plasmadrive Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 (edited) What if LOR put jumpers in line with all the low voltage sides of optocouplers that drive the triacs.. That way if you program with spares... always a good idea... if a triac goes bad, simply take the jumper out isolating that opto and jumper the signal to the spare channel opto. No program changes would be needed... it is all on the low voltage side... could get someone out of a bind rather quickly.. Just have to change plug locations. It would cost a bit more and any type of "connector/connection" adds possible point of failure.. but .. would it be worth it? Just wondering out loud.. so to speak. Edited November 10, 2014 by plasmadrive 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hans Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 That is the best idea I have heard all year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That would save hours of mid-show work every year as I re-do sequences to work around the blown triacs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trickyd Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 Good afternoon Plasmadrive How are you? You would need to connect the wire to other outletport anyway, what would be the advantage compared to 1 line edit in the channelconfig to sparechannels on a not fully used controller?? Do you have so many songs/shows that it takes so mucht time? One solution you could do is put the optocouplers on ( good ) ic sockets, as I put all the ic on sockets anyway, even not supplied from lor. You cold make your own kind of jumpers that way, that you could apply when needed. An opto with on the low voltage side wires like supplied with breadboards and on the high voltage side still with the feet into the socket. Greetings from The Netherlands Lichtjesdick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 Good afternoon Plasmadrive How are you? You would need to connect the wire to other outletport anyway, what would be the advantage compared to 1 line edit in the channelconfig to sparechannels on a not fully used controller?? Do you have so many songs/shows that it takes so mucht time? One solution you could do is put the optocouplers on ( good ) ic sockets, as I put all the ic on sockets anyway, even not supplied from lor. You cold make your own kind of jumpers that way, that you could apply when needed. An opto with on the low voltage side wires like supplied with breadboards and on the high voltage side still with the feet into the socket. Greetings from The Netherlands Lichtjesdick Hi Dick, Actually my config files are rather large.. and if I change it in one I have to go and change the config file for every sequence. Then I have to go change the plug anyway.. So, rather than screw around with my config files and possibly messing something up.. if I found a bad channel, I would open the controller, remove a small jumper, connect another jumper, close the controller, change the dongle it plugs into and done. Now my files are all still the same as they have always been. I can fix the triac in the off season.. the entire thing would have taken about 60 seconds and it would be done. It would be different if you had a single config file that each sequence looked at automatically. That doesn't happen in LOR. If you change one, you have to change them all. If you have 20-30 sequences that would be time consuming.. How's the weather over there? Craig 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 I can see this would end up like the old telephone switch operator with her cords and plugs making like a spider's web across her board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trickyd Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 Good afternoon All Graig, I understand. ( it is november, this year going from almost summer ( plus 20 celcius ) less than 2 weeks ago to normal november temps. ) I meant this to be done only for the defective channel with the temporary jumper. A said after season you can always fix the unit with a new triac to normal working state with a normal opto in place. And if you do not have a spare channel on that specific defective controller , you would need a spare controller to fit in instead. So keeping spares seems essential anyway, regardless of the cost it will bring. The show must go on! Also I must say, we work with 230 volts here, but no triac failure so far. The currents are half compared with 110 volts, with same number of watts, maybe that is an explanation. Have a nice evening Lichtjesdick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted November 11, 2014 Share Posted November 11, 2014 One solution you could do is put the optocouplers on ( good ) ic sockets, as I put all the ic on sockets anyway, even not supplied from lor. You cold make your own kind of jumpers that way, that you could apply when needed. An opto with on the low voltage side wires like supplied with breadboards and on the high voltage side still with the feet into the socket. That's a great idea, doesn't require any changes to the circuit board, and can be implemented when building from a kit, with just 16 sockets. In the event of a failure, you don't even need a breadboard. Just remove the optos from both the bad and spare channels, bend the leads of one, solder wires to the low-voltage side, plug it into the spare high-voltage side, and plug the wires into the original channel. If you keep a spare opto handy with wires already soldered, you could probably to this repair in the field in a few minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeighty Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Plasmadrive - I like the idea. Either that or make the triacs modular, even in the LOR built units, similar to what Trickyd is saying. I currently have one controller with a stuck channel 6 at about 50%. I will address this after Christmas. This is something that people that are smart enough to setup a controller should be able to handle with proper safety measures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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