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Difference between revisions of "DMX over wlan with WDS"

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To reduce network traffic and for security reasons we decided to take 5 ChamSys MagicQ Consoles with the possibility of wireless remotes - as router we took 5 Buffalo WHR-HP-54G  - flashed with DD-WRTv24 and WDS.
 
To reduce network traffic and for security reasons we decided to take 5 ChamSys MagicQ Consoles with the possibility of wireless remotes - as router we took 5 Buffalo WHR-HP-54G  - flashed with DD-WRTv24 and WDS.
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I tried the Buffalo with DD-WRT two weeks before and had quite good signal between the longest distance (of course we changed the default Antenna to professional Yagis).
 
I tried the Buffalo with DD-WRT two weeks before and had quite good signal between the longest distance (of course we changed the default Antenna to professional Yagis).
  

Revision as of 15:24, 13 January 2009

Short Introduction:

We tried September 2008 the first time to use DMX over Wlan in Klangwolke of Ars Electronica in a professional show - 5 stations, one on a moving boat on the river, the rest with a minimum distance of 200m and a maximum of 1 km.

To reduce network traffic and for security reasons we decided to take 5 ChamSys MagicQ Consoles with the possibility of wireless remotes - as router we took 5 Buffalo WHR-HP-54G - flashed with DD-WRTv24 and WDS.

I tried the Buffalo with DD-WRT two weeks before and had quite good signal between the longest distance (of course we changed the default Antenna to professional Yagis).

After seting up the network and the the MagicQ consoles, nothing worked - WDS did not work at all - our needs are client to client, not client to Internet - the signal quality shown in the webif of DD-WRT was good, but I had no connection between the MagicQ Consoles.

Ok - I changed from WDS to client mode, this worked, but extremely long delays (up to 6 sec), net sometime breaking down ....

We found 5 new routers and run it with the original firmware of Buffalo - it worked somehow, no encryption was possible, but delays was much better. But the moves of the movingheads was not smooth and the funny thing - in the night the signal was very good, but as soon as the sun arrievd, the signal was gone - so we decided to used it only for programming in the night and not to run the show. During the show there was an operator on each Chamsys - thats the real advantage of wireless remote of MagicQ consoles - you can decide within 15 minutes, if you want to run the show from one console or from 5.

Last week I tried Tomato firmware on the WHR-HP-54G - I could not stop testing. WDS - just three minutes of configuring and it worked - I just called my friend, who programmed the new led facade of the Ars Electronica Center in Linz to pass by and to test the two Buffalo WHR-HP-54G with the standard antennas - the programm run on a laptop with MagicQ with 12 Artnet-Universes and 3 rooms away and 4 walls in between the Wysiwyg simulation.  !!! 12 Universes !!!, on every channel there was all the time a change - no delays and extremly smooth color blends - incredible - I just know, that we get the same signal quality with the Yagi Antennas on 800m - 1 km.

We expanded the 12 channels to 16 and it still was incredible smooth, but you could see that the moves start to jump a little bit and the colour changes was not as nice as before - it seems, that 12 universes is the maximum, the cpu can handle in realtime ....