Lights randomly flicker on singing faces

[Struax87]

Hopefully this is where I should be asking this. I have two new controllers and hooked up my 3 singing faces to the controllers. I noticed that when the sequences aren't even running I have 2 or 3 channels flickering with very low intensity. It seems to be happening on the two faces hooked to the 2nd controller. I also noticed this happens towards the end of a sequence when the song is ending or between songs. I've gone back through the sequences to see if any stray lights were on by mistake,but I couldn't find anything on. I'm using incadencent rope lights for the mouth and eyes. I also found that its does not happen at the same places during a sequence and the numbers of channels flicker would change when running sequences over again. I donot have all the lights hooked to all the channels only the 3 faces with 7 channels each. Any help would we apprciated

Thank You

[james campbell]

sounds like a bad triac,try changing your lights to an open channel,now if the lights still flicker then it probaly is in the sequence.

Edited September 30, 2012 by james campbell

[Struax87]

These controllers are new would they be bad? One I bought from LOR and the other came from WOW What exactly am I looking for in the sequences?

[Max-Paul]

Did you connect the power cords to them? Are you sure that the wall outlet is wired correctly? I had similar problems my first year, though I was using LEDs. In my case the plug I was using was not polarized and I ended up applying neutral to the fuses and Hot to the quick connects in the middle of the PC board. So, I was applying hot out to the light strings and switching the neutral at the controllers. This caused weard flickering and what I called ghost lights (just barely on when no show was running). I wouldnt think Icans would do the same.

[Orville]

Yes, it is possible to get a bad triac in a new controller. Although since you say it is flickering at low intensity, here's what I would do.

Put the the flickering lights on a channel that IS NOT doing this, if it happens on these channels, then it is not a bad triac in the controller, it WOULD be the sequence.

Now here's where it gets difficult, looking for a low intensity flicker in a sequence IS NOT always visible to the eye, there may be a very minute area where you faded a shimmer or twinkle down to 0 {zero} intensity, went back, made changes to this area of the sequences and left stray cells on at very low intensity levels. You will have to look extremely close at the sequence cells to locate the stray "on" cells that could be creating this issue.

This happened to me when I first started sequencing, I literally had to get a magnifying glass and go along the sequence to locate the channels that were on as they were so small, they were almost completely invisible to see.

Another option may be that where the flicker is occuring you may have accidentally set up a background sequence within the sequence, this too, can create some interesting problems if it was not intended. Again, you'd have to search for where the lights start to flicker within the sequence and remove that background sequence from the sequence by deleting it once found.

Good Luck. But I really don't think you have bad triacs, just something is hidden within your sequence creating the issue you're having.

Let us know what you eventually find that created the problem.

[Struax87]

Thanks orville. I am very new to this. I'm not really sure how to determin if the lights are in the forground or back ground

[Tim Fischer]

Is it possible to post a video of what's going on? I'm not sure what "flicker" means in this context (could mean several different things)

Thanks.

[storminstang06]

This is what I would try. Play the sequence in Sequence Editor and make sure 'Control Lights' is on in the Play menu. Figure out which channels are behaving this way since these are the ones you'll want to look at in your sequence. Play the sequence and stop it when the lights flicker. Hover the mouse over the time cells of your problematic channels. A pop-up box will tell you if the lights are off or not. You can also change the fade view to ramping by clicking 'View fades as ramps' button at the top of the screen, but you still may not see if it is on or not. If lights are doing this between sequences, you may not have programmed your show to turn lights off at the end of each sequence (in Show Editor). If you used Simple Show Builder, it doesn't give you that option, and I'm not sure what it will do automatically.

If none of this works, plug the lights into another channel or a wall outlet. If they flicker, you may have a faulty bulb in the string or a bulb may not be making a good connection. I'm not sure how to fix this with rope light. If they don't flicker, you probably have a bad triac. If you aren't able to fix this, contact LOR. If you're comfortable with soldering, contact LOR to ship parts (always free). If you have unused channels, use those to control the lights temporarily. The bad triac thing happened to me on a board I soldered together about two weeks into the Christmas season the first time I ever used it and it was not a bad soldering job. It was a bad triac.

I hope I'm not making this sound worse than it is, I'm just trying to be detailed and cover all the bases I can think of. Good luck!

