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comm port errors overnight


ItsMeBobO

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Looks like my Halloween show may be dead.   My Comm ports mostly disappeared last night.   I am concerned the FTDI driver may have been loaded automatically and disabled.    Did this happen to anyone else?

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The LOR help desk tells me the 485 adapters contain 100% genuine FTDI chips  so they are not impacted by the recent driver push.   Pheww! 

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Try reinstalling the driver...... Download it from the LOR website. Be sure to turn automatic updates off on your computer!

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Darn WORK got in my way.  I wondered/worried about my halloween show all day and finally left office 1.5 hours early. 

Very sad to report my show has to be taken down.   On my CCP matrix which has 12 controllers, 5 of them are blown.   I opened them and found something shot through them overnight. 

The network detected light is on with no network cable connected ! ha.   I have also determined that 2 adapters are shot and 2 ports on the USB hub are not working. 

My computer had messages this morning that it had loaded new drivers and also unknown device.   I jumped to a wrong conclusion when the adapters were not in device manager.  So far I have managed to get all of my networks restored with new USB ports and spare adapters.    I have several controllers not in use for Halloween and attempted to swap them out leaving the lights in place.  No go.  The lights are blown too.  Start up test does not work.  

LOR help desk seems to be very supportive.  More on that later.  

 

 

CCPcontrollerCharred.jpg

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So sorry to hear all this.

I've seen your clips on helping the kids with your show.

Hope somehow you can get the show going again quickly.

Good luck.

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Sounds like you got hit hard by a power surge of some sort.. You didn't have any lightning did ya?
 

Sorry hear about all the damage..

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Wow...I have to agree. Power surge and a half, or a lightening strike. If your area is prone to power surges, you might want to connect all of your controllers/devices through good surge protectors in hopes of mitigating this before more damage happens. If there was no lightening, you might want to place a call to the electric company and find out what's going on. Its possible they have issues they aren't aware of.

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I knew it was raining when I went to bed.   Two different neighbors told me there was a nearby lightning strike at 2am but it didn't wake me.  No idea what it hit precisely.  But it was near enough that I think it was the cause.    Total damage is significant.   7 CCP controllers and 9 strings of 50 lights.   Two adapters and the usb hub they were plugged into also partially blown.  Strange that the CCB lights were not damaged nor any cat5 or show computer. The surge went through the cat5 and fried data circuits on some of the controllers.   Three have clearly cracked chips on the other side near the ps and sparked when I plugged them in for testing. 

 

After a couple days of dark lights and moping, I managed to get my halloween show partially going again for halloween night.  I had to cannibalize other props which were Christmas only to get one of my two matrix boards lit.   Not looking good for the Christmas show at this moment as budget has been spent.   There is a high deductible on my homeowners insurance so I doubt a claim there will work out. 

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It sounds like you took a direct hit. Bummer too as that's a significant amount of money to replace all that. I agree...show would be done for this year unless you're made of money. Most of us are not. I don't have any spare controllers or I would be happy to loan to you. Just a thought, maybe LOR would be willing to help you since you've been around for a long time? I'm wondering if they would loan you the controllers and etc...would be great for them business-wise to help out a long time user of their products at this late hour.

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