Surfing4Dough Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Brian, does this apply to any of the M6 lights, or just the C6 lights? I have some green M6's that I bought this year that I didn't use yet, and want to make sure I don't need to test them or do a burn in to make sure they don't have "issues". Great post, and thanks for the great customer service. That, combined with the best prices, has kept me coming back to HLE yearly. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Now the question,What will change in the future to run those lights at 100% as should be? I mean there should be a fix, right?Unless those lights asked to run at 80% are discounted 20%, I guess that might be okay, for some... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
portcity_gt Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Brian, does this apply to any of the M6 lights, or just the C6 lights? I have some green M6's that I bought this year that I didn't use yet, and want to make sure I don't need to test them or do a burn in to make sure they don't have "issues". Great post, and thanks for the great customer service. That, combined with the best prices, has kept me coming back to HLE yearly.ditto, I plan on placing my first order with hle for a case of green m6's soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holidaylightexpress Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Brian, does this apply to any of the M6 lights, or just the C6 lights? I have some green M6's that I bought this year that I didn't use yet, and want to make sure I don't need to test them or do a burn in to make sure they don't have "issues". Great post, and thanks for the great customer service. That, combined with the best prices, has kept me coming back to HLE yearly. Haven't seen anything unusual for the M6/M5 lights. It's mostly 50 count green C6. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holidaylightexpress Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Now the question,What will change in the future to run those lights at 100% as should be? I mean there should be a fix, right?Unless those lights asked to run at 80% are discounted 20%, I guess that might be okay, for some... Well, if you noticed, I said we are running about a 3% failure and they are mostly related to lights on a controller. That means the factory got it right 97% of the time. So again, this isn't an epidemic of light failures. This is simply a case of the factory getting a bad lot of parts to make the lights. We will do a little more thorough testing on all the green lights when they come in to make sure there isn't a glaring issue. As I always recommend to customers, plug your lights in before you install them, and if they are on a controller, let them run on the controller a little before you install them. This way you can catch any immediate failures before you spend hours building your displays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Yes, I did notice the earlier 3% reply. I was just wondering if there was something in the works to fix the 3% failure versus the .5% you like to see (which I don't think you really like to see any failure, even .5%) And as I previously stated, the vendors can get bad batches from manufacturers before even knowing a problem exist. I understand that, since I posted it.My question was directed at, does the manufacturer know of the problem to fix it? Another vendor dealt with the matter, and was fixed and I'm sure HLE will too. Believe me, I know you can't test every light that comes in, nor any other vendor.But we as customers shouldn't have to break out a controller and computer and test every strand we purchase for a period of time (not knowing how long of time and should it be at 80% or 100%) to see if they fail.That's just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holidaylightexpress Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 As I said before going to 80% gives you a better curve. Here is some more detailed info on that. http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/28540-dimming-curves-how-to/ Post #12 says he fails fewer LED's (doesn't say from where) using 80% out. #33 is a good explanation from LOR. The general conclusions on this thread is to get the right dimming curve set up and that LEDs work best at ~80%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holidaylightexpress Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Yes, I did notice the earlier 3% reply. I was just wondering if there was something in the works to fix the 3% failure versus the .5% you like to see (which I don't think you really like to see any failure, even .5%) And as I previously stated, the vendors can get bad batches from manufacturers before even knowing a problem exist. I understand that, since I posted it.My question was directed at, does the manufacturer know of the problem to fix it? Another vendor dealt with the matter, and was fixed and I'm sure HLE will too. Believe me, I know you can't test every light that comes in, nor any other vendor.But we as customers shouldn't have to break out a controller and computer and test every strand we purchase for a period of time (not knowing how long of time and should it be at 80% or 100%) to see if they fail.That's just my opinion. Yes the factory knows of the failure. They were the first people I talked to when the issue came up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 I appreciate your response. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhunt240 Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Im glad they are aware of this I just purchased a ton of c6s and retrofit c9 bulbs r,g,b,w hopefully no failures all 70ct and 100ct strands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhunt240 Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 I was still contemplating ordering over 100 50ct strings for some smaller spiral trees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EARLE W. TALLEY Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 This is the results of a test that I ran some time about the first week of Dec 2013 dealing with dimming curves and controller power settings. You can take them for what YOU think they are worth, this was my findings. The meter reading is voltage.All of my controllers are set at 86% using LOR dimming curve01. controller gen 3 using 5 channels all channels showed the same readings+-.01using a craftsman multi meter. Readings done with the console feature of the HU. dimming curve max power percent meter reading LOR STD. 100 0 0 50 63.3 75 96.0 85 105.9 90 109.9 100 118.3 LOR STD. 86 0 0 50 63.1 75 96.0 85 105.7 90 106.6 100 106.7 LOR 01 100 0 0 50 29.5 75 65.3 85 80.7 90 88.9 100 112.3 LOR 01 86 0 0 50 29.6 75 65.5 85 80.9 90 82.8 100 82.9After running the above tests I also ran a sequence with slow fades, the controller was set as per the last test settings and the fades ranged from a low of 1.31 to a high of 83.