HappyMommy Posted November 30, 2019 Share Posted November 30, 2019 (edited) After running our last Halloween show on November 1st, I decided to just leave everything where it was in preparation for our Christmas show and just unplugged the boxes from their power source. Ultimately everything on the house stays where it is, as well as some of the yard props, so why bring it all in for 3 weeks? Anyway... today we got all the Christmas props out and plugged everything in and, upon doing so we noticed that everything is randomly firing. Every prop will be off for a good 20-40 seconds and then everything flickers. Not just the stuff on one box but literally everything on the network that isn’t RGB. I checked the connections and all are fine. Network effected: CMB24D to CMB24D to standard LOR box 1 (to 2 to 3). Again nothing was changed as far as the boxes are concerned as neither they, their ether cables, or their power cables were moved. Oh and note this is happening whether I am plugged into the adaptors/PC or not. My only thought is that maybe something happened to the Ethernet cable running from the box with the dual RGB cards in it to Box 1 so that’s where I’m going to start when I head out to troubleshoot tomorrow but... anyone else have any thoughts? EDIT: Already tried and this is not the issue. Seems to be only box 1 and 3 that have items going bonkers randomly as well. Edited November 30, 2019 by HappyMommy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted November 30, 2019 Share Posted November 30, 2019 First thought is interference getting into the data network. Two things to either do or check. Do you have AC power wiring close (like in a bundle) with data network cable? Second, do you have a termination at the far end of the data network? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyMommy Posted November 30, 2019 Author Share Posted November 30, 2019 12 minutes ago, k6ccc said: First thought is interference getting into the data network. Two things to either do or check. Do you have AC power wiring close (like in a bundle) with data network cable? Second, do you have a termination at the far end of the data network? It looks like the issue was, oddly, draw on the circuit. It seems, at least for the time being, that changing where two of the boxes were plugged in, and making sure my husbands space heater in the garage was off, may have resolved it. I may be speaking too soon but I’m testing today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted November 30, 2019 Share Posted November 30, 2019 Yep, a good power source helps. I'm kinda lucky. In this annotated satellite view of my yard, I have several dedicated circuits: The yellow arrow is a 20 amp circuit in the attic that feeds two normally unused outlets in the living room and a window air conditioner (not normally used during lighting season). There is a CTB16 in the attic and for Halloween and Christmas there is a 5V power supply for about 400 pixels on the roof. The green arrows are a dedicated 20 amp circuit with two outlets in the yard. The one on the house is used for the six cosmic color Pixel based arches and my pixel tree. The other one is not normally used. The blue arrow is a brick column that has two dedicated 20 amp circuits. That feeds all my year round landscape lighting and for Christmas, adds the singing faces, P10 and P5 matricies, and perimeter string. The red arrow is a 20 amp circuit that feeds four normally unused outlets in the garage, and an outlet at the end of the block wall. I don't normally use it for Christmas, but is really handy for setting things up in the driveway for testing. And yes, when Google took this photo, the yard landscaping project was only partially done (OK, it's still in progress...) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyMommy Posted November 30, 2019 Author Share Posted November 30, 2019 (edited) We thought we had it fixed but unfortunately, while the random firing has stopped, and I can see all the controllers in the hardware utility, the show won’t run. For a brief second it did and then it did an odd random firing and stopped. Now I can’t get anything to go. I hear the show but see nothing. Side note: Husband confirmed nothing else is on this circuit but our LOR stuff, the heater (that’s off), the light in the garage (was on all October when we ran the Halloween show) and our porch lights (also off). My head is about to explode. Update: this is definitely not a power issue. I just used the test console to turn everything on completely and let it sit for 15 minutes with no issues. Edited November 30, 2019 by HappyMommy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyMommy Posted November 30, 2019 Author Share Posted November 30, 2019 2 hours ago, k6ccc said: First thought is interference getting into the data network. Two things to either do or check. Do you have AC power wiring close (like in a bundle) with data network cable? Second, do you have a termination at the far end of the data network? Thanks for the response. We were experiencing the random firing even when the Ethernet cables were unplugged from the boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithbuilt Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 I have been having this trouble as well. It seems to be for me maybe a bad controller causing 'noise' If I unplugged the Cat cable it seemed to stop. I thought it might have even been the RJ45 jack as wiggling the cable might have been making a difference. But eventually it started again. Yesterday I changed the controller with a spare and that seems to be good so far. This controller is at the end of a run of 8 boards in a home made box. I wish I read this post first and tried the termination first to see if that solved it. I had tried resetting the controller and updating firmware. Is there a way to test the board to see if noise is coming from the board? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kapkirk Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 On 11/30/2019 at 4:27 PM, HappyMommy said: We thought we had it fixed but unfortunately, while the random firing has stopped, and I can see all the controllers in the hardware utility, the show won’t run. For a brief second it did and then it did an odd random firing and stopped. Now I can’t get anything to go. I hear the show but see nothing. Side note: Husband confirmed nothing else is on this circuit but our LOR stuff, the heater (that’s off), the light in the garage (was on all October when we ran the Halloween show) and our porch lights (also off). My head is about to explode. Update: this is definitely not a power issue. I just used the test console to turn everything on completely and let it sit for 15 minutes with no issues. HappyMommy I had a similar occurrence on our last day of the show, I cycled the power on all controllers plugged into GFCI circuits and then rebooted the computer running the show and it solved my issues, worth a try I think. Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kapkirk Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Just saw HappyMommy hasn't responded since November, possibly she has solved her issue, at least I hope so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 I had a problem like this. It turned out to be caused by one of the controllers. IIRC, replacing the comm chip in the bad controller solved the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts