Asked a question the other day for hardware, but think this is a software feature request aswell.
So I’m an Xlights user and a live events system tech. WLED output option for led tape and dmx is great for us using Sacn and Artnet. But a little tweak could be really handy for us in events or xlights users.
Sometimes we need to power on or off none dimmable things… Snow Machines, Neon Lights, speakers, water fountains.
I would like to request a relay setting on outputs, that when it receives anything above 1% sets the output to full to trigger the relay. This is how most DMX relay packs work. And it would be soooooo useful!
I’ll play Devil’s advocate for a quick moment and ask:
Can’t you more easily handle this in your application programming?
When you’re doing your Xlights programming, you have to set something to trigger the Snow Blower. Does it really make sense to have a “variable output” Snow Blower when it’s triggered by a relay that you only want to be interpreted as On or Off? Why don’t you make sure the Snow Blower light is 100% bright to trigger it?
So don’t think xlights… Come from the live event industry.
We use relays to power on/off moving lights with discharge lamps pre and post show… Our consoles have Grand Masters that pull all dimmer vaules down, we also load a channel into the programer 10 @ 50, 10 @ colour preset 101 etc…
Short times to program, longs days and high pressure… Its very easy to pull down a channel by accident, or have to pull down the GM as the director wants to see it all darker… Suddenly you turn off the relays by accident… Now you wait 10 mins for the lamps to cool, before they re-light. Now the shoe is paying out for all cast and crew hanging around due to a simple mistake… Thus full at 1% reduces that risk…
Got ya, a “heat of the battle - reliability issue”.
Software is definitely a possible fix.
I would think a new output type based on the existing PWMW but responding to very little input for full output. Something like a variable Gamma correction for that strip type (or perhaps much simpler).
The other way of handling it would be on the hardware side by putting a retriggerable timer in series with the relay input. Set the timer to a 100ms (or minimum pulse corresponding to 1%) timeout and then a small brightness will keep the relay from turning off.
The hardware solution is less elegant (perhaps) but off the shelf until someone wants to build a new output type.