Timer Function Not Working

Troubleshooting
1

Hey all – apologies if the answer to this is located somewhere in here – I searched but couldn’t find anything. I also looked in the manual but the instruction seems to be “it works”.

I have two separate art installs where I need the timer to turn on and off.

The simple one is a single V3XL board, no external WIFI/internet. I logged in, set the timer to shut off the lights a minute later and waited. Nothing happened. I power cycled it and tried again, and nothing.

The other install has four V3XLs, one creating an adhoc network, the others piggybacking onto it. There will be a mix of solo and leader/follower here. Again, no external wifi/internet.

So –

  1. What trick am I missing for the simple install? Does it require external WIFI?

  2. For the more complex one, does the timer work independently? Or does Leader pass this to followers?

Your help is much appreciated

cheers

-andy

2

And FWIW, both installs run playlists.

Both installs need to start at 5pm and shut off at midnight.

:wink: Both installs can be seen at the PDXWLF

3

Hi @ColtSevers, the controller needs an internet connection to use the timer function. So when you’re in AP mode, the timer won’t work.

4

Ah! I was wondering. That is def. not apparent in the instructions.

much thanks

5

I had the exact same question for my PDX WLF install. What is your install called so I can look it up on the website?

1 Like
6

Hey Branto — look for Frangible Chromatophors at the WTC and Afterglow at 5th and Yamhill. I’m the technical director on those.

Therese Gietler and Misty Post are the artists on Frangible, and Therese is the solo artist on Afterglow.

You can see my install upstairs at WTC — Cellular Resonance (but shhhh it doesn’t use PixelBlaze tech)

-andy

7

@wizard @jeff — it would be nice to have an offline timer — i realize there will be clock drift, but i think it would probably stay within an acceptable range.

1 Like
8

@ColtSevers, @BrantonamoBay,
You can hack something like that together with playlists.

Make a playlist using an all off pattern and the pattern(s) you want to run. Set the active pattern(s) total duration to 7 hours for your 5 to midnight period. For the rest of the 24 hours, you’d use 2 copies of the off pattern. You could set the time by changing the ratio between 2 off patterns and advancing the playlist to the second. So e.g. if it was 4pm, the first off pattern would have 16 hours, the second off pattern would be 1 hour. An hour later it would be 5pm, and your pattern would start. Another 7 hours later it would be midnight and the first off pattern would play. Since both off entries total 17 hours, it would be 5 pm when it got back to your actual pattern on the playlist.

If you expose the button somewhere staff can access it, worst case (e.g. power disruption) someone can go over and press the button a few times to turn it on/off, and if they did that at one of the scheduled times the clock would be “set” properly again.

1 Like