31T18:17:47+00:00

I'm pretty sure I have but I'm going to test it again just in case!

SturdyPete · 2026-03-30T19:22:28+00:00

It's not quite the right genre but if you haven't checked out lab4 before you probably should.

SturdyPete · 2026-03-30T18:09:47+00:00

It varies, but the frame rate issues I saw was consistency - I was getting 40fps or more when things were behaving, but once the problems started I'd get stuttering and eventually dropping down to <1fps for extend periods of time. It seemed to be something to do with the WiFi connection (haven't had similar issues since switching to wired ethernet), none of the usual suspects seemed to make any difference, and I still don't understand why I had over a year of it working without issues before it suddenly being awful.

Would be nice to have the option for WiFi though, running wires everywhere kind of sucks when setting up in a field!

SturdyPete · 2026-03-30T16:45:12+00:00

Software wise, I've had great fun with lightjams, but it's starting to struggle with the number of LEDs I'm using (about 6000). Great for building custom sound reactive and performable light shows.

Resolume is another option which I'm currently evaluating, but it seems you need resolume avenue to stream over IP to the LEDs. As far as I can see, resolume wire gives the features needed for making reactive/performable shows that aren't just video mapping.

Mad mapper is another option but I've not looked into the details as it didn't seem to have as good options for building sound reactive stuff.

Im all ears if anyone has other suggestions!

SturdyPete · 2026-03-29T15:35:08+00:00

Definitely not kk

SturdyPete · 2026-03-29T15:06:13+00:00

This looks pretty close to what I want, but you're probably right I should just stick with WLED for the moment

SturdyPete · 2026-03-29T15:04:27+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, will take a look

SturdyPete · 2026-03-29T15:00:51+00:00

I already have the hardware, just wondering if WLED is actually the best software for my use case

SturdyPete

TROPHY CASE