(Archive) Strange flashing behaviour from LOR AC controller

  • Thread starter shannonandcraig_LOR
  • Start date
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shannonandcraig_LOR

Guest
Originally posted November 28, 2009

Hey everyone,

Tonight was the first night when I finally saw the fruit if my labour. 15 months in the planning and WOW! I loved the sense of WOW others had for my display!
Knowing I'm my own worst critic. I have noticed that my LOR boards are doing some strange stuff. There seems to be some strange flashing when doing a leaping arch. I have one 16 channel controller dedicated to 2x8 channels for arches. However when the leaping arch jumps from one side to another. At about half way the rest of the lights flash on and then the arch is finished the leap. Most people thought tonight’s display were great. However I knew the arches were substandard!

The other issue I have is my 110V strobe lights stayed on after a few songs. I unplugged them to stop them from flashing continuously.

Every now and again, I notice a random flash of lights during the sequence. I'm currently running each controller on a 10A input from one cable with a power board attached on the end. Both inputs stem from the one power board .Could the random plashing be a product of under powering?

Would be great to get the random flashing and the continuous strobe issues sorted ASAP!

Hope tonight was successful for all of those that light up.

Cheers

Craig
 
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shannonandcraig_LOR

Guest
Dear All,

Have been thinking some more about my problem. The real issue is that the channels either are not completely shutting off or are leaking current causing minor flashing when the channel is turned off.

I have about 20m of cat 5 cable between each controller (which I can shorted) Each channel has mostly one LED string (70 bulbs)

Hope this info helps someone solve my issue,

Cheers

Craig - Sutherland
 
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Eric_Bankenspoor_LOR

Guest
I am no expert but i did read that the AC controlers will give random flashers when the current draw is low I have 2 ac controlers and i get a random flash from time to time this happens more often when i am fadind up or down the cat5 lead length is not the problem as i have ran mine from lengths of 2 m to 30m and my problem remained
also a problem I had was that in my sequence I had a small fade down tail that I did not erase completly because i had the view as fade and not ramp i could not see it untill i switched

now all my 240v is on or off without any fading

on the web I did see some one in Aus put power boards on each CH and put extra lights on the to increase the load
 
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Sunraysia_Gang_Show_LOR

Guest
Hi Craig & Eric,
I previously had this problem & by adding an extra load (anything small) to each of the channels, it rectified the problem.

I have set my controllers up with 4-plug powerboards on each channel & so is quite easy to add extra load.

Give it a go & see if it works, a bit of trial & see what happens.

Regards

David
Mildura
 
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David_Casburn_LOR

Guest
Craig,
Are the Led on the 240V AC controller or the DC controller, if they are on the AC controller you will need to add some false load 20W resistor to each channel. This is what i have read fixes the problem.

The CAT5 cable should not be the problem as that is signal cable
 
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shannonandcraig_LOR

Guest
Hey and thanks for all the advice.

I have had a busy day sorting through my issues. I started reading the forums in the US and decide to update the firmware on the CTB16PC. I was on version 4.02 and I upgraded to version 4.32.

I also lifted the input power supply from 10A to 20A by running 2 x 10A extension leads to the control board from separate power points.

Amazingly the arches are working as planned and the random flashing has stopped (from what I can see)

The last issue is the 110V strobes which cost me bomb to get and would love to see working properly.
At the present when I power up the CTB16PC the strobes automatically go off without the show being enabled. I took note about the adding load and added 2 incandescent rope lights (13m in total) which had no effect on the channel. When plugged in the rope lights and the strobes are flashing brightly regardless of the sequence or the show even being enabled.

It is only one channel that is presently on out of 16. All the other channels on that board are working perfectly!

Really stuck and disappointed!

Hope someone has some other suggestions.

Cheers

Craig - Sutherland
 
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davidt_LOR

Guest
Hi Craig,

If the strobe lights and the rope light (connected to the same channel) are on regardless of your show status, then I suspect that you have a crook channel on your controller. Try changing them to another LOR channel and see if the problem persists. If the problem appears to go away then it looks like you probably have a dodgy channel.
BTW, I hope with your strobe channel that you aren't trying to do any fades, just plain on / off as strobes don't react well to changing voltage.

Cheers,

Davidt, Ballarat
 
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shannonandcraig_LOR

Guest
David,

I can assure you that it is strictly on/off with the strobe channels. Initially the strobe channel worked like a charm. Then about 20 minutes into the show they stayed on continuously!

I will go and swap the channels now and see what the go is and let you know.

Will post again tomorrow after work.
Cheers

Craig
 
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Tristan_McSwain_LOR

Guest
hey all
i had a similar thing but was sitting on the lawn with my laptop on the boot of my car with a cat5 lead running up the drive way playing with the console... should have seen and heard the neighbours... they thought i was nuts... anyway when i turned up on channel in particular i noticed that all the lights flashed on when it was at about 30% and then off at 80%.. skip straight to full on or off and no worries... any ideas would be great.

tristan
 
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David_Casburn_LOR

Guest
i had a similar problem where one controller was flashing constantantly and out of sequence. I changed the path of the cat5 away from the 240v power feeds as they were running side by side. When i did this my problem went away, not sure if it is the same issue
 
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