Did one of my controller boxes crash? - How do I diagnose it

[Guest guest]

My display was running and all of a sudden, one box is out. I rebooted my machine, checked all power and went into the control panel, it didn't find the box. Yes, I rechecked the cords going into it and they are on. This box is in #3 in a chain of 5 ethernet cables and the ones after it have no problem. Please help. Thank you, James

[Guest guest]

James:

Is the LED on that box on steady? If not, check the fuse. Make sure all power is disconnnected to that box before touching the internal parts.

Mike

[Guest guest]

James,

Check a couple basic things first.

1.) Make sure you have power going to the box. (no GFCIs popped)

2.) Do you have a blinking LED for this box? You may have to reset the board.

Is it a 16D or 8D? Go to the LOR WIKI to find out how to reset the boards.

Hopefully it's something this simple. Good Luck.

James

[Guest guest]

I opened up the box and no LED on or blinking. Yes, I do have power in the two cords going to the unit, nothing is tripped. I looked at the fuses and they are white.

[Guest guest]

Forgot to mention, it is a 16 plug unit.

[Guest guest]

r53142 wrote:

I opened up the box and no LED on or blinking. Yes, I do have power in the two cords going to the unit, nothing is tripped. I looked at the fuses and they are white.

1) If you've got a multimeter, pull the fuses out and check them for continuity.

2) Again with a multimeter, check for voltage on the screws where the power is being supplied to the card.

[Guest guest]

I have a multimeter, what should I set it at for each of the tests.

[Guest guest]

r53142 wrote:

I have a multimeter, what should I set it at for each of the tests.

For the continuity test, it is normally the setting where the multimeter beeps if you touch the leads together. That'd be the easiest way for me to describe it without seeing it. You touch one lead to each end of the fuse. If it beeps, it's good. No beep is a bad fuse.

[Guest guest]

Ok, I've done the following.

I first tried as mentioning above to set the box to 0, plug in, wait about 30 seconds, unplug, change back to 1 and then plug in. No LEDs blinked.

I next took a tester that I can use in wall outlets to see if there is power by the fuses. On one side, the light came on, and on the other nothing. I tried switching the source power cords to see and the same side came on. Its the left side of the box where the tester did not light up.

I pulled out both fuses to test. For the one on the right side using an ohm multimeter, the one on the right (the side that lit up showed a 1), the one on the left showed 0 most of the time except when I set it to 200, the it showed a range of .2 to .04. The fuse types say F15A/250VP On the other side is says 314.

So I would take it by the above that the fuse on the left is blown and needs replacement. If so, where do I get these fuses?

Also from curiosity, why did both sides go out when only one side of the fuse blew?

Let me know if I'm on the right track. Thank you.

[Guest guest]

r53142 wrote:

Also from curiosity, why did both sides go out when only one side of the fuse blew?

Let me know if I'm on the right track. Thank you.

Sounds like you've got a handle on the problem now. Radio Shack has the fuses and probably plenty of other places. It's a common fuse.

As far as why both sides would go out. On the 16 channel board, one side handles channels 1-8 and the other handles 9-16 (which you probably already knew). But one of those sides (I don't remember which one) also has to handle the processor and other board logic. If you blow whichever side that is, you lose all channels. If you blow the other side, you only lose the 8 channels.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the help. I'll be off too pick up some fuses in the morning. This is where we need a 24 hour hardware store so we can get our stuff and make sure everything works before going to bed.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the help. I'll be off too pick up some fuses in the morning. This is where we need a 24 hour hardware store so we can get our stuff and make sure everything works before going to bed.

If someone made a 24 hour hardware store franchise, I would love them forever!

I mean how many times has it been 11pm and you find some one little stupid thing you need (night just lights, but every thing in life)

[Guest guest]

dslowik wrote:

r53142 wrote:

Also from curiosity, why did both sides go out when only one side of the fuse blew?

Let me know if I'm on the right track. Thank you.

Sounds like you've got a handle on the problem now. Radio Shack has the fuses and probably plenty of other places. It's a common fuse.

Or, you could use a nail or a penny....oh wait...that was BAD information from a HGTV program....:shock: Dont try that or you will really be sorry!!!

[Guest guest]

doublea wrote:

Thanks for the help. I'll be off too pick up some fuses in the morning. This is where we need a 24 hour hardware store so we can get our stuff and make sure everything works before going to bed.

If someone made a 24 hour hardware store franchise, I would love them forever!

I mean how many times has it been 11pm and you find some one little stupid thing you need (night just lights, but every thing in life)

This is a good reason to buy several backup fuses as well. So the next time this happens, you don't even have to leave the house.

On a different note, there is a reason you blew that fuse. You might have too much of a load on the side that blew. So you might think about what your running and consider swapping a couple things. If not, you'll probably blow more fuses.

Just a thought.

[Guest guest]

Thanks to everyones help, it was a fuse and it was the fuse in channel one. The only difficulty faced after I put in new ones is that they blew too. Ok, the next step I took was to plug each item into an outlet to see which one was bad if any. #16 of course was the one (rope light present) that sparked when I went to plug it in. I took it off line (unpluged it from a 5:1 plug and restarted everything. All works, yeah and again thanks to all.

Here is a sequence just finished. Hope you like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwyX7cBbhdg



James