Troubleshooting Solve this problem

[EARLE W. TALLEY]

Now is your chance to show the newbies how smart we are. Everyone has heard about flicker but no has posted how it looks, but many ways to fix it, this is what it looks like, now tell what the fixes are. In about 2-3 days I will tell you what the problem is and how I fixed it. This happens on fades more than any other time.

This is a ver 2 PC controller, it is number 5, but 4th in the chain of 12, the LED lights are 3 years old m5 and there are 3 strings of green (the red does not have a problem and is not connected to the green).

https://vimeo.com/56660960

[Max-Paul]

Gee Earl, where is your Balsa Pine air freshener?

[scubado]

I'm snubbing this thread!

[WilliamS]

Dibs

This is from the low load that LEDS show on the PC controller. At low loads the Triac (dimmer) on the board cant tell how much power is going out or coming back. It loses contact and begins to flicker. This is usually during fades or low power situation as in a low intensity on the light. The fix is a snubber. The snubber add a load with a resistor to keep the triac happy. The load allows the triac to fade and show low power without a loss of power becuase of the load is always there.

Heres the snubber fix http://forums.planetchristmas.com/index.php?/topic/36988-easiest-terminatorssnubbers-to-make/

[EARLE W. TALLEY]

Look at the bottom left of the tree you might see something.

[heystew]

looks like you have a snubber on there. I'm going to guess that you changed how the strings were plugged in. Instead of plugging them end to end, you ran a home run for each string. Strings in parallel rather than series.

[Guest wbottomley]

Without being there to troubleshoot... are the red and green led's connected on the same bank on that controller? If not, would the power source be three phase?

#2: that circuit has noise on it. That's caused from CFL, motors, etc.

[EARLE W. TALLEY]

Red lights are on controller #9 and green lights are on controller #5, not on same circuit, no CFL's in use, no motors in use, power source not phase 3. Very good points wbottomley.

[Baron1414]

Earle, Now I can't wait to hear the solution. I thought it was a snubber issue too, but, knew you had them on everything. Jeff

[Guest Don Gillespie]

This is my stab at the flicker issue, is your connection to the lights with SPT2 wire with vampire plugs? and are the plugs connected correctly? they may not be seated perfectly in the wire.

[heystew]

Another thought. The polarity of the vampire plugs had to be reversed.

[EARLE W. TALLEY]

They are done with spt1 and the plugs have been checked on both end of the wire. Please keep the possible solutions comming so we can show what all needs to be checked and/or corrected.

[Max-Paul]

Earl,

What is that snubber made of? If resistor, what is the ohm value?

[EARLE W. TALLEY]

MP made just like this

http://forums.planet...ubbers-to-make/

the resistor is 47K ohm

[heystew]

another I've run into is a missing ground pin on the controller power cord, or one of the extension cords leading to it.

or a loose ground wire in the controller.

also always check my cat5 cables, but can't remember flicker being caused by bad cat5 or a loose RJ45 jack. (plenty of other odd problems though..)

[scubado]

I'm curious about a question earlier about wether ther the strings are in series or parrallel. Has anyone encountered a difference between the two?

[scubado]

How about a wire tie being too tight? I've seen this be an issue in electronic equipment.

Whatever the solution, it is a great way to present it to the forum Earle!

Edited January 4, 2013 by scubado

[GaryM]

Dibs

This is from the low load that LEDS show on the PC controller. At low loads the Triac (dimmer) on the board cant tell how much power is going out or coming back. It loses contact and begins to flicker. This is usually during fades or low power situation as in a low intensity on the light. The fix is a snubber. The snubber add a load with a resistor to keep the triac happy. The load allows the triac to fade and show low power without a loss of power becuase of the load is always there.

Heres the snubber fix http://forums.planet...ubbers-to-make/

Can you clarify the part I've bolded? Not sure I understand based on how I understand a triac works.

[Guest wbottomley]

The USB cable from the PC to the adapter is getting noise on the line. Or... the communication cable is running parallel to the ac cords.

[Max-Paul]

Try 4.7K 3W, currently you only drawing .3W.