Lousy Night Last Night

[jim6918]

I am so discouraged this morning, and to be honest can't wait for this year’s show to be over so I can regroup. My GFCI trip problem reared its ugly head again last night during a heavy wet snow. My string of 6 red mini trees tripped the GFCI for that controller. Of course also on the controller are half of my LED C9 house and gutter and window trim. So the east half of the house was dead. Not wanting to mess with it during the snow storm, I just went out and unplugged the mini trees from that controller and reset the GFCI. I thought I had the issue corrected a couple of weeks ago and haven’t had any problems until last night’s snow storm. A few minutes later I noticed that a row of 6 clear mini trees were out along with all the same LED C9 for the west side of the house. Despite the weather, cars were lined up in both directions. I just wanted to go out and yell for them to go home. I unplugged the clear mini trees and reset that GFCI and the show went on. I have 3 rows of 6 mini trees in blue, clear, and red. Picture US flag. So all the visitors saw was a single row of blue trees. Coupled with that yesterday was the loss of two LED M6 100 count strings I use to wrap a split rail fence. I had to unwrap yesterday and rewrap new strings. By 9 PM I was on my 3^rd Johnnie Black Label. I guess this morning I am going to go out and plug each tree back in until I hopefully find the one that is tripping the GFCI and just leave it off the rest of the season. I had two prior years of no GFCI issues and now this. I must have a hundred alligator plugs lying on the lawn and haven’t had any problems until now. I have another row of 6 clear mini trees on the other side of the yard and they are staying lit. There must be some other issue with the trees, perhaps a broken bulb or some other short I can’t find. They are 3 years old now and scheduled for LED retrofit for 2012. I am going out of town on the 24^th and 25^th and wont relax a minute wondering what is going on at the house. I really hate to pull the plug totally for those two nights.

[beeiilll]

Well while I can feel a little sorry for the troubles that you are havng, I guess I would have to say that "It is only a light display!"
The next mission to mars is not going to fold if you have a few lights out (but yes it is frustrating and irritating).

This is a HOBBY for fun and enjoyment. Make the best of a problem and roll with it. Relax and enjoy the season at this point. You worked hard to get it going so take pride in what you have done and make notes on things that you need to fix for next year.
There is always going to be that one bulb that goes out or a problem that will come up when you think that everything is all fixed.

I have stood out in my display fixing things while it was running with a flashlight and just waved at people and acted like I was part of the show! I think that some of them actually thought I was, expecially if I was laughing at the stupidity of what I was doing at the time.

IF you can't make a joke out of things sometimes, then what fun is there in it?

Life goes on and tomorrow we all start all over again.

Try to enjoy it some and have a Merry Christmas!

Bill

[Melvin Stoddard]

I know how you feel. I did not run my show last night either, but not snow it was rain. It rained all day and I had water 1 or 2 inches in 2 or 3 places in the yard. There was extention cords and lights sitting in water. I have had rain before that has cause my GFCI to trip, so I didn't even try to run it. Hasn't much today and the standing water has soak into ground, so I'll try tonight. Good luck with the rest of the yesr. Melvin

[DownTown]

beeiilll has some words of wisdom in post #2 above...

It's just Christmas lights, and though we hate to disappoint our "fans", they will get over it. So will you. I know it's nice to feel important, but when it comes right down to it, what we do is really not important in the grand scheme of things. Your fans will come back when the snow is gone and your show is running properly.

Now, you mention that you lost 2 strings of LEDs. Do you know what caused them to fail? Is this a common occurrance in LEDs? (by common, I mean more than 1 in 100) With the current LED prices unable to justify switching over from minis, having losses like that would make switching out minis to LEDs a decision that just got even less likely.

D.T.

[ItsMeBobO]

This has been a troubled season for me too. Many rainy nights and things breaking and dying. Not only GFI trips, but also loss of communication when the temps go below freezing. Three nights nothing was working until I unhooked each cat5 and checked for problems.

I recorded a blurb apologizing that things dont work in the rain and have added that to the show when its needed. Hate doing that but I dont want to jiggle the strings when its raining. Of my six GFIs Ive got it down to one now which is touchy. So situation has improved as I hope yours does.

