Fade down is not working right...

[ezimnow]

I noticed a problem when testing  5 channels tonight on a star. The fade down starts on time but ends way to early..so I set up a test...

 

5 channel star and 49 seconds long   "fade down ..It says fade down from 100% to 0% but at 24 seconds in it has faded to 0%...

 

 

Looking at the sequence it does not appear the sequence had faded to 0%..it looks as if the fade is working correctly all the way thru the 49 sec sequence.

 

So what's different...I made 5 extension cables with Spt1....the fade up seems to work ok as well as twinkle...

 

What am I doing wrong?

[dgrant]

What kind of lights are on that channel? LED's may not fade the same between different types, depending on full wave, half-wave and so on. Incans should fade just fine but that depends on how much current they draw to illuminate. There are settings for the controllers that you can change, "Dimming Curves" and those are done channel by channel in the each controller. Look at the controller documention to accomplish that if needed. Before going there, test with a different type of string, to verify if that's the issue or not.

[MCas4380]

If your using LED’s find an  Air freshener to act like a snubber or any other element that’s not LED to add to that channel it will help distribute the power being faded and work better.  Or search here for led fading problem you should find some threads were others have used these ideas.

[ezimnow]

Well the thing is I am only using one set of LED's on a channel to test....so I know you need snubbers but typically you only need them if your using more than a certain amount of sets of lights on one channel....and I use them but not for 1 set.

 

I ran a test in the hardware panel but you can only test for 25 seconds...and I've used these lights going on 5 years. but as you suggested i tried 5 new sets of lights directly connected to the controller on different channels.  so one set per channel. I run a 50 sec test sequence and at 25 seconds in they have faded down to 0% ....

the thing is if I go to play from visible screen and move the play buttom to say 40 seconds in I can see the lights fade as they should at that point but when I go back to the beggining they fade at 25 sec....I dont get it ?

[Steven]

the thing is if I go to play from visible screen and move the play buttom to say 40 seconds in I can see the lights fade as they should at that point but when I go back to the beggining they fade at 25 sec....I dont get it ?

 

I'm guessing that you found a bug in the controller firmware. (That hasn't been tested because no one uses 50-second fades!)

When you play the whole sequence, it sends a single event to the controller that says: Fade down over 30000 centi-seconds. However, when you use the sequence editor and scroll 40 seconds in, the sequence editor has to compute a new event that starts lower and fades over 1000 centi-seconds.

 

If that is indeed the case, then your workaround is to separate the 50-second fade into 5 10-second fades. To keep the sequence editor from merging them together, you'll make each one not exactly 10-seconds, but 9 seconds, then 10, then 11, etc.

[pdowns]

I have been trying to resolve very similar problems reported above.  I had a sequence of the entire length of the song.  Something goes awry during longer sequences, the exact duration being very dependent on what I have asked the CCR to do during that sequence.  My CCR sequences then go dark.

 

I am using 12 CCRs at firmware 1.07.  I see that 1.17 is available.  Comments on the levels?

 

I think a foolproof workaround is to limit oneself to 10 second sequences.  I've never had a failure in as little as 10 seconds but I have had them in 20 seconds.