two channels not working

[Linda]

The controller has been working just fine until this morning. This morning I noticed that two trees (on channels one and two) were much brighter than the other trees on that controller. I had not noticed them being so much brighter before. All the trees are the same brand and bought at the same time. Now when I test the controller those two channels do not come on. We've plugged other lights into the two channels and they don't work either. We tested the lights on the trees and they all work, but when plugged into the controller they don't come on. We made sure all the terminals were seated good. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be? I'm desperate!

[Jim Hans]

I'm confused, how can the two trees be brighter than the other ones if they are not turning on? Assuming I misread your post, I would suggest re-setting the controller per the manual and see if that clears it up. You will most likely have to reset the unit ID etc after the reset.

[Linda]

The channels were working earlier this morning when we noticed the lights being brighter on the two trees. Later on I was playing a sequence and noticed that those two channels were no longer coming on. I pulled the jumper off and reset the controller but I don't know how to reset the unit id on it unless I go through the hardware utility, but the controller is showing up in the hardware utility and working fine except those two channels. It's a ctb16pc controller.

[Jim Hans]

One other thing I always look to do whenever a controller is acting weird, change out the cat 5 cable. a bad cat 5 antwhere in the network can cause weird things to happen.

[Linda]

It looks like another channel might be getting ready to go out if that's what the problem is. The lights on another channel of that controller were shining really bright and half of them burned out. While we were watching it all but one string burned out so we unplugged it real fast. This is really weird. I ran everything that I have on the controller this year on the same controller last year without problems. I tried calling LOR several times today but couldn't get through. I'm going to call again tomorrow and see if they can tell me what the problem might be if I can reach them.

[TJ Hvasta]

Are you sure its the actual channel and not bad sets of lights? Where did you get your strings? Are they incands or LEDs? Have you checked if the strings can actually dim, shimmer, fade, etc.. yes, it's happened certain mfgr's sets fail, burst into flame (rather spectacularly too) or get brights and go out..

[Linda]

Are you sure its the actual channel and not bad sets of lights? Where did you get your strings? Are they incands or LEDs? Have you checked if the strings can actually dim, shimmer, fade, etc.. yes, it's happened certain mfgr's sets fail, burst into flame (rather spectacularly too) or get brights and go out..

All ten trees are prelit and bought at Walmart last year. They all worked fine last year and up until this morning. The lights work fine when plugged into a regular outlet but not when they are plugged into the controller. They worked on the controller up until this morning. Nothing I plug in to those particular channels work but they work when plugged into regular outlets. I plugged those trees into spare channels on the controller and they're working fine now. It's just those two channels that are not working for some reason. For some reason they quit working this morning after the lights on those two trees (that were plugged into those channels) got really bright.