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How often do your triacs go bad?


stanward

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I have had one triac go bad the other night, opened a ticket and will be sending in the board after the holidays for repair. The board is one of the new Gen 3's.

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Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't LOR have some problem this year with the Gen 3 board triacs, that was one reason the boards were delayed?

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I've got two that I need to to check if they are 2010 boxes... Have the channels moved to other boxes, just keep forgetting to look at the controllers with issues..

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Six years, 20 controllers, never a single triac failure. Only 1 COMM chip after a lightning storm.

All but 1 were built from kits.

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What years were each of the controllers purchased?

Tim Benson wrote:

Six years, 20 controllers, never a single triac failure.  Only 1 COMM chip after a lightning storm.

All but 1 were built from kits.
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Bought 4 generation 2 CTB16PC controllers and have had one Triac go bad apparently on Controller #3 Channel 5, stays on around 40-75%, HW can set the intensity to 100%, but 0% will always have it go no lower than the 40% intensity on an incandescent C7 bulb. LED strings those intensities don't seem to be much of a difference, but some of my LED strings I can REVERSE the male plug and it will turn off, fade, shimmer, etc. But doesn't always do that with some of the LED strings I have.

So I'll be sending my controller in after the season for repair to LOR, I'd just change the Triac out myself if that were possible, but due to my inherrent vision problems, that would not be wise of me to do to try and disassemble and reassemble what was bought as a FULLY ASSEMBLED CTB16PC Controller.

So I'll open up a support ticket for mine after I get them all unmounted and the decor down. Fortunately I have only lost one channel and mine were also purchased and received in or around Feb-March 2010 timeframe.

Was thinking of buying a few more controllers (Gen3) in a few months, but if these are all failing like this, think I may rethink buying any for little longer.

I run my controllers off seaason 24/7 by using them in my test area for working on my sequences before the regular display goes out.

I have one used Gen1 controller I bought and it has worked very well with one exception, I didn't close the box fully and it got wet inside, once it dried out, it was back up and running fine, still is.

Would be also nice if LOR had a trade in program where you could swap out your older controllers for the latest ones with a little price reduction and then LOR sell these as refurbished units at a lower cost for new folks coming in that didn't have a lot of $$ to spend. Now I doubt that will ever happen, but it'd be nice if there were such a program in existence.

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Not sure if it would be wise to trade-in the older controllers for newer ones. The Gen-3 controllers seem to have the failing triac problems as well.

The controllers purchased in 2008 and 2009 seem to be doing great compared to the 2010 and 2011.

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stanward wrote:

Not sure if it would be wise to trade-in the older controllers for newer ones. The Gen-3 controllers seem to have the failing triac problems as well.

The controllers purchased in 2008 and 2009 seem to be doing great compared to the 2010 and 2011.

Currently yes, I agree. It's just something I thought would be great if there were such a program and I'll be watching to see how many more GEN3 controllers fail before I decide to initiate any additional controller purchases to see how many folks are having these issues.
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I just blew another triac from a controller that was built/purchased this year.

Small load on the triac, a 70ct LED icicle light strand.

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i have 5 bad triacs this year. i only had one last year, and that was from a 2009 purchase. this year, 5 new ones, they are all on my 2010 purchased controllers. so far my gen3 controllers are running fine. these are all the pc version prebuilt kits, i just assembled the pigtails.

loads on these controllers are at most 2 strands of 100 count m5 or c6 led's from cdi or mits.

luckily i have always had spare channels fairly close to redirect to. we have had a crap load of rain here 2010 and 2011, all of my controllers are outside, but mounted inside of "presents" or under cover.

i have tried the "reset" method to no avail, will do more troubleshooting and repair after the season! already have purchased spare triacs from mouser...

-troy

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Before I forget, anyone with triac issues on a gen 3 board, probably needs to check the part numbers.. I think they went to a higher rated triac on the 3rd gen..

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If I were to replace a bad triac on a LOR Board, I'd personally prefer to get them from LOR since I would get the same part they used.

But, then again, with all the failures, the triacs they have may not be up to par and just fail shortly after.

What a dilema!

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Orville, if you're anywhere near the Rosen/Convention Centre on I-Drive, I can swap out the triac if you want to bring it by the hotel on the 30th.. I'm doing a Orlando overnight (on 29th), getting in abt 8pm, going out at 4 the next afternoon.. but I'm free in the morning (30th) I think I can even bring my soldering junk with me..

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Actually TJ, I am over near the University of Central Florida off University Blvd in Orlando. I'm about 5 miles West of the main UCF Campus.

More or less the other side of town from where you are on I-Drive.

Thanks for the offer though. But think you may be too far out for me this time around.
You'd definitely need the soldering stuff, currently I have to buy a replacement soldering iron and don't have one.


Won't get my first SS check until 18th Jan. And the wife uses the only working car we have to get to/from work. Her position ends on 1/6/2012.

Unfortunately she has to work the 30th and so leaves me without a useable vehicle until she gets home around the 6-6:30pm timeframe, again, too late, as you'd already be heading out and gone.

Otherwise would have definitely taken you up on the offer of the repair as well as get to meet another forum member in person.

Maybe next time you're in the Orlando area we can meet-up for coffee or something.

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Does anyone have a part number (say from Mouser) of the triacs for the AC and DC boards. I thinking it may be cheaper in the long run (on shipping)if I just order a dozen to keep on hand and replace them myself.

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I'm not sure if it is this years controlers or the difference between the CTB16 and LOR1602. I have 12 LOR1602 which operated flawlessly for the pass two years with zero failures. I purchased 10 CTB16 because the LOR1602s weren't available and most of them have one and most more channel failures.

Not sure if the board is that different between the residential and the Pro or what is driving the failures.

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just a quick post and an update ... 2 more bad triacs from two different controllers. these were already soldered kits purchased last year, i just had to assemble the cords. maybe it was just all the rain this year. (dont know.) but have plenty to fix for 2012... good thing i bought a solder station that someone here recommended. :)

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1 bad triac last year (purchased in late 2009), 1 bad triac this year purchased this summmer 2011. Both are CTB16PC's and both Gen 2.

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