⚙️ Technical Overview

1. Check Home Assistant is running and reachable at 10.50.0.219
2. Check the Automations page in HA — are the "Turn On" automations enabled?
3. Check Node-RED is running on forest-mac1 (http://10.50.0.30:1880)
4. Try manually toggling the Forest Power switch in HA
5. If FPP players aren't responding, check network connectivity (can you ping 10.50.0.11?)

• Check the specific FPP player for that zone (see the device table above for IP mapping)
• Open the FPP web UI at http://10.50.0.XX — is it showing "playing"?
• Check HA sensors — does the zone show "playing" or "offline"?
• If the FPP player is online but LEDs are dark, the NDB controller may have lost power or network. Check the NDB's IP (10.50.0.50–.84 range)
• If only some pixels in a zone are dark, it's likely a physical wiring issue (data line or power supply)

1. Check the projector: Is the Epson powered on? Try pinging 10.50.0.5
2. Check HDMI: The most common issue is a lost HDMI handshake. Reboot forest-mac2 (or wait for the scheduled 16:45 reboot)
3. Check MadMapper: Is it running on Mac2? Is the "Butterfly-v6" project open and playing?
4. Check HA: Is input_boolean.butterfly_wings turned on?
5. Manual projector control: Send TCP commands via Node-RED — the projector flow has manual ON/OFF buttons on the dashboard

Open the Home Assistant dashboard and toggle these switches:

• Forest Power — controls all FPP players and DMX
• DMX Power — enables Art-Net output
• Butterfly Wings — enables/disables the projection
• Laser toggles — individual laser on/off
• Govee Auroras — controlled via the "treeline" area in HA

Alternatively, you can use the Node-RED dashboard at http://10.50.0.30:1880/dashboard

• Mac1 (Chataigne/Node-RED): SSH to forestoflight@10.50.0.30 and run sudo reboot. Warning: this will restart both Chataigne and Node-RED.
• Mac2 (Butterfly): Use the HA button "Reboot Forest" or send WebSocket message "reboot" via Node-RED. Mac2 also reboots daily at 16:45 automatically.
• Mac3 (Flowers): Use the HA "Flower Projector" button or send WS "reboot". Reboots daily at 14:30.
• Mac4 (Fire): Use the HA "Fire Projector" button or send WS "reboot". Mac4 also reboots daily at 16:30 (Dec–Feb 5) or 17:00 (Feb 6+).
• If a Mac is completely frozen, you'll need physical access to hold the power button.

DDP (Distributed Display Protocol) is used for pixel-level LED control. It sends raw channel data from FPP players to NDB controllers over UDP. It's optimized for high pixel counts (thousands of individually-addressable LEDs).

Art-Net is used for DMX fixture control. It sends DMX512 data from Chataigne to PKnight nodes over UDP. It's designed for traditional lighting fixtures (dimmers, moving heads, LED pars) with 512 channels per universe.

In the Forest of Light, DDP handles the addressable LED installations (mushrooms, flowers, rain, etc.) and Art-Net handles the DMX fixtures (hoops, umbrellas, red trees, etc.).

This is a common source of confusion:

• /0 — ALL ON. Sets all 13 DMX zones to 250. This is the actual trigger for turning lights on.
• /off — ALL OFF. Sets all zones to 0 or 1.
• /on — Does nothing. It's defined in the WebSocket server but not connected to any action. Do not use it.
• /1 — Does nothing. Also defined but unused.

The naming is counterintuitive (/0 = ON, /on = nothing), but this is how the Chataigne config is wired.

Mac2 has a USB Ethernet dongle creating a private 10.0.0.x network for LC1 (Butterfly, at 10.0.0.10). Mac3 has a USB Ethernet dongle creating a private 192.168.1.x network for LC2 (Flower, at 192.168.1.1). These private links provide low-latency control separate from the main network.

LC3 and LC4 (Saloon lasers) connect via WiFi on the main 10.50.0.x network (10.50.0.192 and .193). They do not use USB Ethernet.

Laser patterns are triggered via MIDI Note On messages from Chataigne. Mac2 uses Octave 2, Mac3 uses Octave 1.

• Chataigne (Mac1): ForestofLigttDMX.noisette
• Chataigne (Mac2): Projector.noisette
• Chataigne (Mac3): flower.noisette
• Chataigne (Mac4): Fire.noisette — minimal config (OS + WebSocket Server modules, single reboot action)
• MadMapper (Mac2): Butterfly-v6 project file
• MadMapper (Mac3): Flowers project file
• MadMapper (Mac4): Fire project file (1920×1080 / 30fps, FFMPEG Player CPU, Conductor timeline)
• Node-RED (Mac1): Flows accessible at http://10.50.0.30:1880
• Home Assistant: configuration.yaml + automations.yaml at 10.50.0.219
• FPP Players: Web UI at http://10.50.0.XX for each player

The show is fully local and does not depend on internet connectivity. All control, sequencing, and output happens on the local 10.50.0.x network. The Starlink connection is only used for:

• Remote access (SSH, web UIs)
• Push notifications (projector alerts to iPhone)
• The Sundial remote device (Tailscale VPN)

If Starlink goes down, the show continues normally. You just can't access systems remotely or receive notifications.

New FPP Player:

1. Flash FPP onto an SD card (RPi) or install on a NUC
2. Assign a static IP in the 10.50.0.x range
3. Upload sequences and configure playlists via the FPP web UI
4. Add the device to Node-RED's FPP Command Presets flow (add a new HTTP request node)
5. Add REST sensors in Home Assistant's configuration.yaml

New NDB Controller:

1. Flash the NDB firmware onto an ESP32
2. Configure with a static IP in the 10.50.0.50–.84 range
3. Configure it as a DDP output in the parent FPP player's channel output settings
4. Wire the data output to WS2811/WS2812B LED strips

• Mac2 at 16:45 — Refreshes the HDMI handshake to the Epson projector. Without this, MadMapper may output video but the projector won't display it (lost HDMI negotiation).
• Mac3 at 14:30 — Ensures a clean state before the show. Earlier than Mac2 because it doesn't have the HDMI handshake issue.
• Mac4 at 16:30 / 17:00 — Ensures a clean state for the Fire projector (Optoma UHD50X). Originally set to 16:30 (Dec–Feb 5); changed to 17:00 from Feb 6 onward. Mac4 had 142 total reboots during the season, with 89 clean operational nights, 20 issue nights (81.7% reliability excluding scheduled reboots); worst single day was Dec 18 with 3 unexpected reboots.

All three are managed by local Chataigne instances (Projector.noisette, flower.noisette, Fire.noisette) using the Time module. They fire before or at show hours (17:00) so the Macs are fully booted and applications loaded by showtime.

The PatchBox is a Raspberry Pi running PatchBox OS at 10.50.0.192. It functions as the Monster Voice Changer — a real-time audio effects processor. It's part of the Monsters zone installation.