SOLVED: Audio DAC problems

Re: Audio DAC problems

Seems your hardware is in proper order then. I've had the yellow instead of red issue with LFI too - at some point the whole ilda pattern came out yellow, but with proper blanking and good image quality otherwise. No idea what causes it specifically, but it must be a software issue. Sadly LFI seems to be abandoned software by now, with the last version from 2009.

I have no experience with spaghetti - afaik the demo version doesnt actually produce any output, so i'd have to buy it to test wether its even compatible with the hardware.

Re: Audio DAC problems

At least I am not the only one that had the yellow issue in LFI... It seems to work good (other than not playing many ILDA files or being able to setup a sequence in it)

I bought Spaghetti expecting it would solve all my issues (everyone else has bought it and said how great it worked) and it has generated even MORE issues than I was having with LFI...

Hopefully Gary can give me some guidance...

Re: Audio DAC problems

I hope so too - it could just be a driver/windows/compatibility issue. If you get a good ilda pattern out of lfi i doubt there could be much wrong with your hardware, and certainly not something that could explain the weird colors in your tests.

I managed to fix it... Awesome Gary over at Hinged Newt sent me a refund today what an awesome guy! Anyway I have it sorted, I guess I have buying Spaghetti again

Time to upload some vids This is super sweet!

Anyway for future generations:

I completely uninstalled the CMedia driver (POS), unplugged the sound card and rebooted.
Once the system was up I plugged it back in and let Windows install the Microshaft drivers.

I set the control panel to use 5.1 sound...(It shows 8 channels in the mixer / volume controls)
I played with the channel settings in Spaghetti (this will be different depending how your DAC is wired) there's only 6 channels though and 2 are X and Y and Intensity doesn't seem to matter on my projector... So using t he sliders in the Projector setup I figured out what color was mapped to where and IT WORKED!!

Yay!

Thank you to everyone for your help and thank you to Gary for sticking with me on this and helping out despite all the problems I have had.


Just for the record I still can't make LFI work properly I have given up on it.

Awesome news. I posted in Adam's thread there a couple days ago and sent a PM earlier today. Hopefully I'll get a response soon since I went ahead and ordered a DB25 cable today as well for it. These damned PJs are addicting. I'm already eyeing that GB for a set of 30k galvos even though I won't be able to build one until sometime next year at the soonest.

LtKernelPanic said:

Awesome news. I posted in Adam's thread there a couple days ago and sent a PM earlier today. Hopefully I'll get a response soon since I went ahead and ordered a DB25 cable today as well for it. These damned PJs are addicting. I'm already eyeing that GB for a set of 30k galvos even though I won't be able to build one until sometime next year at the soonest.

Click to expand...

I saw your post on PL.
I just got a reply from Adam... The guy is extremely busy / popular and he tells me his kidneys are failing so he's in rough shape.. Expect at least a few days for a response...
You will probably need to modify the cable to make it work.. If you can't take the ends apart you might want to get a DB25 Male head with crimp pins ready as well.

I bought Spaghetti it works great all the other software is crap.

I posted on that GB... If it takes a while to gather moss I might go in on it and swap out these galvos.. Analog color would be nice but is not the biggest deal in the world.

I am uploading some vidoes now, they will be in the review thread... You should be OK to get your DAC though just be ready to spend DAYS screwing with it to make it work and don't expect LFI to do you any good.

I'm not sure I understand.

Good to hear its working!

Those drivers can be very tricky indeed. I'm also using the same card as an audio card, and at some point one of the channels started to make a clipping sound. I thought it must have been a faulty electrolytic capacitor (sounded exactly like that), and replaced them with proper MKT ones.

To my surprise this didnt do a thing, so i proceeded to uninstall and reinstall the driver software which did solve the problem eventually.

Now this was all on windows 7 - i never had issues like that with the cmedia card on the laptop i use to run laser shows, but that runs vista.

I'm running XP 32 on mine...

Guyfromhe said:

I'm running XP 32 on mine...

Click to expand...

Gotta love XP. Still my Favorite, the most stable OS out there IMO...

I love Win 7... I don't really like XP anymore... But I figured it would be most comparable.

Woot! My DAC just came! Do I need to set the switches on the back of the projector for ILDA mode? The manual is more worthless than screen doors on a submarine.

No the dip switches have no effect on it...
It's all about the cable... You need to bridge the interlock pins on the projector.
Good luck!!!

hmm. ok. That sounds like a PITA. If I read the diagram that's pins 4 and 17 correct? I'm attempting to dink with it with LFI Player until I can get spaghetti.

edit: Do you have to do it at the projector? I tried bridging them at the DAC's connector and nothing happened.

It _IS_ a PITA. Yes 4 and 17 are the pins you have to connect... For me I had to disconnect those pins from the AL for it to work... I guess you have to too.

LFI will work kinda until you get spaggo.

EDIT I mean connect them together in the projector somehow or in the cable but don't connect those pins between the AL and the projector.

Ah ok I think I get what you're saying. Pins 4 and 17 need to be bridged somewhere between the DAC and projector but not at the DAC. Now I see why you mentioned the possible need for a DB25M crimp connector. The cable I got is a Cables2Go branded one but I don't think I can take it apart without ruining it unfortunately. Looks like I'm going to have to order some M&F connectors and build an adapter with those pins bridged. and the others straight though. Of course it's a fracking holiday weekend so I can't order parts until tuesday.