[jimswinder]

Last year was a "wet one" for me (imagine that...in Seattle!!) and had all sorts of problems...besides falling trees...

This year...driest December on record for Seattle...no Show Shutdowns yet...but keeping the fingers crossed.

I know that we as the "lighters" usually strive and want perfection...but our "customers" will always think it is perfection...because they usually have no clue that thereis a string of lights out.

Earlier I had a CCR not working right...to me it was the "big red zit on the end of my nose"...how could anyone NOT see it...

even when I pointed it out to people who were standing next to me, they still didn't notice it...

so hang in there...to everyone else, your display is just the "smile" they needed...

[jim6918]

Thanks for the wisdom, you are all right of course. I told myself the same thing several times last night, in between Scotches; and today while trying to diagnose. I never thought of myself as having a Type A personality, but I sure must when it comes to these darn lights. It was agony standing at the door last night seeing only 50% of the mini trees lighting up. I know that the majority of the people watching didn't even know there was anything wrong. I just hate not knowing what is wrong so I can fix it. Still haven't figured it out yet this morning, plug in a tree let it run for a while, plug in another, etc. etc.

[jimswinder]

jim6918 wrote:

Still haven't figured it out yet this morning, plug in a tree let it run for a while, plug in another, etc. etc.

you are doing what you can....that's all we can ever do...

you'll have it back to normal before you leave!!

Well...NORMAL for you!!

You don't want my "normal"!!!

[jim6918]

jimswinder wrote:

jim6918 wrote:

Still haven't figured it out yet this morning, plug in a tree let it run for a while, plug in another, etc. etc.

you are doing what you can....that's all we can ever do...

you'll have it back to normal before you leave!!

Well...NORMAL for you!!

You don't want my "normal"!!!

Yes, At least I haven't had any wind problems this year.

[beeiilll]

I do agree with you on the "not knowing what is causing the trouble so you can fix it" is really frustrating.

I sat out in my yard one morning at 1 to 3:30 AM working on a problem that no one but me would have ever known about. But "I KNEW" and that was all that mattered and I was going to fix it come H____ or high water!

So I understand your pain and sympathize with you.

I would offer to come over and drink scotch with you and look for the problem but the last real time I drank scotch I woke up on a not so familiar front lawn! :shock:

So I better pass on that one I guess - LOL.

Good luck with it keep em' blinkin'!!

Bill

[texascop]

I had the same thing last night. We had a real hard rain. I turned on the lights and controller #1 tripped the GFI. SO, I reset it, brought up the Hardware Utility and set it to controller #1. I brought up each channel one at a time and found out channel #3 was the problem. It was wet and cold so I unplugged the string on channel 3 and went on with the show. Using the Utility was easier than going out and messing with the plugs.

[Charles Belcher]

my two cents:

Don't run the show if you have a number of non-working elements sufficient to cause the display to not look "whole".

I would rather the audience see a sign that reads "No show tonight due to weather", than to see something which could be interpreted as "not very good".

Charles

[jstorms]

I have a show that I run on wet days that is limited to the lights that are under the cover of the porch. That way people get to see 'something'. We don't get snow in Texas, but I have the lights going to "Singing in the Rain".

[jim6918]

I don't know if I fixed it or not. Found one tree on each controller that tripped the GFCI, even when they were plugged in alone. Left them unplugged from the controllers and ran On-Demand show for past 3 hours with no issues. Won't be too noticeable.

[jimswinder]

jim6918 wrote:

I don't know if I fixed it or not. Found one tree on each controller that tripped the GFCI, even when they were plugged in alone. Left them unplugged from the controllers and ran On-Demand show for past 3 hours with no issues. Won't be too noticeable.

when you say "plugged in alone" do you mean directly into an extension cord going to the GFCI outlet? or the only one plugged into the controller?

I would try a different string into the plug/channel that is tripping..to see if it is the lights, or maybe just water in the controller plug.

if the latter...maybe take a hair dryer to the plug and try and blow out any water and debris that might be in the female dongle...

