Boot Indicators

The Spectralite Node uses its own LED strips as a startup display, so you can diagnose the device without a serial console or a running copy of Studio. On power-up, the strips show whether the LEDs are wired correctly and whether the wiring order matches the configured color order. They also show whether the Node reached the network. The patterns below appear in the order the Node shows them.

Each pattern drives all eight output strips in unison. If one strip fails to show a color that the others show, that strip has a wiring, power, or controller problem.

Stage 1: Self-testCopy Anchor Link

Immediately after power-on, the Node runs a channel self-test. Every connected LED on every strip lights to the same color, and each step holds for 500 milliseconds:

1. Solid red
2. Solid green
3. Solid blue
4. Solid white (only on 4-channel RGBW strips)
5. All off

A healthy Node shows each color uniformly across all pixels on all strips. Common failure symptoms:

• A color looks wrong (for example, red comes out green). The configured color order does not match the physical strip. Connect to the Node from Studio and change Color Order until red, green, and blue appear correctly during the next boot.
• The last N pixels stay dark on one strip. Either that strip is shorter than the configured LEDs per Strip value, or the data line broke past that point.
• A whole strip stays dark. Check the strip's data and ground connections. The Node's output is not short-circuit protected, so a bad connection produces no output.

If you have 3-channel (RGB-only) strips, the white step looks the same as "all off". This is expected. The Node still runs the step because both strip types share the same timing.

Stage 2: Network connectionCopy Anchor Link

After the self-test, the Node tries to join the network and signals the result with a double flash across all strips. Each flash is 200 milliseconds on, then 200 milliseconds off. The color tells you how the Node got its address.

A green flash and a cyan flash both mean that the Ethernet link is up. They differ only in the address where you can reach the Node. After a cyan flash, the Spectralite Controllers panel lists the device at an address that starts with 169.254. Because no DHCP server answered, Art-Net output will work only if the host that runs Studio is on the same link-local subnet.

Stage 3: Hardware failureCopy Anchor Link

If the Ethernet controller does not come up, the Node halts in an error loop. All strips flash red, 500 milliseconds on and 500 milliseconds off, and the pattern continues indefinitely. Because the Node cannot see its own Ethernet hardware, check the device before the network. First, power-cycle the device. If the red pattern repeats, the device needs service.

Stage 4: IdleCopy Anchor Link

When the network is up and setup is complete, all strips go dark. The Node now listens for pixel data on its configured protocol, Art-Net or sACN. As soon as a valid packet arrives, the strips render it. By default, the strips clear to black when no pixel data arrives for five minutes. To change the timeout, or to hold the last frame, change the Signal Loss setting in the Spectralite Controllers panel.

Quick referenceCopy Anchor Link