Rookie help! Hooking up ILDA for the first time

Hi guys,

Alright. I know this is super rookie status but here's what's going on. I'm super fired up that I got my fb3 in and go to hook it up. When I plug it in the little "welcome" show the laser's doing turns off. I called Pangolin support and they said everything from their end looks good on the hardware side of things. I'm wondering if there's a setting that's not correct OR this is where I feel like a rookie...does the ilda have to go into the input port? I don't understand why the fb3 would have a female output and then a normal ilda cable is what's recommended to hook it up to my laser. Do I need to get a male to male cable in order for it to work?

Many thanks!

That's odd. I just saw an ad on fb the other day for a projector with ilda ports labeled in and out and I immediately thought, hey, that's backwards!

One thing you might try, with no power to the unit, see if you have continuity from hole to pin through those connectors. That's how i wired my own projector.

The signal pins are 1, 2, 5, 6, 7. x, y, r, g, b.

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Originally Posted by james

That's odd. I just saw an ad on fb the other day for a projector with ilda ports labeled in and out and I immediately thought, hey, that's backwards!

One thing you might try, with no power to the unit, see if you have continuity from hole to pin through those connectors. That's how i wired my own projector.

The signal pins are 1, 2, 5, 6, 7. x, y, r, g, b.

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Set those signal pins to that and still nothing. When I called Pangolin they said that's typically for a dmx controller. I contacted the seller and they said:

Dear customer,
Thanks for your writing to us.
The LIDA line jacks are both in and out, no longer need to buy, if multiple effects need to play the same effect in series, then you need to buy lida lines in series.
To connect to a computer, it depends on whether you are using FB4 offline software or FB3 software. FB3 software needs to be connected to the computer for operation from time to time.
FB4 can be used offline.
When connecting to a computer, you must make sure that the control box is successfully connected. The code of the connected control box will be displayed in the lower right corner.
Any questions you have,please feel free to tell us.
we will try our best to help you solve the problem.
Have a great day!
Nancy

Obviously going through a translation app of some kind but still not super clear what the issue would be. I thought it was pretty much plug and play no?

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Originally Posted by Coltondm

When I plug it in the little "welcome" show the laser's doing turns off.

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That would be correct.
When the laser detects a DAC connected (usually by seeing if pins 4 and 17 are bridged) then it will switch itself into 'ILDA mode' and turn off any auto run stuff built in.
It will then wait for you to play something in Quickshow/Beyond. Have you tried that yet?
I'm trying to read between the lines of a rookie here, and I'm thinking you may be expecting the FB3 to give you some control over the built in shows/cues, which is why you mentioned it turning off when you plugged the DAC in? If so then no, it doesn't work like that.
You may be able to control some of the internal stuff with DMX however.

I would ignore the In/Out thing, its probably just the screen print or connectors in the wrong place.
Plug into the male port as you would expect for a M/F cable.

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Originally Posted by norty303

That would be correct.
When the laser detects a DAC connected (usually by seeing if pins 4 and 17 are bridged) then it will switch itself into 'ILDA mode' and turn off any auto run stuff built in.
It will then wait for you to play something in Quickshow/Beyond. Have you tried that yet?
I'm trying to read between the lines of a rookie here, and I'm thinking you may be expecting the FB3 to give you some control over the built in shows/cues, which is why you mentioned it turning off when you plugged the DAC in? If so then no, it doesn't work like that.
You may be able to control some of the internal stuff with DMX however.

I would ignore the In/Out thing, its probably just the screen print or connectors in the wrong place.
Plug into the male port as you would expect for a M/F cable.

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Thanks for the input! Seriously, guidance here is appreciated.

I'm not expecting it to give me control over the cues it comes with. I want to see that bald eagle I have cued up in quickshow. I'm following the tutorial. Click a cue, enable laser, and boom it should be live right? At the very least if I have the settings wrong for the projector see a dropped frame rate/laggy version of what I'm trying to play.

The controller is blinking red like Pangolin said it should. The connection is good and switches off right when I plug it in. I just don't know what I could missing here.

I feel better about the in and out potentially being a misprint. My anxiety is I have a party next week all my friends were excited to see it and hear me dj so hoping to getting this figured out lol

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Originally Posted by Coltondm

Thanks for the input! Seriously, guidance here is appreciated.

I'm not expecting it to give me control over the cues it comes with. I want to see that bald eagle I have cued up in quickshow. I'm following the tutorial. Click a cue, enable laser, and boom it should be live right? At the very least if I have the settings wrong for the projector see a dropped frame rate/laggy version of what I'm trying to play.

The controller is blinking red like Pangolin said it should. The connection is good and switches off right when I plug it in. I just don't know what I could missing here.

