QLC+ drives Stairville LED Pixel Rail Drive 640 MKII?

[QLCeDrumControl]

Hello QLC+ Community,

I would like to build 4x2 LED Rails showing some nice light effects in the background, and in an ideal world they are connected to my eDrum pads as midi trigger (yes, I still have dreams while being an absolute Newbie in this "light"-area... ).

I am quite familiar with any IT-related tasks, but driving my Stairville LED Pixel Rail Drive 640 MKII via Artnet activating two test-rails (Stairville LED Pixel Rail 40 RGB MKII) other than triggering build-in automodes, I could not establish any connection between QLC+ and the Drive 640, independently if I use a Enttec Open DMX USB Interface or a LAN connection from my machine (Windows/Linux/iMac/RaspPi) or both with ArtNet settings or DMX. Two universes should be enough to drive 40x3x8 = 960 channels, but not even running one pixel successfully feels quite goofy, I have to admit.

Could it be that I have to purchase another node (like Enttec Ode, Joker, Daslight...) despite the (quite sparse) manual of the Drive 640 trying to tell me that it's running just with either the Enttec via DMX or just with a computer via ArtNet protocol only? If yes, which one would be the right one being compatible with QLC+ _and_ talking to the Drive 640?

It would be fantastic if somebody has a tip or made similar experiences, and pardon me for a maybe naive question, but watching almost all related YT-videos, reading everything I could find didn't really help (and yes, my favorite Instrument dealer allows sending back unwanted hardware, but for the sake of sustainability kindly allow me posting this question at first before shipping (maybe wrong) hardware back and forth.

Thanks a lot in advance for any hint!

[GGGss]

Investigating the manual: https://community.etcconnect.com/cfs-fi ... online.pdf
In DMX mode there is only a 8 channel mode, so no pixel control. Reading on the claim to have a 10 channel and a 55 channel mode... weird and confusing documentation.
In Artnet mode they claim you have to set the submask to 255.0.0.0 which lets me assume that it has an old Artnet implementation in the firmware only letting you use the 2.x.x.x or 10.x.x.x network ranges.
Without further detailed instructions how to set the Artnet Universe structures...

So you could spend some extra time to get it working but IMHO this product was built with poor engineering and they lack a useful documentation.
Try setting your computer to a fixed IP of 10.0.0.1 submask 255.0.0.0. Set QLC+ to use Artnet and fill in the 10.0.0.2 IP address Artnet universe 0. In your driver set the IP to 10.0.0.2, subnetmask 255.0.0.0 and artnet universe to 0:00:000 (or something - again: unspecified). Use the 10 channel mode.
Now in QLC+ use the simple desk and activate channel 1 and 3. The red leds should appear.
If not: your in the dark and very lonely.

[QLCeDrumControl]

Hello GGGss,

Many thanks for your fast reply and your invested time - I really appreciate it!
I will follow your tips and try my best...

Nevertheless, QLC+ looks really cool - I'm looking forward to get the whole setup up and running!!

All the best!

[janosvitok]

The manual mentions 4x480 Artnet channels. That would mean there should be four artnet universes, one for each output. Each output drives 4 bars of 40 RGB pixels each. So most probably:

CH1 - bar 1 - pixel 1 - R
CH2 - bar 1 - pixel 1 - G
CH3 - bar 1 - pixel 1 - B
CH4 - bar 1 - pixel 2 - R
...
CH7 - bar 1 - pixel 3- R
...
CH120 - bar 1 - pixel 40 - B
CH121 - bar 2 - pixel 1 - R
...
CH480 - bar 4 - pixel 40 - B

Depending on how you mount them, you should add in QLC+ 4 universes, patch each to one artnet universe, and then create 16 generic RGB fixtures with 40 pixels each.

But that's after you manage to light up at least some pixels as Fredje suggested...

Jano

[QLCeDrumControl]

Super!
Thank you for your info, too, Jano!!