Strobes gone to heaven

labrat88

labrat88

Labrat88
Joined
Apr 27, 2012
Messages
37
Location
Casino NSW
I had a few days off and started creating my strobe strings. I have completed them but lost a few along the way. I thought I'd share the experience
The contoller I used was the RW 27ch to trigger them using option 3b in the guide and as per previous discussions was going to tie the GND of the strobe PSU to the GND of the controller PSU.
Mistake 1) - Instead of arttaching to the ground of the 12v PSU I attched the common of the controller to the strobe GND. It was late and they were both black and I may have had a few rum cans ubder my belt. I put the contoller DIP in test sequence and turned away for a few secs, on turning back noticed SMOKE. 1 string of 20 gone.
Mistake 2) - do not test controller and PSU setup with a full string in place
I now have 3 stings of 8 strobes operating perfectley with the controller. with heatshrink and liquid electrical tape protecting the PCB. It was a painfull stupid mistake and my apologies go to Allan (after all, he gave me spares and built them for me). They are a great effect and I wait keenly for the next group buy.
My wife gave me some calming advice "Just remember your only an amatuer". It was a frustrating experience but I will not be making the same mistake again. I've seen a couple of "frustrated" posts lateley, just try to take it in your stride and dont loose momentum. It will be worth it
 
Sorry to hear of your misfortune and an easy mistake to make if not concentrating. All the frustration ends up being worth it when the show is running and you see all those smiling faces.

I have myself had some frsutrations and setbacks but I never ever let it stop me from getting to the final goal. I move onto something else so I at least feel like I am still progressing. Nothing worse than spending a few days on the same issue and not making any progress. So ill move on and come back to it
 
labrat88 said:
My wife gave me some calming advice "Just remember your only an amatuer". It was a frustrating experience but I will not be making the same mistake again. I've seen a couple of "frustrated" posts lateley, just try to take it in your stride and dont loose momentum. It will be worth it
Click to expand...
Great attitude - things can get frustrating at this type of year, and sometimes we need to remember that we are our harshest critics - anyone coming to see your display will be amazed, whatever makes it in.
 
well hows this then, cause im a show off.. i decided to take a strobe for the ex boss to see..
well lets put it this way i connected the gnd to 5v an the 5v to gnd.. no smoke but a very bad smell.
he made a comment or 2 about the strobes, one being the light dont work but the smell does.. :-[
simple mistake, an when i got home i replaced the pic chip an it started working again ;)
After all this is a learning hobby, an even us so called experts make mistakes :D
hope this puts a smile on your face.
Alec
 
Yes - Onward gentlemen - In the face of adversity we fly.
Smartalec - I know it's the PICS that are gone in the dead strobes. Where should I look for appropriate replacement PICS. If I can get the strobes back up and running at some other time that would be great. It would need to wait until next year as I ned to cencentrate on my pixel tree and sequencing now.
 
labrat88 said:
Yes - Onward gentlemen - In the face of adversity we fly.
Smartalec - I know it's the PICS that are gone in the dead strobes. Where should I look for appropriate replacement PICS. If I can get the strobes back up and running at some other time that would be great. It would need to wait until next year as I ned to cencentrate on my pixel tree and sequencing now.
Click to expand...

But them directly from microchip
 
One of my recent stuff ups was burning out 2 mofsets on the AVD48 board. This year I put 4 way plugs into the enclosure and then made some 4-way to 2-way splitters (3 for each). When I did some tests earlier this year on my arches, I only used the 1st 16 outputs, which all worked fine. The other day, I plugged it back in, and started using port 48 which also worked fine, as a test to see if it would work with my RGB LSP sequence. At one stage I clicked a chase effect in LSP which put data on all 48 channels. It was then that I started to see the mofsets smoking (3 off). Turns out, I forgot to take one of the burrs off the solder join, and as I heat shrinked it together, the burr pinned the positive and negative together. Even though nothing was connected to the output lines, the power still applied to the plugs.

A quick email to David and communication over the weekend, and 3 Mofsets were sent on the Monday. Now that's what I call service!
 
After reading of LAbrats error with the strobes and knowing myself how close I have come to toasting a string of 40 myself I thought it would be a good idea to invest in some sort of reverse polariity protection, so I just ordered some FQP47p06 p ch FETS. There are numerous ways of protecting against reverse polarity but this seems to be the best way to offer 0 voltage drop. Should be fairly easy to wire them in before each string and even come in handy for other items even pixel strings. Cheap solution to a common error , especially when setting up lights in the MERRY season.
 
If you want you can send the toasted ones down and I will swap the pics over for you labrat. As they are the smallest part on the board they aren't that much fun to play with.

Alan
 
Thanks Alan. I might just take you up on that. I would feel a bit guilty though as things are getting tight for everyone with displays. It would need some compensation to you. I'll pm you if I go down that route.
 
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