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Ok, everything was working just peachy a few weeks ago, so now I'm trying to put together some Halloween sequences for a 15 minute show. I have everything in order and all plays well on the editor.

Now, the fun part...... I put up lights and decorations and set up the show. I then plug in the controller and "ALL THE LIGHTS ARE ON......STEADY !!! and I haven't even started the show....? " and the show shows that its running, but the lights stay on steady.

I did the reset as per LOR's instructions... ( did a search for that ) so, all resetted and still, nothing. I ran the show again and still, no lights.

Went to the hardware utility and ran the initilize and it said "Found 0 Units"

No connection to the controller, yet the power was connected and the Cat 5 was connected..also NO red LED light.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions. The strange thing is that after a did a reset again, the lights came on SOLID with no sequence running.

Hopefully, someone has some ideas.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light ( no pun intended ) on this problem.

Ken Gelinas

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If I understand correctly ... the controller (what kind?) with no connection to the computer has NO L.E.D. light, and the lights connected to the controller are ON?

If that's the case, then I would suspect some sort of problem with the controller ... one that's going to require Dan to diagnose.

I'd also bet this is causing your 'controller not found' problems.

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Yes, but once I did a reset again, the lights go off. I have the LOR1602W - 16 Channel 30 Amp Controller . Should the light be on when it is powered up? Once it recognizes the controller through the computer, shouldn't the light be on?
I have done a reset a few times with the same results. The lights stay on solid after 1 reset, then they go off after another reset. The hardware utility can not recognize the unit.
I wonder if my Cat 5 is suspect?

Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm...?

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The LED's on my controllers blink when started until they are recognized by the computer, at which time the LED's burn solid.
The lights that are connected to the controllers all stay off until such time as I either turn them on or a show runs.

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Yes, there lies my problem. when I plug in the controller, I have NO red LED, it does NOT light up. Yet the christmas lights that are connected to the controller go on as soon as I plug in the controller.

All worked fine the first time I tried it and it has been unplugged since.

Any ideas?

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I just called him and left a message and I emailed him too, so hopefully we'll have some action on it by Monday.

As I said to Dan, I'm in a bit of a dilemma, whereas I promised my daughters class that I would bring it in to their classroom and set up a display for their Halloween party on Friday October 6th. The school maintenance people have put in 2 - 20 amp receptacles for me already so I'm all set there. That figures though, when you want to do something, something else always happens.....:{:{

I'll await Dan's reply and deal with it then. I received the controller in February and have only used it a couple times in the garage to "learn how to run the shows" .. Everything worked fine then, and it's been unplugged since.

Thanks for your help.

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Ken,

As for a reset(just to verify), you unplug the unit, set the unit ID to 00 then plug it back in for a few seconds... Correct?

When you do a reset, Does the LED bink fast when the controller is plugged in and set to "00"?

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Dan, when I do the reset, set to 00, plug in for a few seconds, then unplug, set back to 01 then plug in, I get NO light at ALL in either case.
No light at all on 00 and 01. When I plug the controller back in, the christmas lights go on, so it seems that the power is bypassing something and turning the christmas lights on.

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Ken Gelinas wrote:

Dan, when I do the reset, set to 00, plug in for a few seconds, then unplug, set back to 01 then plug in, I get NO light at ALL in either case.
No light at all on 00 and 01. When I plug the controller back in, the christmas lights go on, so it seems that the power is bypassing something and turning the christmas lights on.



Well Ken... That doesn't sound very good. It sounds as if the processor chip is messed up.

We can try a reload of the firmware but will not be able to follow the regular routine.

Unplug the unit from the AC power source.

Connect the Unit using the CAT5 to the computer and make sure only that one Unit is attached.

Start the hardware utiliity and go to the firmware screen.

Click the selection (only one unit is connected)

Open the firmware file with (CTB16) in the name

Click the download button and the hardware utility will start attempting to download new firmware to the controller.

Then plug in the controller. Hopefully a download will start. If a download does not start then unplug controller wait 10 seconds and plug it in again... Repeat a couple of times in a couple of times. If after a few times no download starts then we will go to the next step.
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I have been having a similar issue with a CTB08D.

I setup my first unit, and left the Unit ID as 01.

Setting up my second unit, I set the ID to 02, and when power is applied, the LED blinks rapidly. I tried to connect to the unit with the hardware untility, with no success. I powered the unit off, and changed the unit back to 01, and I was able to connect to the unit with the hardware untility as well as control the board with the sequence editor. I powered down, set the unit ID back to 02, and the LED was back to blinking rapidly.

Since I already have one unit with ID 01, that I'd rather not change, I decided to try 03 for the Unit ID. I was able to find the unit with the hardware utility and perform tests, but not able to control the unit with sequence editor. The LED was on SOLID when the sequence editor was running. Tried 04, with the same results. I then changed to unit ID 11, and was able to find/control the unit with the hardware utility and the sequence editor.

Two days later I decide to give my family a demo, and cannot get connected to the unit with the hardware utility (no units found, but LED on Solid) or the sequence editor(LED on Solid). I changed the unit back to ID 01, and was able to connect to it and control it.

I made sure the ID dials were in the correct position. Is there something else I should be checking?

Thanks,



Chris

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Ranger_391xt wrote:

I have been having a similar issue with a CTB08D.

I setup my first unit, and left the Unit ID as 01.

Setting up my second unit, I set the ID to 02, and when power is applied, the LED blinks rapidly. I tried to connect to the unit with the hardware untility, with no success. I powered the unit off, and changed the unit back to 01, and I was able to connect to the unit with the hardware untility as well as control the board with the sequence editor. I powered down, set the unit ID back to 02, and the LED was back to blinking rapidly.

Since I already have one unit with ID 01, that I'd rather not change, I decided to try 03 for the Unit ID. I was able to find the unit with the hardware utility and perform tests, but not able to control the unit with sequence editor. The LED was on SOLID when the sequence editor was running. Tried 04, with the same results. I then changed to unit ID 11, and was able to find/control the unit with the hardware utility and the sequence editor.

Two days later I decide to give my family a demo, and cannot get connected to the unit with the hardware utility (no units found, but LED on Solid) or the sequence editor(LED on Solid). I changed the unit back to ID 01, and was able to connect to it and control it.

I made sure the ID dials were in the correct position. Is there something else I should be checking?


Chris,

It sounds like you have a flakey switch on the CTB08D.... When you set the unit ID to 02 it sounds like it looked like a "00" to the controller (fast led blink).... We check that "01" works... If I were you I would send an email to info@lightorama.com and tell them about the problem... They will replace/repair it for you.
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Thanks Dan. Great Service!

I received the replacement CTB08D board yesterday. I hope to get the boards swapped out in the next couple of weeks, and will ship the faulty one back to you then.

Chris

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