Channel issue....

[T. Bennett]

I need some help....As a second yr LOR guy I thought I would add to the show. I purchased a used Residential 16 channel standard controller like the one I already had, and tested it today.

I hooked everything up with the Hardware Utility and tested all the channels. Everything was good until I turned off the lights and noticed that Ch 14 is still dimly lit. Not all the lights, and not bright at all, but in the dark, it's evident. I was using a string off LEDs, and of course (before you ask), I tried multiple strands.

Anyone else ever run into this? How did it get resolved? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Tim

[Guest guest]

Did you try putting a "snubber" on the LED String? And did you try any incandescent lights to see if it did the same thing?

If the snubber turns the LED's off, then it could be the brand of LED's you're using, some will "leak" and stay dimly lit in some instances.

If the snubber did not work and if you happened to try incandescents and they also stayed on very dim, then it could be you may have a bad Triac on that channel and would need to contact LOR support about getting a replacement Triac for the bad one.

Once you replace the Triac, try again, this should in most cases fix the problem. If not, it may be something else, but I wouldn't know what to tell you to look for in this case.

Seems some folks have had this issue and just replacing that Triac fixed the problem.

Good Luck.

[T. Bennett]

Thanks Orville...

I thought about the LED snubber bit, but I used these LEDs last year and no problems on my original controller, and I tried multiple strings. i have tried incandescents. and it seems to work fine for the icans, and even with the LED plugged into the ican and back to the controller. Looks like it might be a call to LOR. Thanks for the reply.

Tim

[double000]

In the last 3 years I bought 9 different controllers and the all do something weird while in the utility hardware . I just thought in was in their software or my PC. Seem to work fine when your out of the utility part.

[DownTown]

A channel that stays on all the time can be an indicator of a bad triac. You should try to reset the board from the instructions in the troubleshooting guide on the Support page of the LOR home page. If that doesn't work, then it may need to be repaired.

D.T.

[Guest guest]

T. Bennett wrote:

Thanks Orville...

I thought about the LED snubber bit, but I used these LEDs last year and no problems on my original controller, and I tried multiple strings. i have tried incandescents. and it seems to work fine for the icans, and even with the LED plugged into the ican and back to the controller. Looks like it might be a call to LOR. Thanks for the reply.

Tim

So your problem is only if you have the LEDs by themselves..incans alone, or, LEDs plugged into incans, and the channel is fine?

Resetting the board can't hurt, but sounds more like a need for a snubber. Would try that first before swapping triacs or related components.

[Guest guest]

double000 wrote:

In the last 3 years I bought 9 different controllers and the all do something weird while in the utility hardware . I just thought in was in their software or my PC. Seem to work fine when your out of the utility part.

Interesting. Only time I had an issue with a controller and the HWU was when I plugged an SD Card into my DC-MP3 Showtime Director and tried to run the HWU to check or test some things. Once I unplugged/unseated the SD Card, all the controllers worked normally. And the only other time we had a power glitch and I had to reset ALL controllers. Seems the short power outage confused the circuitry.

Other than those two issues, haven't had any issues at all with any of my controllers, and one of them, my first actually, was purchased used.

[T. Bennett]

So to clarify. LEDs by themselves, I have the issue. Icans alone, it's fine. LEDs connected to Icans which Are connected to the controller is fine. Sounds like I may need this "snubber", so been reading many posts about the best an safest way to accomplish this.

Thoughts?

[Guest guest]

Jeff Millard wrote:

T. Bennett wrote:

So to clarify. LEDs by themselves, I have the issue. Icans alone, it's fine. LEDs connected to Icans which Are connected to the controller is fine. Sounds like I may need this "snubber", so been reading many posts about the best an safest way to accomplish this.

Thoughts?

I thought the snubber issues were resolved with firmware updates. Before you do anything, what is the rev of your firmware. If it's older than what's available, update and try again. If you don't have the problem on any channel but 14... then the suggestion that you have a failing Triac is very possible. In most cases, when a Triac fails the channel is always on. That usually occurs after a short. But not in every case. Some Triacs won't turn all the way off but will still appear to function normally otherwise.

