DiyLightAnimation

I have an old SSR4 with the DMX option ...  I have long forgotten what channel(s) it is set up for.  I located an 485 usb dongle in the box with it - what software should I use to "find" what channel it is set for?

I don't want to get into re-programming the address just yet - just get it working if i can ...

First year newbie - My wife lost her teaching job - so I had to scale back what i wanted to do for the first year light show.

One of the "cheap cheats" was to use a FTDI serial cable hooked up to a 485 chip I got from TI as a sample.  It worked fine in the basement shop and the Lynx driving 8 light strings, using a different shorter cat5 cable.   I finally found a cheap enough RJ45 crimper at Lowes and stuck a couple of ends on a piece of 110' cat5 i had laying around.  I took an old laptop, set it up in the front hall and hooked up everything.  The lights continuously blink (more like stuttering) at random levels - it makes no difference what channel.  I turned on all the channels in Vixen and used the check button and ran the slider up and down. The stuttering of the lights kept up but they seemed to dim alright.  I could see the Channel LEDS and all 16 were blinking at the same rate.

Strange thing i observed  - I set a channel for "all events on" in Vixen on the only channel hooked to the lights - ran it a few times in loop mode, every once in a while when I hit stop on the play back the lights would go 100% and stay that way until I hit play again. Weird?

Now I am stuck - is it the FTDI/485 - the really,really old laptop - the length of the new cable - or something else.  I was going to bring everything back into the shop to troubleshoot - but it rained all over everything and I am not up to playing with a wet high voltage toy.  More later after it all dries out.

Suggestions? Troubleshooting tips?  Admonishments? 

Thanks in advance.....

in the manual it says to test without chips - did that - two lit leds
Installed all the chips - double checked that all the legs were in the sockets and not bent under - plugged it in again - two lit leds - manual says that it should just sit there and do nothing - i was happy - did nothing and no magic smoke.

Reading along in the manual it says on page 16/27 of my printout ""... fire up the express and wait for the start up message to complete..."

the numeric displays are blank - when i pressed the first time on the mode button it blinked #16 led. after that - nada - it has no effect that i can discern.

* do you have to have the dongle connected to see the display (mines not built yet)

i am stopping the build for now just in case i have fried the MCU or something....  I have a v3 kit bye the way...

I am in

kit#2 - 2
kit#3 - 2
kit #5 - 6


Ordered changed to
Kit 3 - 2
Kit 4 - 2
Kit 5 - 6

tstewart - ordered changed per member email.