LED Dimming - LOR Firmware Upgrade Required?

[jaanth]

Hi,

 

I added my new neighbor's house to our display this year, he had never done outdoor lights before and purchased LED Strings. His strings don't fade, more of a rapid flicker when dimming. I tested adding a incandesent string in line, thinking it may just need a snubber, but no real effect.  I did not try snubbing all the circuits at the same time, only two of them, but my understanding is that I should have seen improvement on those two.

 

The controllers I loaned him are older, and in looking at the firmware it is not current. 1 controller CTB16PC Gen 1 - V4.02, the other CTB08 V1.0. The strings connected to the CTB08, exhibit much worse flickering than the other. 

 

Can old firmware be causing the problem?

 

I have never needed to update firmware before (obvious from the version numbers), can it be upgraded over the LOR network, with other controllers on the line? Or does the controller to be upgraded need to be the only thing on the network?  

 

Thanks,

 

Jim

 

[Don]

Just my guess, but I don't think firmware is going to be the solution. I would suspect snubbers or an incandescent load on the channel would be a better fix.

[Bobbee]

This is a behavior seen with pervious versions of the firmware and most DMX dimmer packs. The newer versions have a built-in On/Off curve. A LED curve is provided which is the average for various LED colors and dimmeable power supply configurations. The g3 firmware accepts up to eight downloaded, custom curves. The default location for curve for curve files is:

...Light-O-Rama\DimmingCurves

[Max-Paul]

I suspect that he might have picked up one of the makes that do not fade well. I wonder, are they by chance of the Martha Stewart make? Firmware updates usually fix bugs. But realize there is no firmware that would enable this new LED fade curve on Gen 1 or 2 boards.

 

I believe you said that you added an Ican string and that this did not help. I have strong suspections that the problem is one of those strings that are not compatible as I mentioned above. But not limited to the Martha Stewart brand.

[jaanth]

Thank you for suggestions, I was able to do some testing this evening before show time, here is what I have learned.

 

I did upgrade the firmware on the CTB16PC (I have a spare controller, just in case it didn't work.)  Yes, you upgrade it while it is in the network. No effect.

 

I found that one the CTBPC16 controller, if I put snubbers on the LEDs, things settled down. Without the snubber, multiple other channels than the one channel being faded will randomly have actvity. Channels on both the CTB16PC and CTB08. This is repeatable, by adding/removing the snubber.

 

But wait there is more, on CTB08, the fading LEDs on channels 5,6,7,8 work great (with & without snubbers), I found that any fade on channel 1,2,3,4 causes significant activity on other channels, on both the CTB08 and CTB16PC. The channels that get activity are both LED and Incandesent.

 

The two controllers are the end of my LOR network, they are both running from the same house circuit, different house from all other controllers.

 

So now I have a whole new set of questions, on how to troubleshoot this and I don't know if any apply.  

 

Is it possible a failure on the CTB08 is causing random traffic on the network?

Could some other noise from a power line affect the communication?

Would a bad network cable exhibit this type of activity?

 

Tomorrow, in the daylight I will try swapping the CTB08 with my spare, but do people have other suggestions of things I can try in case the problem continues?

 

Thanks.

[a31ford]

somewhat OT, BUT.... info to add.

 

FYI

 

I bought some GE strings, and each segment of each string has a capacitor IN-LINE with each segment. (funny looking little tube)

 

For what it's worth, I snubbered them (at the far end of the string with 47K ohm 1 watt resistors in a vampire plug) (soldered the leads and then hot glued the innards as I put the cap on), it's cold enough here, that the hot glue doesn't melt, and the strings dim very well....

 

Greg

[a31ford]

Oh, BTW,

 

why the Capacitor is in-line ? Because you can take up voltage with a cap (most people do not know this) HOWEVER, the real reason is so the segments do not flicker on 60CPS. (I cut one apart and tested the segment). Nice and steady with, flickers without.

 

Greg