PPR Heat Question

[cdnbob]

Hi. Has anyone had issues with PPRs working erratically, possibly due to overheating? I'm getting ready for the upcoming season and my testing has had some troubles, and the culprit seems to be my PPR-Bs when they get warm. It's only 13C today, so I didn't expect overheating from such a small unit. Has anyone who uses these in summer climates had any issues with them?

Here's what I observed.

• When testing my strings on the ground outside prior to putting them up, I initially had no issue, but then after some time I started noticing erratic flickers or sporadic incorrect LED colours.
• I noted that the PPR-B on-board LED would start to flicker itself intermittently, and this seemed to coincide with flickers on the strings. The LED indicates +5 going to the board circuitry, so if it goes out, then the board isn't getting it's +5 it needs to run. (I run 24V from the controller and an on-board converter converts to +5 for the board's use.)
• The PPR LED flickering only happens after it's been running a few minutes and it's inside the small container I used to protect it from the elements. When I take the lid off, the flickering stops. Put it back on the flickering resumes after a few minutes. Rinse and repeat consistently.
• I've run these for 2 winters now in the enclosures I'm using, which are 7cm x 7cm x 5cm food containers, with holes for the wiring in and out. Never noticed a problem before, but it's likely that I haven't run them at 13C before - usually I'm later getting set up and it's colder outside.

If I see this at 13C, then maybe those who run lights in their summer season might have seen this too. If so, how did you deal with it? How do you enclose your PPRs or protect them from the elements? I'd like to run a Hallowe'en show, but without having my lights flickering because of this issue.

On a side note, has anyone bought anything from J1sys recently? I've reached to them twice now and didn't hear back. Not sure if they are selling product or not.

I hope everyone is getting excited about the upcoming season. I know I am.

Cheers,
Bob

 

[darylc]

I bought a heap of PPR's a couple of years ago and could never make them work reliably. Perhaps temperature was my issue, because I doubt I ever tried them when the temp was under 30C.

Lack of response from J1sys is a common problem, all we can suggest is to keep trying.

 

[lithgowlights]

I bought a couple of PPR-A's and a PPD-C?? transmitter same as Daryl - no luck at all. Never got a reply from Ed at all regarding issues, and since I sourced the direct, I could not pester Ben locally

 

[cdnbob]

If either of you had the PPR LED winking, then you may well have had the same issue as I. The PPR-A is a different beast with a different voltage regulator (as best I can tell), so what any LEDs mean there could be different.

I drive my lights using a P12D on my P12S controller. The P12D is jumpered to deliver differential signals on 7 ports, and I have 7 corresponding PPR-B units, which have worked very well for me for the past 2 years. So I would have recommended them, but now I'd be more cautious about that. I haven't used a PPD-C unit.

What input voltage did you try going to the PPRs? I'm using 24v, but maybe 12v would avoid this problem for me if the heat generated is less at 12v than it is at 24v.

Bob