I feel better about the in and out potentially being a misprint. My anxiety is I have a party next week all my friends were excited to see it and hear me dj so hoping to getting this figured out lol

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Are you sure your ILDA cable has all the pins connected? Some cheap cables don't use all the pins. The DB25 cables on Monoprice are all fine in my expereience. As you are dealing with the absolute cheapest Chinese projector imaginable, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that they reversed the standard in/out on the projector. It wouldn't hurt to have a DB25 M-F cable a try instead of the standard ILDA cable (DB25 M-M).

Once you do get it up and running, please take some time to read about laser safety so you don't damage anyone's eyesight as you get started.

-David

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Originally Posted by dkumpula

Are you sure your ILDA cable has all the pins connected? Some cheap cables don't use all the pins. The DB25 cables on Monoprice are all fine in my expereience. As you are dealing with the absolute cheapest Chinese projector imaginable, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that they reversed the standard in/out on the projector. It wouldn't hurt to have a DB25 M-F cable a try instead of the standard ILDA cable (DB25 M-M).

Once you do get it up and running, please take some time to read about laser safety so you don't damage anyone's eyesight as you get started.

-David

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Alright, so here we have determined the issue. I thought "standard was M/F so that's what I ordered not a M/M. Understood. Just ordered one of those guys and it'll be coming in tomorrow. That sounds like what's going wrong here

What I was trying to explain is that your ILDA port in and out might just be wired across each other socket to pin. That's how I wired my projector. If this is the case, it doesn't matter which port you use as an input. You can test this with an ohm meter. Unplug your projector. Get a paper clip or some other piece of wire that will fit into a hole in the female connector. See if you can measure 0 ohms from hole 1 (F) to pin 1 (M) between those connectors. If you find 0 ohms across pins 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, then you know that you can use either port. They are just tied together on the inside.

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Originally Posted by james

What I was trying to explain is that your ILDA port in and out might just be wired across each other socket to pin. That's how I wired my projector. If this is the case, it doesn't matter which port you use as an input. You can test this with an ohm meter. Unplug your projector. Get a paper clip or some other piece of wire that will fit into a hole in the female connector. See if you can measure 0 ohms from hole 1 (F) to pin 1 (M) between those connectors. If you find 0 ohms across pins 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, then you know that you can use either port. They are just tied together on the inside.

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I do have a ohm meter but I'm not trying to get to advanced here. Just want to be able to plug er in and it work. For a couple hundred bucks I'll just send it back and get another. I'd love to invest in a higher quality system but trying to play around and it be easy

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Originally Posted by Coltondm

I do have a ohm meter but I'm not trying to get to advanced here. Just want to be able to plug er in and it work. For a couple hundred bucks I'll just send it back and get another. I'd love to invest in a higher quality system but trying to play around and it be easy

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I'm just trying to help you answer your own question about which ILDA port to use. If you do the continuity check you will know if it matters or not.

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Originally Posted by dkumpula

It wouldn't hurt to have a DB25 M-F cable a try instead of the standard ILDA cable (DB25 M-M).

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Standard is M-M?
Its always female out of the DAC (so you can't touch the pins with voltage) into a male at the projector end, same as most applications that try to shield live pins. You should be able to plug the DAC directly into the projector without a cable (if the standoffs weren't in the way). You couldn't do that if it was M-M.

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Originally Posted by colt

I thought "standard was M/F so that's what I ordered not a M/M. Understood. Just ordered one of those guys and it'll be coming in tomorrow. That sounds like what's going wrong here

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M-F is 'normal'. Either way, what James says is true, they are most likely just parallel connected internally (like most DMX fixtures) so it's probably not relevant which gender you use.
What is important is that you check the continuity as James says to confirm all pins connected internally in the cable.
Otherwise I can see you might well buy a M-M cable that works and assume it was the gender, instead of it really being that the cables are different inside.

Also, have you checked in QS that the zone you are sending the cue to is configured to be using the FB3 you have connected?

If pin to socket on 4 and 17 are not bridged then the safety interlock won't work on the female connector even if the signals are all there. The projector just won't allow the lasers to come on.

The idea is that pins 4 and 17 are an open switch and plugging in a live DAC closes the switch so the projector will not operate without being under the control of a live DAC.

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Originally Posted by norty303

Standard is M-M?
Its always female out of the DAC (so you can't touch the pins with voltage) into a male at the projector end, same as most applications that try to shield live pins. You should be able to plug the DAC directly into the projector without a cable (if the standoffs weren't in the way). You couldn't do that if it was M-M.

M-F is 'normal'.

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Yes, you are correct. My bad! I blame Swamidog as I believe it was he who told me this. ;)

-David

<spock eyebrow>

(and some chars)

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Originally Posted by dkumpula

Yes, you are correct. My bad! I blame Swamidog as I believe it was he who told me this. ;)

-David

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