Wireless DMX over 802.11AC

Hello all,
We have a parade route that we recently setup prioritized and dedicated WiFi access points to be able to communicate on. What we are looking for now is a good Wireless DMX/sACN/ArtNet solution to keep the lights in sync that will carry over our 802.11AC (5Ghz) wireless access points.
The solution we are looking for specifically is something small and that can be battery powered for individual costume/small floats where we don't have the full rack/power/room like we do in the large floats.
Currently we use RC4 DMX4Dim (2.4Ghz) units that broadcast from the large float behind the item. They work probably about 75-80% of the time. But since we now have this robust network we would like to see about moving onto it. We are not opposed to keeping the transmitters in the floats but we want to be able to utilize the route wide network that is in place.
We use Pathport around the area for offboard lighting so something that will also work with that would be nice.

This is @theatrewireless for sure.

Wireless networking over a large area presents some challenges. IP addresses and latency will be constantly changing between WAPs.

Another approach would be to broadcast SMPTE, linear time code via a moderately powered, licensed transmitter, or a series of Part 15 transmitters connected together by analog pair. Each float would receive the time code audio to synchronize a show computer. I believe the film industry is using GPS synchronized time code, so that might be an off the shelf time code system that doesn't need a transmitter and receiver.

If you have some tolerance for milliseconds of variation between floats, common NTP time would keep show computers together, and that would work easily over WAPs.

The network is working pretty well actually. Each float is synced with GPS time. They get a start command and sync for each audio track.
For lighting we are looking for a way to transmit the sACN to some remote devices. These devices are mostly things like backpacks and small floats. They don't have room for a full synced system like the larger floats. Currently they are using wireless DMX systems from RC4 that transmits from whatever float is behind them. Since we have good coverage (better than we do with the wireless DMX, especially when the floats turn a corner) we are looking into running it through the WiFi now.
I can find lots of things in the 2.4ghz range but we are limited to only the 5ghz range due to network design.

What about 900mhz? Lower frequencies provide better propagation (longer range) and work though obstructions and water far better than 2.4 or 5.x GHz.

Have you contacted RC4 technical support? Let us help you get your system up to 100% reliability. We can't fix a problem we don't know about.

Jim
RC4

Alot of times devices on a wireless network have a hard time knowing when to switch to a new access point. Especially on 5ghz since it doesn't go through objects as well as 2.4ghz. I don't think a 5ghz Wi-Fi network is robust enough for what your describing, Wi-Fi is nortiously unreliable when you need it most. Especially when you add all the people watching the parade with their phones clogging the airwaves searching for wireless networks.

Morte615 said:

The network is working pretty well actually. Each float is synced with GPS time. They get a start command and sync for each audio track.

Click to expand...

This is very different from trying to stream sACN data, because the distributed controllers will keep running the program on their internal clocks if there's a loss of data, then resync the next time they can. However good your WiFi network may be, it's still going to have varying latency, dropped packets, and packets delivered out of order--not to mention dropouts when switching access points. For discrete commands (sync, go, etc) this isn't generally a big deal, but for a continuous stream of time-sensitive data it's much more likely to affect things.

The model you're using now (WiFi to sync distributed controllers, then breaking out to dedicated wireless DMX devices for the smaller items) is still the most reliable approach. If you're having product issues, it would definitely be worth reaching out to RC4 to see what they can do to improve performance. As Jim demonstrated above, they're always eager to help out.