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LOR experiences


jallenl

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I've been using Light O Rama products for 2 years now, but I have been looking and following for a bit longer before I made the plunge. In my short experience with the company I would like to say that the support has been STELLAR! I've noticed a couple of things that have happened with my products and would like to relay them to everyone in particular, the folks at the company. First off, I live around Houston TX area and the humdity is high and we get rain instead of snow. The following are a couple of observations that seem to be repeatable. When I have trouble with a product it seems to involve the weather and rain. I now own a couple of cosmic floods and they seem to be particularly sensitive to rain. I can say this because after two different rain events my floods have failed by staying on at low intensity ( a sticking channel). This was similar to other events I've had with 1602 controllers and triac failures. I've noticed since I've put snubbers on all of my controllers that I am not having any issues unless, prior to the snubber being installed, a particular channel had some type of triac problem and the triac was not changed. If I start with known good triacs and a snubber, no more triac issues, regardless of the weather.. This leads me to believe that the issue with the floods has something to do with the need for additional snubbers beween the control board and the lights. I also have noticed with the rain comes random flashing of lights on controllers that are outside, some kind of data mixup. Most of my controllers are mounted on the inside garage wall where they are protected and don't have issues. At some point I will likely move them all inside. I have 6 mounted in the garage and 3 more plus the CCF and CCR controllers outside. So far the CCR's have been good, controllers and power supplies are mounted in weather proof boxes from Allied Electronics. I would like to ask if anyone has any experience with surface mount components? Are they easily repaired?

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There is a product out there that I dont remember the trade name for it. But the process is called conformal coating. I used to work for a company that made electronic parts for the F-15 and F-18. These circuit boards went into boxes that went into the nose of the aircraft. These board could go from a hot desert air base to way up where things freeze in mater of seconds and then back down again. This would cause front and then water on the boards. Hence the reason they got this conformal coating.

I am cheap and have had no negative results on 10 PC boards. I use Kryon clear Acrylic spray paint. I tape over all of the spade connectors, heat sinks, socketed chips, fuse holders, and the three data jacks. And to be truthful, last year I went supper cheap and did not spray paint one of my new controllers. I was having trouble locating the demac box that I mount my controller in, in the past. So, I hear someone else put it in a battery box (think deep cycle battery) Well water must have been blowing in and I had some channel turn on due to the shorting of the water. After the season was over I checked out the board. The resistor by the opto couple was partially rusted but cleaned up well. Then the board got a coating.

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I've seen the conformal coating used to build solar panels but that would be an encapsulation type coating? Guess I'll try the krylon thing and see how that works. Rain, in and around Houston this time of year is really wreaking havoc on my setup. Thanks for the tip!

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