Check you firmware rev... Try the LED string on other channels to see if the problem follows... and call the LOR help line if you can't resolve it otherwise.

you said it much better than I did...and with more clarification.

I'm not a LED user, but I was of the understanding that snubbers are still a needed fix, no firmware fix yet..

Also makes me curious if other LED users see any significant variation triac to triac (i.e, some channels need snubbers, some don't..) across their controllers.

[Surfing4Dough]

DonFL wrote:

Jeff Millard wrote:

T. Bennett wrote:

So to clarify. LEDs by themselves, I have the issue. Icans alone, it's fine. LEDs connected to Icans which Are connected to the controller is fine. Sounds like I may need this "snubber", so been reading many posts about the best an safest way to accomplish this.

Thoughts?

I thought the snubber issues were resolved with firmware updates. Before you do anything, what is the rev of your firmware. If it's older than what's available, update and try again. If you don't have the problem on any channel but 14... then the suggestion that you have a failing Triac is very possible. In most cases, when a Triac fails the channel is always on. That usually occurs after a short. But not in every case. Some Triacs won't turn all the way off but will still appear to function normally otherwise.

Check you firmware rev... Try the LED string on other channels to see if the problem follows... and call the LOR help line if you can't resolve it otherwise.

you said it much better than I did...and with more clarification.

I'm not a LED user, but I was of the understanding that snubbers are still a needed fix, no firmware fix yet..

Also makes me curious if other LED users see any significant variation triac to triac (i.e, some channels need snubbers, some don't..) across their controllers.

I too thought that snubbers were still needed, but that a firmware fix was in the works.

I would say that I am surprised that sometimes I don't need a snubber in situations in which I thought I would need one, so I suspect that there might be some variation between triacs. Never paid close enough attention to confirm this.

Back to the OP, plug a Glade Plug-in into the line of LEDs, and if it fixes the issue that confirms it is a snubber issue.

Here are easy, cheap snubbers to make if so:

http://forums.planetchristmas.com/index.php?/topic/36988-easiest-terminatorssnubbers-to-make/

[Guest guest]

just the fact that he works fine with LEDs hanging off an incan string tells me it is snubber related. Agree it may still be a triac with questionable performance, but the incans seemed to be working as a snubber, and he's fine.

[Dan Ancona]

I;ve simply used a set of minis added to the channel in place of the snubber.

[Arnoldc]

I haven't had any issue with my "standard" LEDs doing test runs on the controllers.. Do I need to hook up more than one strand to make sure they do everything correctly?

[khawes]

Last Christmas I had this very same issue. LED's blinked on dimly every 30 seconds or so when it was supposed to be off. Incandescent lights showed no problem. Slowly over the next week of running the show, the LEDs would stay lit first at ~5% then ~10%... the problem grew until the were lit at the 80% level, As soon as it passed 50% Incandescent lights showed the problem too.

I ended up hooking that channel to a length or incan rope light on my banister inside< & to my "tune to" sigh and had it fading for 30% to 100% and back during the show. It only faded to 80% though. Hooked it up indoors to remind me to unplug it after the show.

My controller was under warranty & Dan sent me a new one.
One night while the new controller was in transit, I saw a fade got form 100% to 80% to 100% to 30%, and from then on it just worked (100-30-100-30...). When the show ended it went out too :shock:, instead of staying at 80% like it had been.

Strange, but it continued to work flawlessly the rest of the week, when I had time to swap it out for the new controller.

[Surfing4Dough]

Arnoldc wrote:

I haven't had any issue with my "standard" LEDs doing test runs on the controllers.. Do I need to hook up more than one strand to make sure they do everything correctly?

Yes, the effect can sometimes become apparent only when multiple strings of LEDs are connected end to end. I have found it can take from 3-6 strings of LEDs.