[jim6918]

jimswinder wrote:

jim6918 wrote:

I don't know if I fixed it or not. Found one tree on each controller that tripped the GFCI, even when they were plugged in alone. Left them unplugged from the controllers and ran On-Demand show for past 3 hours with no issues. Won't be too noticeable.

when you say "plugged in alone" do you mean directly into an extension cord going to the GFCI outlet? or the only one plugged into the controller?

I would try a different string into the plug/channel that is tripping..to see if it is the lights, or maybe just water in the controller plug.

if the latter...maybe take a hair dryer to the plug and try and blow out any water and debris that might be in the female dongle...

Both actually. The controllers are in a water/weather resistant rubbermaid deck box. They and the male ends of the extension cords to the lights are probably the driest part of my display. I am guessing that when I pull the trees I will find a broken bulb that is making a direct ground someplace on the lowest part of the trees.

When I redo the trees next year, I am thinkng about starting the first row of lights up about 2 or 3 inches from the bottom of the tomoato cages You won't notice when the lights are on at night and it might avoid similar problems in the future.

[Paul Roberson]

I also have a 'wet weather' show. We have 3 trees inside the house that are 'in the show'. The trees can be seen thru the window. The wet weather show has the same songs as the regular show, but there is a Demented Elf voice over in between each song and there is only programming for the inside trees. I also still run the video with the wet weather show.

I have not had a problem running in the rain this year. I installed more GFCI receptacles and now have each controller on its own GFCI. The max on any one GFCI is 16 - 100 count LED stings. I also added wooden dowel rod pegs to the legs of my (flower easel) mini trees.

[doug petschke]

Jim,
I read the problem and had this thought before I read through the rest of the posts so if this is a repeat If i would have read the rest of the post i would have lost this thought! : sorry.

Have you tried to replace the GFCI? They have a tendency to get weak over heavy use too. If you have the trouble on only one side of the controller then swap the plugs around an see if the problem follows if it blows when plugged into the other GFCI then it's your trees/cords if it does not blow then swap out your GFCI.
worth a try!
I had a GFCI problem with hot tub. It worked for a while then get hot and keep blowing. I replaced it and tub worked

I will not go back a read the rest of the posts lol

[doug petschke]

saw in your post you figured it out

disregard this post! :shock:

doug petschke wrote:

Jim,
I read the problem and had this thought before I read through the rest of the posts so if this is a repeat If i would have read the rest of the post i would have lost this thought! : sorry.

Have you tried to replace the GFCI? They have a tendency to get weak over heavy use too. If you have the trouble on only one side of the controller then swap the plugs around an see if the problem follows if it blows when plugged into the other GFCI then it's your trees/cords if it does not blow then swap out your GFCI.
worth a try!
I had a GFCI problem with hot tub. It worked for a while then get hot and keep blowing. I replaced it and tub worked

I will not go back a read the rest of the posts lol

[jim6918]

doug petschke wrote:

Jim,
I read the problem and had this thought before I read through the rest of the posts so if this is a repeat If i would have read the rest of the post i would have lost this thought! : sorry.

Have you tried to replace the GFCI? They have a tendency to get weak over heavy use too. If you have the trouble on only one side of the controller then swap the plugs around an see if the problem follows if it blows when plugged into the other GFCI then it's your trees/cords if it does not blow then swap out your GFCI.
worth a try!
I had a GFCI problem with hot tub. It worked for a while then get hot and keep blowing. I replaced it and tub worked

I will not go back a read the rest of the posts lol

Don't apologize Doug. Actually when I first had trouble a couple of weeks ago during a similar wet snow storm, the first thing I did the next morning was to replace the GFCI. I posted a question about whether GFCI's get weak, There followed an interesting discussion about test equipment that would determine the leakage from a GFCI going bad, or something similarly over my head. Things went well for two weeks until last night, but it has been dry and cold. I also keep each controller to a single 20 circuit. My electrical panel for LOR is 100 amp and dedicated so nothing shared with LOR.