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Posted

Anyone on the forums happen to be familar with what the Spade and lug sizes are for the PC boards? Need to know if the spades and lug terminals I am looking to purchase will fit on the PC board terminals. Thanks! Sizes I am looking at currently are .250in x .032.

Posted

Those are the correct dimensions. Here's the Digikey PN for the blade: 1287-STK-ND

Posted (edited)

yep, .25 .. 1/4" .. half of half inch.. :) I think I got mine from Mouser.. (looking back thru my email notices for purchase order) yep, found it.. Mouser,

Part number ITEM QUANT EA TTL

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

538-19003-0041 QUICK DISCONNECT 100 0.160 16.00

Edited by TJ Hvasta
Posted

TJ, Which end did you buy from Mouser? I'm trying to get both the end that goes on the power cord and the piece that is soldered to the AC board. Thanks.

Posted

I answered my own question by searching the part number on the site. :) But not sure if the spade I have will work or not. Here's the tab I was able to find. http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=62409-1virtualkey57100000virtualkey571-624091 might have to go search by size of what you found instead to make sure sizes match.

Unless someone is better at metric conversions than I am and can convert these?

Posted

Just remember the magic number. There is 25.4mm to 1 inch. So, roughly 1/4" = 6.35mm.

Posted

yep, .25 .. 1/4" .. half of half inch.. :) I think I got mine from Mouser.. (looking back thru my email notices for purchase order) yep, found it.. Mouser,

Part number ITEM QUANT EA TTL

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

538-19003-0041 QUICK DISCONNECT 100 0.160 16.00

Don't mean to rain on your desert TJ, but I get the insulated female spade lugs for about eleven bucks for a box of 100 at Ace Hardware.

Posted (edited)

Don't mean to rain on your desert TJ, but I get the insulated female spade lugs for about eleven bucks for a box of 100 at Ace Hardware.

It's been awhile since I've needed to buy them, but I agree- I priced them online once upon a time and it was cheaper to just buy them locally. Unless you're building dozens of controllers at once or something, otherwise shipping kills the deal...

Edited by Tim Fischer
Posted

I purchased 100 3m insulated 1/4 females on eBay for like $8.00 with free shipping.

Posted

Sorry George, but you couldnt pay me to even go inside Ace, let alone shop there.. If my car was on fire, I wouldnt go ask to use their phone. Ace people are rude, arrogant, condescendig, and their junk is waaaay overpriced. Here in AZ, anyway.. jus sayin'. Thanks anyway.

Posted

Sorry George, but you couldnt pay me to even go inside Ace, let alone shop there.. If my car was on fire, I wouldnt go ask to use their phone. Ace people are rude, arrogant, condescendig, and their junk is waaaay overpriced. Here in AZ, anyway.. jus sayin'. Thanks anyway.

Hmm, the Aces I (occasionaly) frequent are always helpful and nice. Prices are usually a little steep, but that's par for the course for a pseudo-independent hardware store...

Posted

So by the sounds of it, it sounds like what Ive picked out should work? Unless I just buy the resistors at mouser and build the snubbers that other people do. Was trying to build a small board on each 8 channel side of the PC controller for the 47K resistors to connect to to help with fading of LED's connected to this controller. but maybe running it in the board wouldn't give me what I am looking for in regards to the capacative cutoff that this resistor provides to the LED's so they have a smoother fade up and down with the Triac. Someone have some input on this?

Posted (edited)

Yep, you might discover that using snubbers, you may very well get the LEDs to fade down to 1%, then just go "off", with no fade steps below 1% to Zero. My RGB strips do this.. Hope your LEDs wont.

Edited by TJ Hvasta
Posted

Ive had issues with my LED's doing this in the past, thats why im looking at this option as my display will be moved to a different location this year so i want to make sure everything looks good when it comes to the fades as that will be key to making the display look good. As I only plan to use on, off and fades for the most part for 2012, simmer and twinkle would be to much for the display im trying to do. Have you tried any snubbers or plugging in incad lights to the channels TJ? I did that last year for my mega tree and it was quite a big difference, I was suprised.

Posted (edited)

I got a good explanation about 1% to Zero fades for LEDs.. theres a min voltage cutoff point at which the LEDs just stop working, and it seems it is naught bypassable.. so once ya get ta 1%, jus' expect them ta jus' switch off.. it still works for me.. I 'ave naught tried any method o' snubbin'.. ..sounds ratha' indecent really P-)

Edited by TJ Hvasta
Posted

My fading seemed to have issues from like 10% to 0 though it would just cut off because the firing of the triac on the pc controller wasn't like that of an incad set. was way different, and too low of current draw it seemed. which is what they claim the snubbers are suppose to help with.

Posted

basically.. as LEDs have a lot lower resistance point than incands, the triacs arent able to see there is a load on the end of the line and "kinda, just shut off".. the snubbers (Glade plug-ins, etc) present a "visable load" for the triacs to contnue working.. thats a really simplified explanation, but it works.. the only LEDs I have right now arrre on my halloween yard fences, BigLots orange LEDs and they fade fine down to 1%.. the RGB strips I'm using on the house outlines for halloween, I just experimented breifly, discovered the "Off below 1%" so I'll just have to adjust accordingly.. as the strips are goingto be only green for the Emerald City, it isnt a real factor.

Now, for the Chirstmas lighting, I wont be able to tell until I run some tests, and my DC board burned up last month, so I'm waiting on a replacement from LOR. And as the strips arrrre DC, I'm not sure just how I'd be able to add an additional load to the strips other than some type of resistor pack.

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