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph A Posted January 3, 2014 Author Share Posted January 3, 2014 I guess that it's not if something happens, but when it does how do we handle it. In this case I believe that HLE has gone out of there way to take care of us and replace the product on demand. He has notified the manufacture so that It doesn't happen again, and has provided us information on how to better use the product with a lower failure rate in the future. You can't ask for better service than that!! Thank you Brian! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holidaylightexpress Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 This is the results of a test that I ran some time about the first week of Dec 2013 dealing with dimming curves and controller power settings. You can take them for what YOU think they are worth, this was my findings. The meter reading is voltage.All of my controllers are set at 86% using LOR dimming curve01. controller gen 3 using 5 channels all channels showed the same readings+-.01using a craftsman multi meter. Readings done with the console feature of the HU. dimming curve max power percent meter reading LOR STD. 100 0 0 50 63.3 75 96.0 85 105.9 90 109.9 100 118.3 LOR STD. 86 0 0 50 63.1 75 96.0 85 105.7 90 106.6 100 106.7 LOR 01 100 0 0 50 29.5 75 65.3 85 80.7 90 88.9 100 112.3 LOR 01 86 0 0 50 29.6 75 65.5 85 80.9 90 82.8 100 82.9After running the above tests I also ran a sequence with slow fades, the controller was set as per the last test settings and the fades ranged from a low of 1.31 to a high of 83.0. Great info. I'm not sure if you were running LED strands or not. But if you were, did you see any brightness difference on high output between your settings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orchidman Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Should we not be more concerned with lumen output then with voltage with the curves? We want a smooth lumen transition and have to control that by the voltage. Earle, do you have light meter that you could use to measure the lumens output for a specific voltage curve? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dknahoolewa Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Just a side note: I purcahsed HLE4 cases of m6 50ct green2 cases of m6 50ct red2 cases 0f m6 50ct cool white100 C9 retrofit cool white100 C9 retrofit red100 C9 retrofit green All were add to the show this year and have had no failures. I'm not going to argue the fact of 80% on the LEDs but I for one am not going to take the time to fix every sequence so that the max on channel is 80% rather than 100%. That just seems like a pain. the product should be designed to do what we need it to not change to what is provided. Sucks for those that got the bad batch of lights. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EARLE W. TALLEY Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 What I tested were pure white leds 50 count m5. If you have ever used the HU console feature you can see the brightness of leds go from 0 to about 75-77% anything after that there is no change in the brightness of the strings. What I was trying to find was a dimming curve to match the 0 - 80 % power that leds seam to perform well. There was not a light meter used just what I could see with my eyes. Anyone can do the same thing, just hook a string of lights to a controller, attach it to the HU, go to the console feature, and perform your own test and look at the results. I saw that with the controller set at 86% using lor dimming curve01 that my dimming was what I wanted as well as not putting 100% of the voltage into the leds. I found this out about 4 years ago when I started loosing m5 greens lights from Travis I changed my controllers to 86% and did not loose any more lights. I also have to say that I use leds from CDI, HLE, MITS, and Christmas-LED. This year I lost two half strings of green m5 that were from Travis that are 4 years old and two half strings of blue c6 from MITS that are 3 years old, last year I lost two green m6 strings that were new for that year from HLE (HLE replaced them). The only thing I can say is that it works for me, I am NOT telling YOU to do this, make up your own mind.Earle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparkDr Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Now that the season's over & we're picking up a little more interest on the topic, I thought I'd chime back in with my final findings and offer up another thought for discussion. Before all was said & done, I lost one more string of the 50ct C6 greens to partial failure. Additionally, the miraculously self-repairing 100ct string mentioned in my earlier post failed again in the same spot and was unable to resurrect itself this time. I'll request replacements from Brian when I send back the other failed strings once I catch a break in the weather and can pull them down for the season (hopefully, this weekend!). Again, I cannot say enough about the quality of customer service I have received throughout this process. HLE had new strings in my hand within 2 days of a failure on every occasion without any question. My latest thought revolves around the controllers themselves and if a particular generation of controller or setting might be more problematic than another. I have a single CTB16PC controller for my display. I bought it as a new, old stock unassembled kit from an existing user's inventory of spares this past spring. I believe it is a Gen2 as it has a red LED and I updated the firmware when I 1st put it together. I have not changed the dimming curve from the standard setting. Would anyone else experiencing failures care to share their controller info to help build a data pool? Or maybe someone really smart could chime in telling me what a stupid idea this is the first place because I'm a newbie who really doesn't know anything yet? It's ok if you do. I come from a long generation of stupid people who are fairly thick-skinned when it comes to all things techie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santas Helper Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Spark, your not stupid. Your learning.Stupid is when not asking a question or assistance on this forum.Even the oldest vet here still asks questions.We're all in it together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Surfing4Dough Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Spark, your not stupid. Your learning.Stupid is when not asking a question or assistance on this forum.Even the oldest vet here still asks questions.We're all in it together. The old guys have to keep asking questions probably since the forgot that they already asked that question before. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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