Problem with 1602W MP3 Controller Not starting up when switch is turned on

[Guest guest]

Has anyone else seen this on your MP3 Controllers?

I just had loaded my Little Mermaid "Under The Sea" sequence onto an SD card and installed the SD card into my Mp3 controller.

I then tested it out and the controller was working fine with my sequence. Then I brought the kids out to show them, and powered up the switch, and it would not start up the sequence, and no audio came out either. I have seen this happen several times with my sequences in the recent past.

The red LED blinks on the lower PCB for several seconds, then goes solid for several seconds, then blinks again for several seconds, and continues in this loop, but no music or lights ever start.

If I power down the controller via the switch then power up again, it works. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 tries to get it working. I noticed this happening since I got this unit a month ago, but really began to study it tonight in detail.

I have noticed that this failure to bootstrap itself most often occurs on the first power up attempt after loading the SD card into the MP3 controller with new sequences. Then a simple cycling of power jumpstarts it, and it plays the sequence perfectly, lights and sound.

We can't have this happening when we set up next week in the front yard, as these will come on by timer, and they must jumpstart every time without failure.

Any ideas?

[Guest guest]

I have not heard of this happing before. Which style of SD card did you get with your unit? To me is sounds like the SD card is not initializing properly....

[Guest guest]

Dan:

I am using 2 styles of SD cards, and the issue occurs with both cards.

1) Qmemory 60 Xpress 128 MB SD card that Light-O-Rama supplied.

2) Lexar 256 MB SD card that I bought at Target.

Both are LOR approved for this controller. The problem is intermittent with both SD cards.

I can power on the board and it starts to play just fine. Then I shut it off, wait 5 seconds, turn it back on, and it does nothing. Power back up again, and it works.

[Guest guest]

What about the LED status that I mentioned earlier, does that give any type of clue?

[Guest guest]

It does give me a clue. But not sure what to do with it yet. The LED solid then blinking then solid then blinking makes be believe that the SD card is not initalizing correctly.

When you mentioned that you turned it off for 5 seconds and it would do this it made me think that perhaps the SD card is not completely shut down and when we try to initialize it there is sometype of issue. If this were true then if the Unit were kept off for a longer time it would restart fine. This is total speculation and It also sounds like you have had this restart problem when the unit had been off for a considerable time which means this is not the case.

[Guest guest]

Yes, sometimes it will be off all night lomg, then I come out and flip the switch, and nothing happens. Cycle power and it works.

[Guest guest]

We will take a look at this and see what we can do. We have had MP3-DIR cards on timers for long peorids of time with this type of issue.

[Guest guest]

I'll get you a video vile of the error later today.

[Guest guest]

jeffostroff wrote:

I'll get you a video vile of the error later today.

Jeff, that is not really necessary as you have already described it to us and we do understand exactly the pattern you are seeing. We will be working on this in the next couple of days.

[Guest guest]

I hope we get a fix soon, I'm hurting. I setup my display finally today after days of neighborhood pressure to get it going. It seems to be taking an aeverage of 2-3 on/off cycles of power before she jump starts.

[Guest guest]

Dan, I have an update for you on the operation of the controller now that my setup has been moved to the front yard.

What I do is leave the switch on all the time, and the outlets which the controller is plugged into are on a timer.

When 5:00 PM rolls around, 5 days in a row so far, the MP3 controller came on without any problem!

So it seems the issue is related to the power up sequence that starts (or doesn't start half the time in my case) when you flip the power switch. on the MP3 controller.

I have seen issues in the past with circuits on cell phones for example, where power up fails to bootstrap itself. I would check that path through the switch and your 7805, and see what is diffrent about that path of the circuit, that it only turns on half the time.

But leave the switch on, and the controller box powers up through the input cables by timer just fine.