[Jerry]

Try swapping the controllers. Unplug everything , move the faces that were on unit 1 over to unit 2, and put the faces that were on unit 2 onto unit 1. If this makes no difference , and you still have the same problem then it's a good chance it's in the sequence. If the problem moves to the other faces, then it may be a bad controller. If the problem moves, you could plug that controller into another set of outlets in the house and connect some other lights and see what happens.

[Struax87]

Thank you for all the information I will try looking at the sequences again tonight when I get home. I used the simple show builder to test the faces. I'm not sure what the default is . Hopefully it's set wrog

Thanks

[Orville]

Thank you for all the information I will try looking at the sequences again tonight when I get home. I used the simple show builder to test the faces. I'm not sure what the default is . Hopefully it's set wrog

Thanks

The Simple Show Builder {SSB} does not have any settings. The only thing it does is create a file from the sequences you tell it to use, and then uses the start and end times you set to run your show {30 minute or hourly increments}. It can do nothing else, so it is extremely doubtful the SSB added, or did anything to create this issue, It would be within the sequence itself or the possibility of a bad triac, again, which can and has happened.

Unfortunately it would seem LOR may have gotten a bad lot of triacs right after they built the GEN3 controllers, as several folks *did* have some triac problems, but haven't heard of any recently. So the next question would be, when did you buy and receive your controllers? Especially, if you can't find anything in your sequences that could be creating this issue. If you also can't find the issue in the sequence and the controllers check out okay, you may want to have someone else take a look at the sequence{s} you're using to see if they can find the problem.

Sometimes it just helps to have someone else take a look and see if it's something very simple that you're just overlooking.

EDIT: it would also be helpful if you post your location in your profile, then there may be someone very close to you that could help you out locally/in person.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Orville

[wbaker4]

Try attaching a small incandescent bulb (C9/C7) to the channel that flickers. I have that problem with some LED strings. The bulb handles the problem nicely.

[Orville]

If you do happen to use a C7 or C9 bulb on the end of a LED strand, paint the bulb flat black so no light shows from it. That way you don't have this clear or colored bulb glaring on at the end of the strand. If the strand starts flickering again, you know the C7/C9 bulb has failed and needs to be replaced. So paint up a few spares in Flat Black to have on hand when, or if that were to happen.

[ToddH]

Did you build this seq that its happening to or did you purchase an already built one and just cut and pasted it into yours. If you did, it might be like what Orville said and have a very low fade on where you can not see it within the sequence.

The only thing that has me is that you say its happening sporadically within the sequence and not at the same place, if that is the case then it sounds like something else...

[Orville]

Did you build this seq that its happening to or did you purchase an already built one and just cut and pasted it into yours. If you did, it might be like what Orville said and have a very low fade on where you can not see it within the sequence.

The only thing that has me is that you say its happening sporadically within the sequence and not at the same place, if that is the case then it sounds like something else...

Here's another thought and it seems we've all missed it, the music file the OP is using may be in VBR format and NOT CBR!

Since this is happening sporadically within the sequence, this would be the very first culprit I'd be looking at, the MP3 file used to make sure it IS NOT in VBR, but CBR. Had to reread the OP and this is what stood out to make me think this is the problem they are having::

]I also found that its does not happen at the same places during a sequence and the numbers of channels flicker would change when running sequences over again.

VBR is Variable Bit Rate and it will play havoc with your sequence by doing what the OP is having issues with.

CBR is Constant Bit Rate and is the recommened form for MP3 files in the LOR Sequence Editor, the CBR will keep everything in synch and time, the VBR can get your lights out of synch, play havoc with fades, shimmers and twinkles,, as well as turn on or off lights where you did not intend it to happen.

So if after looking at your sequence and finding no issue, and finding no problems with the LOR Controller{s}, check your MP3 file, then if it is in VBR form, download a program like Audacity and change it to CBR, That should finally eliminate your problem, if not, then recheck sequence for stray ON's again in there. Otherwise if not a triac, not the sequence and not the MP3, I really wouldn't know what it could be at that point and you may have to send the controller in to LOR to take a look at for issues we can't determine, like a bad part somewhere in the controller.

But I'm really thinking it may be your MP3 file is in the incorrect format and that could cause this issue as well.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Orville

[Max-Paul]

Is your CAT5 cable running right next to any of the power leads? Say from one controller over to the next and the ext cord is laying real close to the CAT5 cable? If so, have about 1 foot separation. Now retest and tell if that helped any.