Mini-Arch mystery

[sjmiller]

I bought 4 new controllers for this years display, and built 3 mini-arches (7 channels each - LED). One mini-arch is on controller #6, and the othere two are on controller #7. I created an animation sequence that I run as a clean-up sequrence during my show and the mini-arches work fine.

I don't have the mini-arches programmed into any of my song sequences - yet parts of all of the arches light-up during the play of the songs. It's unpredictable, and not always the same channels.

I've checked and double checked the rj45's, AC power, I don't see anything that would cause this - any ideas?

Steve

[displaysinmotion_will]

run the lor verifier, it will give you a report of any channel conflicts

[displaysinmotion_will]

run the lor verifier, it will give you a report of any channel conflicts

[sjmiller]

Ran the verifier, it reports that all of my mini-arch channels are off during each of the songs and no conflicts. I still get parts of the arches lighting when they shouldn't.

[Kevin N]

Do you have snubbers on the light stands?

[sjmiller]

No snubbers, each arch segment is only 50 LEDS so there shouldn't be a capacitance build up issue. The channels are not programmed to turn on, yet they do.

I guess I could hook a set of mini-lights to each channel on one of the arches to see if that makes a difference.

Steve

[HowardShank]

sjmiller wrote:

No snubbers, each arch segment is only 50 LEDS so there shouldn't be a capacitance build up issue. The channels are not programmed to turn on, yet they do.

I guess I could hook a set of mini-lights to each channel on one of the arches to see if that makes a difference.

Steve

Capacitance issue may not be the problem They may not be reaching the 0 crossing mark before firing again.

Take a look at this post http://forums.planetchristmas.com/showthread.php/37562-Easiest-Terminators-Snubbers-to-make and you'll see some scope images that help explain what happens.

Also, make sure you don't have a hot and a neutral crossed somewhere that is feeding back into that channel.

Or, perhaps the triac is having problems shutting off all the way.

Just suggestions to check into.

[dstevens]

I saw a very similar issue with my smaller mega-tree. I only had 1 50 count led strand per channel, and I saw the same behavior as you are seeing. I double checked - no channel conflicts. I added a 100 ct incan string to each channel. I figured more lights is always better. Problem solved. So IMO you can either add lights or install the snubbers as described above.