HELP, Lights come on by themselves, all channels random commands????

[Tim P]

I am really hoping someone can identify this issue. It is the last weekend before Christmas, and I cant run my show.

Yesterday around 3:30pm I touched the touch pad on my Laptop as I normally do. It takes it out of sleep or hybernation mode and instantly I go about my business on the cp. Well, the some of the lights came on out front, then more then more. They all were doing different things at random, some on, some shimmer, maybe 1 channel went on from the 7 channel arch etc, then the whole arch. Also I was not limited to any one controller.

Things I looked for: 1) show was enabed, however, keep in mind it was only 3:30pm, show was NOT scheduled to come on until later.

2) I tried to restart cp, it restarted, however , lights kept on doing there thing.

3) I unplugged the USB from CP and they still kept going crazy, but not as bad, some of them stopped going nuts. BTW, I had the usb plugged into the same port as usual.

4) I unplugged the 1st controller in line and the cat5's, that helped and made a difference, but not not really.

5) Unplugged all controller from power, turned all breakers off at panel for 5 mins, didnt work, happened again, once I plugged the usb back into usb.

6) went into hardware, did a controller refresh, and it only found 4 out of my 7 controllers, eventually It found all seven, but some of them that were found were listed as "unknown".

7) During the above test, I found all but one controller to have a solid li LED light inside the controller boxes on board. The board that was not lit and blinking, was the DC board. I unplugged and replugged in the CAT5 cables and still a blinky light.

At some point the light on the dc board became solid lit.



After all of that and all controllers seemed to be getting reccognized, STILL HAVE PROBLEM !!!!! AHHHHhhhh, (hair pull out).



I had checked and made more room on my hard drice (c drive), but that was never an issue before, but that didnt help either. I tried it because I knew c drive was getting low.



ANYONE, have a clue what all this could be?? I am running LOR 2.8.6 btw. I really want to get this up and running, It is the week/weekend before Christmas and I have my sons school of 700 kids plus families coming by on Tues night. They have a yearly walk for lights and although 700 plus dont show, it is about 200 people. I have recorded all kinds of voice overs with the principle and staff.its a surprise to my son.



Thanks

Tim

[JBullard]

It might help if you would share with us WHICH controllers you have, since LOR offers several.

[Tim P]

1 is a showtime 8 channel 30 amp

3 are pc 16 channels, I put together, but didnt need any soldering.

1 dc board

and 2 that are in a custom box, but are 16 channels, they were assembled too, but no soldering needed.



John, if you need model numbers, I'll have to get them later, I'm heading out to the Nutcrcker.



Hope this helps THANKs

Tim

[cmoore60]

In a nutshell this sounds like a communication problem.

First make sure your LOR network cables are not running near any AC lines. Second, are your cable store bought or home made?

If they are home made are they correct? There is another thread on the forums where the enthusist made his own cables and did not have them correct and in a nutshell was splitting the twisted pairs and this was allowing noise interference.


http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum76/25177.html


Chuck

[Tim P]

I agree, a communication issue. I have store bought and LOR bought cat5, however I did make a few of my own. They are triple checked and never had any issues. They are also used mainly between the rainbow wall runners. I checked all of them and the show ran all of last yr and 3 weeks this yr with no issue.
Tim

[ken collins]

Have you had any rain or snow? I had issues with water in comm cables a couple years ago, did the same thing your show is doing. Dried the out, and worked great till the next rain.Now I run all comm connectors through waterproof housings and have had no issues.I just blow out the cable connectors and rj45's with a can of computer dusting air.

[Tim P]

Ken, thanks. Forgot to mention, the day before we had a coating of snow. We have had to s of rain in recent weeks, extreme cold and no issues.
But it did snow for the first time. Also I do have a cat5 running along side an extention cord that feeds a controller. But it's been like this for 3 years.

[ken collins]

I've never had a cross talk problem with cat-5 running with power cords. But I know it is a problem. I'd blow em out, and see if that does it. Let us know

[Tim P]

GOT IT !!!!!!!!! GOT IT !!!!!!!!



First of all , THANKS TO ALL!! Jeff, I certainly do appreciate you offering your controller to me. That says a lot about the kind of person you are. Thanks



WORD OF ADVICE to all, and like Jeff said. Inspect ALL of your cat5 cables and connections, including the copper pins on the cat5 cable ends.

MY ISSUE were the copper pins on a cat5 cable. After hours of trouble shooting, I pulled a cat5 out of one of the jacks on a controller board, and the 8 little pins on the tip/end of the cat5 were slightly corroded and one of them was not a flat pin, it was corroded so much that only a tiny piece of the copper pin was exposed. Now, even though it was slightly exposed, it was also corroded.

Essentially, there was no copper to copper contact being made. For now, I cleaned it and everything is working perfectly, but I do have to replace the cable or at least replace the cat 5 tip, and crimp a new one on.

Also, I have never been happy with the loosness of most connections of the cat5 cables into the jacks on the boards, they sometimes also cause issues. Like I said, Check for loosness, check all aspects of connections and cat5 wires, no corrossion etc.



Thank you again, show is on and running. Lots of people have been out front since 5pm.



Tim

[Max-Paul]

Tim,

Pitch those connectors. I had a cable that I left out laying on the ground this past year. This is the one that is tucked behind the soffit and then running down the front of the house and a few feet laying on the ground. There was a little bit of dirt on the pin surface. But wiped off real easy. Thus I say pitch those substandard connectors.

[Tim P]

Thanks again William, Chuck, Max, Ken, John, and Cmoore.

[kzaas]

One of the things that I do to prevent that corrosion is to use "NO OX". It is the same paste that you would use to wire up your sprinkler system, its non-conductive so it wont short the pins together, but it prevents corrosion so no communication problems. I use it on all my RJ45 connections and have never had an issue with corrosion.