Guest guest Posted December 10, 2006 Share Posted December 10, 2006 HELP!!!This year I installed six new 20 Amp GFI outlets and six new 20 Amp breakers for my three 16 channel boards. It has been running great for about two weeks so far, but now I am constantly tripping the one half of my board. It is no where near the load limits (three strings per channel) and it even happens when there are no lights hooked up to it. I tried changing out the extension cord for the power, but that did nothing to help me. The other half of the board seems to operate just fine. My boards are in a completely waterproof enclousure. I am at a loss here. I changed the 6 bad channels over to another board entirely and it is working out just fine so I ruled out the lights as being the problem and if I put another extension cord in it's place and it still trips, I can rule out the cord as well. To take it a step further, I even tried swapping out cords from another outlet and it still tripped whatever circuit it is plugged in to. Could I have a bad board here or what?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 10, 2006 Share Posted December 10, 2006 abigroot wrote: Could I have a bad board here or what??My Guess would be that there is a short in that side of the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 abigroot wrote: To take it a step further, I even tried swapping out cords from another outlet and it still tripped whatever circuit it is plugged in to. Could I have a bad board here or what??I am not quite sure what your saying about swapping out cords from another outlet. Are you saying that you plug a different controller into the GFI and it still trips? If that is the case then I think you have exhausted everything except for a GFI that has gone bad.If what your saying is you plug this controller into an different GFI and the "new" GFI trips then you can possibly get down to the board or supply cord by removing power from the bad circuit, remove the fuse on the board and then apply power. Does the GFI trip then?Is the board a kit or pre-assembled unit? Might be worth taking a look on the bottom side of the board if a kit for any leads that did not get clipped.Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 No-no-no. What I am getting at when I said I swapped cords is this:Box 0-1 has two cords going to two seperate outlets on two seperate circuits we will call them the "red" and "blue" circuits. the left side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "red" circuit and the right side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "blue" circuit. I was tripping the "red" circuit when the left side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "red" circuit and when I swap the "red" and "blue" plugs (or the right and left sides of box 0-1 if you will) then when the left side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "blue" circuit, the "blue circuit trips the GFI. I double checked all of my connections going into the boards and everything seems fine there. If I have a short somewhere on the board, why did it take a couple of weeks for it to appear? I will have to e-mail Dan and get this straightened out then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 abigroot wrote: No-no-no. What I am getting at when I said I swapped cords is this:Box 0-1 has two cords going to two seperate outlets on two seperate circuits we will call them the "red" and "blue" circuits. the left side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "red" circuit and the right side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "blue" circuit. I was tripping the "red" circuit when the left side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "red" circuit and when I swap the "red" and "blue" plugs (or the right and left sides of box 0-1 if you will) then when the left side of box 0-1 is plugged into the "blue" circuit, the "blue circuit trips the GFI. I double checked all of my connections going into the boards and everything seems fine there. If I have a short somewhere on the board, why did it take a couple of weeks for it to appear? I will have to e-mail Dan and get this straightened out then.Could you try plugging both red and blue into the same GFI and see if it trips then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 yep...it trips whatever outlet I have it plugged into. even without any lights on any of the 8 channels associated with that side of the board. When I reset the GFI, it holds for about 20 seconds (with and without lights plugged in) and then trips, again, whatever outlet I have it plugged into. The other side of the board is just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I would talk to Dan at LOR. I think its strange that the GFI trips after 20 seconds. In my experience they trip as soon as you plug something into them that is bad. It seems that maybe something is heating up and then causes the trip???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I've had that happen when I forgot to solder one of the components on the board. Could that be it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 Do you have a ground wire connected anywhere? If so, have you tried disconnecting the ground wire to see if the GFI still trips? Does the left side of your board trip the GFI even if the right side is not plugged in at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 abigroot wrote: yep...it trips whatever outlet I have it plugged into. even without any lights on any of the 8 channels associated with that side of the board. When I reset the GFI, it holds for about 20 seconds (with and without lights plugged in) and then trips, again, whatever outlet I have it plugged into. The other side of the board is just fine.If you have an ohm meter, try some resistance checks with no lights attached to the controller and the controller disconnected from AC power: There should be infinite resistance between left or right, hot or neu and ground. There should also be infinite resistance between hot/neu left and hot/neu right. What do you see? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 Do you have the ground wire connected to the board or to the case, if it is connected to the case is it making contact to the board? or if its connected to the board remove it. it shouldn't be there anyway.Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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