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Does the Cold affect the Controllers?


aksnowman

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Today is the 1st day it has gotton really cold (-5 to -10 range for last 24 hours) and when my show started this evening, one bank of lights (all on the same controller, #4 of 4) come on, but flicker or shut off instead of staying on like programmed to.

Show has run perfect every night so far. Does it maybe need to build up a little heat or is there another possible problem?

Thanks in advance and Merry Christmas.

Jeff in Alaska

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aksnowman wrote:

Today is the 1st day it has gotton really cold (-5 to -10 range for last 24 hours) and when my show started this evening, one bank of lights (all on the same controller, #4 of 4) come on, but flicker or shut off instead of staying on like programmed to.

Show has run perfect every night so far. Does it maybe need to build up a little heat or is there another possible problem?

Thanks in advance and Merry Christmas.

Jeff in Alaska


We use parts rated down to -40... Now with that said it could still be some marginal componet in that controler that caused the problem. Keep an eye on it and if it continues to act up let us know at support@lightorama.com
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My lights have been "flickering" all season, mainly the CTB-08's. It's on my list of things to do to gather data about it and talk to Dan/LOR support about it off-season...

Certain fades, particularly long fade downs, will do it, most but not all of the time... I"m wondering if it has something to do with how the fade hits the 60hz AC cycle...

-Tim

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Tim Fischer wrote:

My lights have been "flickering" all season, mainly the CTB-08's. It's on my list of things to do to gather data about it and talk to Dan/LOR support about it off-season...

Certain fades, particularly long fade downs, will do it, most but not all of the time... I"m wondering if it has something to do with how the fade hits the 60hz AC cycle...

-Tim


Tim, you are talking about "incandescant" bulbs flickering... right?

Surely this is not the ole issue of LEDs not drawing enough power to shut off the channel, as you seem to know about that stuff... right?

This does sound a little odd. I had this issue with some incandescant bulbs on a new controller this year, but Dan set me straight on how to change the box ID temporarily to get it working ;-) I guess that is not your issue?
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Richard Hamilton wrote:

Tim Fischer wrote:
My lights have been "flickering" all season, mainly the CTB-08's. It's on my list of things to do to gather data about it and talk to Dan/LOR support about it off-season...

Certain fades, particularly long fade downs, will do it, most but not all of the time... I"m wondering if it has something to do with how the fade hits the 60hz AC cycle...

-Tim


Tim, you are talking about "incandescant" bulbs flickering... right?

Surely this is not the ole issue of LEDs not drawing enough power to shut off the channel, as you seem to know about that stuff... right?

This does sound a little odd. I had this issue with some incandescant bulbs on a new controller this year, but Dan set me straight on how to change the box ID temporarily to get it working ;-) I guess that is not your issue?


Nope, incandescent lights (as well as some LED's). I have the latest firmware on everything. In some cases, lights that worked fine last year with the older firmware are now showing symptoms this year, the only change being firmware and LOR II software...

-Tim
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Tim,

Let us know what you find out. Things like the load on the circuits and the duration of the fades will be helpful. If it repeats (sound like it does) then just having the sequences and some points where there is a flicker wil be very helpful.

Thanks
Dan

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LightORamaDan wrote:

Let us know what you find out. Things like the load on the circuits and the duration of the fades will be helpful. If it repeats (sound like it does) then just having the sequences and some points where there is a flicker wil be very helpful.


No problem. I can put a meter on some of the circuit if you want, but the loads are pretty variable (from a bunch of icicles to just a single string of 100's or two...

I'll try to capture some video, plus give you the sequence if that's helpful. The biggest offender was my "shutdown" sequence where I had all lights going from 100% to 0 over about a minute. Instead of gradually fading, the ligthts were flickering as if I had asked them to twinkle... I switched the sequence to only do a 20-second fade and that helped, but wasn't perfect... With the original CTB-08 firmware, it worked perfectly (but LED's did not, of course...)

-Tim
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Tim,

I had problems with my LED flickering while doing fades. I simply added a single c-9 on those circuits and now those circuits fade as programmed.

I don't know if this will help your situation or not. As I know you said you have problems with LED and incadescants

Chuck

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