Desperate for Guidance!

Good day fellow decorators! 

I am new to computer controlled lighting and in desperate need of some help and/or advice.

I purchased the following equipment from D-Light in November of 2007:

Two ACx16 Platinum Plus Edition Controllers

One USB to RS-485 Adapter V2

Spectrum Software – Platinum Edition

After many unsuccessful hours in 2007 of trying to get the controllers to connect to my computer via the “Hardware Utility” I gave up and did my lighting installation without the system.  Of course I was bummed but I felt I could get the situation rectified before the 2008 holiday season.

So upon the recent notification from D-Light that they were no longer going to be selling and supporting Spectrum and now recommended the Aurora software I purchased the transition version.

I have downloaded the latest versions of the D-Light Hardware Utility, USB485 Driver and Firmware Updater.

But alas again after many hours of work I still cannot get the system up and running.

I am truly desperate for help.  Not wanting to be a completely uninformed newbie I have spent countless hours researching and reading posts on both the D-Light and Aurora forum pages and then applying what I have found.  But I am still having no luck.

Here is where I think I stand at this point in the process, bear with me as this part gets a little long but I wanted to be as specific as possible:

Installed D-Light Hardware Utility V2.0.16

Installed D-Light Firmware Updater V2.0.2

Installed USB485 Drivers V2.02.06

(I’m not sure if this was successful or not.  I know that it downloaded and was unzipped but I am not completely confident that it is actually in use by the COM Port.)

Installed Aurora Sequencer V1 Revision 1.3

I then connected one of the ACx16 controllers to my computer via a CAT5 cable, the USB to RS-485 Adapter and a fire wire cable.

I then plugged both power cords from the controller into a working power supply.

The red LED began flashing.

I then connected a working desk lamp switched to the ON position into the pigtail from the controller that is labeled “#1”.

I launched the “HWU”, set the “COM Port” to “5”, the correct port, and attempted to “Discover” the controller via the “Discover” tab.

I first tried this with the “Active Unit” set to “All” and the “Discover” range set to “01 to 0A”.

No luck, it could not find the controller.

I then switched the “Discover” range to “All” and tried again, but still no luck discovering the controller.

I then clicked on the “16CH Tests” tab and clicked “All On” and the desk lamp came on.

So I know that the computer and the controller are communicating in some form.

I then clicked on the “General Cfg” tab and set the “New Address” to “1”.

My understanding is that all of the ACx16 controllers ship with a #2 address so I wanted this controller to be #1 and my other controller to be #3.

I then connected the second controller in the exact same manner and got the exact same results.  Unable to discover the controller but able to turn the desk lamp on via the “All On” button.

So I set the address for this controller to “3”.

I launched Aurora, created a “New File” and selected an Audio file for the music.

I clicked on “Add New Network” within the “Serial Network Configuration.”

I set the “Network Number” to “NET 1” and the “Uses COM Port” to “COM 5”

I ran the “HWU” from the “Add-Ins” tab and was able to replicate my previously described process of turning the desk lamp on via the “All On” button, but this only worked with one controller and not the second that was now daisy chained to the first controller via a CAT5 cable.

I then began to set up “Channels” within the new Aurora file.

I right clicked in the appropriate area and clicked “Create New Channel.”

I set the “Device Name” to “1” and “Device Type” to “D-Light ACx16 (1.13+ firmware)”.

I set the “Network Segment” to “1”, “Device ID” to “1” and “Channel Number” to “1”.

I then set an “Event Marker” at the beginning and end of the “Spectogram display” to create one single event that runs from the beginning of the song to the end to be used just as test parameters.

I then placed a “Waveform” within this “Event Marker” next to “Channel 1” and Aurora created it.

I clicked the “White Light Bulb” within in the “Playback” controls so that its background turned red.

Then I hit play and the desk lamp never flickered, turned on or anything throughout the playback of the entire song..

The red LED on the ACx16 Controllers continued flashing and never remained lit.

I feel like I am so close to having everything operational but just can’t seem to get there.

I know that the gear from D-Light is good equipment but it seems like if you miss one thing during the set-up and then during the integration with Aurora then the whole system will not function.

I would be so, so appreciative if any of the more successful and experienced decorators out there could give me any assistance.  My 2.5 year old son would also be grateful as he is patiently waiting to see our Halloween install come to life!  While trying to diagnose the set-up issues I have continued with my lighting installation and it is all ready to be connected and controlled.

Thank you for consideration!

Best regards,

John Caldwell

I recommend working with D-Light to resolve the hardware issue.  It seems that your controller is still on the default ID of 2 and you are unable to get the hardware utility to properly talk to the controller in order to change it.