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QLC + > Falcon F4V3 over ArtNet?

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2020 11:13 pm
by seanephram
I've two posts on this forum about using the Falcon F4V3 Pixel controller with QLC+, but nothing asking if you can simply run LED strips off the channels on the Falcon itself.

Has anyone done this? The Falcon is capable of sending its four string outputs (for 3-4 pin LED strip connectors) data over ArtNet, but I've yet to try this from QLC+.

Would this be done using the RGB Panel/Matrix fixtures, once I get my ArtNet/Mapping set up?

The idea is to have QLC+ listen for MIDI notes to trigger events and send them to the strips.

Re: QLC + > Falcon F4V3 over ArtNet?

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:23 am
by GGGss
Wait a minute...
Is your chain of sending things not the other way around?
QLC+ instructing Falcon through Artnet?

The Falcon is a LED driver meaning it converts incoming instructions to data sent to the LED pixel strings.
The RGB panel / matrix is typically used for this purpose.

Your idea is correct that you can setup QLC+ to listen to midi notes and upon reception send out the looks you programmed to the Falcon through E.131 or Artnet.
(I suppose, with Artnet, that you will be limited to 170px per universe - but is to be investigated a little further) Checked the manual - this is not true
(Nice thing I learned is that the Falcon has a possibility to introduce null-nodes and a pixel remapping - this is handy - but again: up to further investigation). <- nifty solution - nice nice...

Question: how many pixels are you looking at?

[edit] I invested some time looking through the manual and found out that this controller is quite powerful - added comments to above [/edit]

Re: QLC + > Falcon F4V3 over ArtNet?

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 5:11 pm
by seanephram
Oops!
Is your chain of sending things not the other way around?
QLC+ instructing Falcon through Artnet?
Yes this, hahaha
I invested some time looking through the manual and found out that this controller is quite powerful - added comments to above
yes! thank you dude

SO grateful that this controller ended up being a worthy investment as I initially thought xLights was my solution here.. Very excited that this thing is capable of DMX over ArtNet

Gotttcha.. I will be using 24V WS2811s that seem to only be individually addressable per 6 pixels.. no matter, they are 2.5m however (21 of these six groups per bar) and.. if i recall, when i ran them from Arduino i could get around that with dithering.. perhaps i can make something work here in QLC+. Either way, most of the sequences will be blinks and fades, so that would be okay if not.

Ill be testing them with a few 1.2m WS2812Bs @ 54px/bar so that i can get a feel for the workflow and not have to worry about power injection just yet.

the RGB Matrix functions are a godsend, man. Right now I am trying to learn about using MIDI notes coming from an external USB/MIDI device, so that i can trigger these RGB Matrix functions as events from a MIDI track on a DAW running from a separate computer. If my laptop had the power to run both on the same machine I'd feel confident about that, but I'll trade a potential point of failure for a better load balance, lol

It sounds like I am on the right track! Wishing I hadn't avoided QLC+ for so long, but maybe it just wasn't time

Re: QLC + > Falcon F4V3 over ArtNet?

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:49 pm
by isshakes
Replying to an almost two year old post because I'm at a loss, and this is a very niche question. Can you tell me how you got this to work?

I've got my Falcon hooked up to the same network with my QLC+ computer. I can connect to the Falcon via browser, however, it isn't appearing in my "Input/Output" tab of QLC+ as either a ArtNet or E1.31 device.

Did you have to mess with the Falcon/QLC+ settings to get this to work?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Re: QLC + > Falcon F4V3 over ArtNet?

Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2022 6:57 am
by GGGss
You won't see the Falcon in your list... You have to tell QLC+ to send Artnet to the device with address x.x.x.x or choose to broadcast to it. x.x.x.255.
You need to be on the same network and subnet mask. Since you can browse to the Falcon, you can set QLC+ up to send to that device. Once setup, you can see the sent bytes and discovered devices.