Send/receive data via Ethernet for Lighting

Hi Everyone,

I have a light control board that uses a Main board to send lighting signals to a Receiver board via ethernet cable. I'm trying to allow that to happen wirelessly, by putting 2 RPi's in between each board to send the signal via tcp.

I connected to my Pi (pi1) to the Main board via ethernet jack. I want to take the signal it's sending to my pi1, and wirelessly share it to another Pi (pi2) on my network. Then it would be sent to another board via pi2 ethernet.

I can send/receive via TCP from pi1 to pi2. So that's a start...

I'm not sure how to tell pi1 how to look for the message on it's ethernet port... As in, when it gets a message from my lighting controller, how do I "find" that message in node-red so that I can then send to pi2??

Similarly, how do I tell the data received wirelessly on pi2, and have it send it out via it's ethernet port to the receiver??

The board I'm using is PixLite 16 MkII Pixel Controller seen here... https://www.advateklights.com/pixlite-control/

Isn't this what you are looking for ?

OK so i think you might be mixing 2 things up here - just quickly reading that link you sent with the post - these are DMX boards that happen to present their wiring on an RJ45 interface - they are NOT ethernet (maybe they are but my initial read says no) - so they are just using the convenient RJ45 connector and whaever cabling to move thier DMX signals around - if this is the case DO NOT plug this into your PI ethernet port - you will probably blow it

If it truly is Ethernet then it would be far simpler to purchase a couple of cheap WAP devices (something like the TP-Link) units come to mind - to essentially convert from wired ethernet to wireless and back again

Craig

Yes, I believe this is correct... Their customer support just replied to a question of how to go wireless saying basically the same thing. I am wondering "is it that simple?" :slight_smile: I'll test next, but perhaps another reason if it WAS possible via NodeRed, is that it'd be cheaper to use 2 Pi0's than 2 WAP's.

Noted on the ethernet port...

I tried that artnet node first actually and couldnt figure it out... there is no "receiving" artnet node... so I had a node to send the signal to an IP from my pi1, but not sure how to read it on the pi2.

Also, the demo flow w/ it sends colors from function nodes .... and I couldn't figure out how to read the signal coming in via ethernet.

Here is a good rundown on a project involving connecting a RPi to DMX - gives you an overview of what is involved in the physical connection etc and would probably be a good starting point to then get the DMX info into NR for manipulation/onward forwarding

Craig

Ah, unfortunately this project is using neither USB or DMX....

DMX is one of the output options from the board, but it's actually not the most efficient way to send the packets of info w/ this board apparently (?)... so we have deselected DMX in their interface.

This link is useful to people looking to use a pi to control DMX lights via USB though. I do have a usb/dmx interface for my Pi and want to try it at some point... however, using serious software to control the lights (not NR, but things like resolume arena) are my focus.

This is your main problem if you don't use anything other than raw hardware.

You need some kind receiver software running on pi2 as it has to "understand" that the message is meant to control the lights via tcp.
Don't forget that you deal with wireless, an unreliable medium with possible delays.

You best bet would be to use a mqtt client on pi2; but it will require additional actions once the message is received, it needs to be translated to tcp via some software (which could be a secondary instance of node-red as well ofcourse).

well you are going to have a serious issue then as you are going to have to get their protocol specs and then write some form of plugin for NR to be able to capture and disassemble the packets and operate on them.

based on the questions you have been asking to this point - i think you might be a little out of your depth on this one

Craig