LED 101 / Field notes
How receive cards get their addresses
On a NovaStar port, cards in a daisy chain take addresses in cable order, then use the mapping file to know which pixels they own.
Receive cards on one processor output are daisy-chained: Ethernet from the processor into card one, out to card two, and so on. At startup the processor walks that chain and assigns addresses in order. The first card in the cable is card 1, the next is card 2.
Address alone does not draw the picture. NovaLCT (or the saved configuration) still has to tell each card its pixel width, height, and where that patch sits in the full wall. That is the screen mapping. Change the cable order without updating the map and the image jumps to the wrong cabinets.
When a wall “looks wired wrong,” check the chain order against the Screen Connection map before swapping modules.