1 pigtail not working

[chewinggum2]

I have 2 controllers where 1 channel is not working. I believe something is wrong with the pigtail as I have checked my channel configuration and all is fine and I'm sure the lights themselves work.

How do I fix this?

One of the controllers is a PC one that I bought from a member.

The other is my MP3 director controller.

Thanks in advance.

[Guest wbottomley]

Go into the hardware utility and turn that channel on.

If nothing happens, it could be a number of things including a bad pigtail connection.

[iresq]

If you have one channel not working on two controllers, it's probably not the pigtail (though I guess you could have two pigtails fail at the same time).

As previously posted, it would help if you did some basic trouble shooting to try to narrow down the problem.

[Robin]

Is it the same channel number on both controllers?

It could be human error that you did not sequence those channels. Does it not work on all songs? If yes then might be I would tend to think it could be that you may not have assigned a channel Id to them.

[chewinggum2]

It is NOT the channel ID. I went back to my property grid, double checked all, re-imported the channel configuration to all songs, re-loaded the SD card and the channels still do not work. No, it is not the same channel on both controllers.

There are no lights on any songs. I have plugged all the lights into power and they work fine.

It must be the pigtails.

[cmoore60]

IF no light at all. Do you get a solid red LED on the controllers with the SD card plugged in? If no solid LED then it is a communications issue. Do you have extra channels in your configuration? Are any of those defined as Light-o-rama but have no unit ID or Channel? Having those has been discovered to cause problems.

Chuck

[chewinggum2]

Thanks for all the suggestions but it must be a problem with the channels themselves. I did a channel test on all my controllers this morning using the hardware configuration. As I had thought, there are 2 channels that do not work. All other channels perform fine in the test. It is not the lights as I used the same set of lights, plugging them in to test every channel.

[cmoore60]

Are you familiar with using a multimeter?

IF so, then you can use the hardware utility and turn that channel on with a set of lights connected. Using the meter you can check for voltage right on the controller where those pigtails connect.

Chuck

[Robin]

Ok do not be so quick to say channels do not work and here is why.

Did you make the cords? Did you build the box?

Here is why I ask this. There have been a couple of times when my neutral on the board was bad. I used my tester to determine if there was power. Take hot prod and hold it on your hot lug or connection while hardware utility has power on. Then take your prod lead and hold it on the corresponding neutral for that channel. If you have no power place the neutral prod on another neutral and see if you have power. If you have power the first time then problem is in the cord. If power the second time then problem with neutral and you should have another neutral to put your neutral lead in. On the 16PC there are a couple of extra neutrals so it is easy.

Hope this helps.