Network Setup

A Spectralite Node advertises itself on the lighting network as soon as it finishes booting. Studio discovers and configures it by broadcast, so a Node shows up and can be reconfigured even when its IP was left on a different subnet by a previous job. Configuration happens from inside Spectralite Studio, through the Spectralite Controllers panel; the Node has no web interface and no physical buttons. This page walks through the panel end to end and explains every configurable option.

Opening the panel

The panel is not bound to a specific workspace. Open it from the panel browser by selecting Window > Add panel > Spectralite Controllers, or drag the panel in from the panel list if you already have one open. Every online Node on the lighting network appears as a row in the table within about five seconds of the panel opening, whatever subnet its IP happens to be on.

Reading the table

Each discovered Node shows its identity, live telemetry, and a pair of row actions.

Telemetry is not shown as columns. Hover the Status badge to read the Node's full telemetry in a tooltip, or open the Edit dialog where the same figures appear as a live block. Each shows a dash when the Node's firmware does not report it:

• Firmware version, or a dash if its firmware predates version reporting.
• Temperature, uptime, free heap, and DMX FPS, each from the Node's discovery broadcast. FPS counts one frame per content frame the Node receives, no matter how many Art-Net universes that frame spans, so a multi-universe fixture reads its true frame rate rather than a multiple of it.
• Mode: what the Node is currently rendering, dmx or idle in normal use, or a highlighted test / identify when the Node is painting its test pattern or locate blink instead of live DMX.
• Dropped: how many output frames the Node has dropped because it could not push them in time, with its effective output rate. A highlighted value means the strip is likely too long for the configured frame rate.

The Status badge tells you how recently the panel heard from the Node. Nodes broadcast a discovery packet every five seconds, so the states map directly to that cadence.

• Online (green): a packet was received in the last five seconds.
• Missed (outline): nothing seen for more than fifteen seconds; still tracked.
• Offline (red): nothing seen for more than twenty seconds.
• Rebooting (outline): the Node flagged itself as rebooting, usually after saving a setting that requires a restart.

A set of row actions sits at the end of each row. The pencil icon opens the configuration dialog. The plus icon is a shortcut labeled Quick add fixture: it creates one multi-part Fixture (a generic-led-bar with one part per Node output) starting at the next free DMX address and links it to this Node. Use it when you have just plugged in a fresh Node and want a complete patch without building it by hand. Firmware updates and factory reset are inside the Edit dialog: Update firmware… opens the firmware dialog, covered in the panel reference, and Factory reset wipes the Node's saved configuration and reboots it to firmware defaults behind a confirmation dialog, leaving the Node's provisioning credential and anti-rollback firmware-version floor intact so its identity survives and it cannot be rolled back to older firmware.

Editing configuration

Click the pencil icon on a row to open the Edit Controller dialog. Fields are grouped into identity, output, and network.

Device ID and Device Type

Both are read-only. The Device ID is the hardware serial assigned at the factory; the Device Type identifies which build the device is running (the Node reports spectralite-node). You cannot change these from the panel.

Name

Any string from one to sixty-three characters. Empty values are rejected. Naming matters when you have multiple Nodes on the same network, because the table sorts by name and fixtures address the Node by its network address rather than its label.

Start universe

A 1-based universe number matching the patch panel, minimum 1. Studio converts it to the correct Art-Net or sACN wire universe for the Node's protocol. The number of universes actually consumed is derived from LED count and color mode: at the default 144 LEDs per strip across eight RGBW strips, a Node consumes nine consecutive universes, so choose start values that leave space between devices.

LEDs per strip

An integer from 1 to 1000. Must match the physical length of the strips connected to the Node. If you set a higher value than the strips actually have, the trailing portion of each universe is discarded. If you set a lower value, the last pixels on every strip stay dark regardless of incoming data. Changing this value triggers a reboot on the device, which the panel reports via the Rebooting status.

Color order

A dropdown with thirty options, covering every permutation of R, G, B, and W byte positions used by commercially available strips. The list splits into two groups:

• Three-channel orders (index 0 to 5): RGB, RBG, GRB, GBR, BRG, BGR. Use these for RGB-only strips such as WS2812B.
• Four-channel orders (index 6 to 29): all twenty-four permutations of R, G, B, and W. Use these for RGBW strips such as SK6812 RGBW.

The default for a stock Spectralite Node is GRBW (index 8), which matches the RGBW strips it ships with. If your own strips come from a different vendor, the fastest way to find the correct order is to enable Test Mode (below), save, and then cycle through options: the rainbow output only looks right when the order matches.

Protocol

A dropdown selecting the protocol the Node receives pixel data on: Art-Net or sACN (ANSI E1.31). Art-Net is the default. The Node applies the change live, without a reboot, holding its last frame across the switch. Discovery, identify, and RDM keep working over Art-Net in both modes; only the pixel data moves.

A Node set to sACN needs Studio to be sending matching sACN data, otherwise it holds its last frame and looks frozen. The dialog warns when no enabled sACN output covers the Node's universe span: add an sACN output covering those universes in Edit > Outputs before relying on the switch. In sACN mode the Node receives multicast on the standard E1.31 port and groups; a managed switch on the lighting network must run an IGMP querier (or have snooping disabled), or multicast delivery can stop while the link stays up.

Test mode

A checkbox. When enabled, the device ignores incoming Art-Net entirely and cycles a full-spectrum rainbow across all strips at sixty frames per second. This is the simplest way to confirm a Node is alive and to identify which physical device matches a given row in the table, especially when several are on the same network. Remember to disable Test Mode before returning to a live show, otherwise the Node will keep painting its own rainbow over whatever Studio sends.

Use DHCP

A checkbox. On by default. When enabled, the Node asks a DHCP server for an address on every boot; if no server responds within fifteen seconds, it falls back to a link-local AutoIP address in the 169.254.x.x range. When disabled, the three static network fields below are required, and the Node applies them on every boot.

Static IP, Gateway, Subnet Mask

Only editable when Use DHCP is off. Each field accepts any valid IPv4 address; the panel validates the format before sending. Static IP is the address the Node will bind to, Gateway is optional but required if you need cross-subnet routing (Art-Net from Studio usually does not), and Subnet Mask defines the local network size. The defaults that ship on a fresh Node are 192.168.1.171, 192.168.1.1, and 255.255.255.0.

When to use DHCP vs static

DHCP is the right default for bench work, prototyping, and any situation where the network already has a DHCP server. Static IPs are worth the effort for production rigs where addresses must stay stable across router swaps, switch reboots, and cable reordering. Static also avoids the AutoIP trap: a DHCP network that temporarily loses its server will push every Node to 169.254.x.x addresses, which work in isolation but do not route back to the host if the host is still on a regular subnet.

Saving changes

The Save Configuration button broadcasts the new settings to the Node by its Device ID over port 46245, so it reaches the Node on any subnet, and the panel then tracks delivery live rather than assuming it worked. The dialog shows the status inline as it advances:

• Configuring…: the settings were sent and the panel is waiting for the Node to acknowledge them.
• Applying configuration…: the Node acknowledged a change that needs a reboot or network restart and is coming back.
• Configuration applied: the Node confirmed it adopted exactly the settings you sent.

If delivery fails, the dialog shows the reason (for example, the Node rejected a value, or it never acknowledged), and a Retry button appears next to Save so you can resend without re-entering the form. When the dialog is closed, a failure surfaces as a toast naming the controller instead. A validation error caught before send flags the problematic field and is not transmitted.

The same live status appears as a badge next to the Node's Status badge in the table — Reconfiguring while the push is in flight, Config failed (click to review) on error, and a brief Applied on success — so you can watch delivery progress without keeping the dialog open. For fields that require it (LEDs per Strip, color order, static network), the Node reboots and reappears through discovery with the new configuration within roughly five seconds, which is how the panel confirms a restart took effect.

Related

• Spectralite Controllers Panel: full panel reference
• Boot Indicators: read device state from the LEDs
• Art-Net Setup: configuring the host-side Art-Net output