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Lightkeeper Pro Stopped my Show????


ranger_391xt

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Thought share something interested with everyone that just happened.

A section of icicles lights on the front of my house was out when I came home this evening. During the intermission of my show, I went out with my LightKeeper Pro to see if I could fix the strand. Now the strand hangs on the gutter, and under the soffit, I have my Cat 5 Cable. This is the run between the PC and the first controller. On about the third squeez of the LK-Pro's trigger, EVERYTHING went black.

I made a mad dash for the door, and went to the show machine. LORTray. EXE and LORMonitor.EXE were both not responding. I was able to end the tasks, but was not able to get the LOR Control panel restarted with out receiving an error that the COM port was in use. Re-booting the machine corrected the problem.

I am running the latest USB drivers, but only runing 1.6.1. LOR Software.

I know others have been experiencing issues this year, and thought I'd share this, in case it helps with the eventual diagnosis of the problem with the USB drivers and 1.6.X software.

Chris

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Thanks for the heads up. Those types of tools send "1000s of volts!!!!) through the line. This is very low amperage and is not very dangerous BUT for electronics it can jump gaps (as it is designed to do) and it can damage electronics.

People have been successful using those devices BUT they can cause damage to the electronics that can show up later. Electronics can be "weakened" or destroyed by things like static electricity so these devices can be dangerous.

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Ouch, I was thinking the same thing as I read that post. Yes, the LKP sends out a very high voltage. Yes it COULD travel back up through the controller, cat-5 and adapters. If that got to your computer. BACK UP YOUR FILES NOW!!! I can almost promise you that if that got to your PC, you will be having loads of errors, problems and erratic behaver.


Best Of Luck!




--Daniel L

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I really wonder if becuase of the proximity to the CAT5 cable that it put noise on the line. Here is why I wonder this: I have a small AM/FM radio (runs off 4 AA's), that I had with me one night when I was out working on my lights. I noticed that when I pulled the trigger on the LKP that I could hear a "pop" in the radio. The LKP was about 2-3 feet from the radio when this happened, which is about the same distance it was from the Cat 5 cable when it killed my show.

Chris

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I am very sorry to hear about your misfortune ...

I have used it with "Great" success, but I did unplug the stand of light from the controller ( power source )...

Once I found the bad bulb replug it back to the controller and show was on again...



Set 1.C UNPLUG light from AC POWER SOURCE



LKP(Medium).jpg

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It didn't kill the show permanently. I have suffered a number of lock up this year, but it always occured at the end of sequence. In this case, it happened mid-sequence when I was using the LKP near the CAT5 cable. As in with all the other lock-ups I have had this year, rebooting the PC got things back up and going. I mainly posted this, becuase of some of the other posts related to lock-ups and the USB drivers. There was one post about dimmer swicthes or something causing problems.

As for the proper means to use the LKP, Step 1B says "with the bulb socket in the connector and the light string plugged into the power source", so I am not entirely sure what you are trying to tell me. Are you saying that you never use the quick fix trigger with the lights plugged in? I would say 7 times out of 10 the quick fix doesn't work for me anyway, and I go to step 2 to get the problem fixed.

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NkySpike65 wrote:

I am very sorry to hear about your misfortune ...

I have used it with "Great" success, but I did unplug the stand of light from the controller ( power source )...

Once I found the bad bulb replug it back to the controller and show was on again...



Set 1.C UNPLUG light from AC POWER SOURCE







That weird, my post didn't all come out right?



What I was trying to say is:

Step1.C UNPLUG light from AC POWER SOURCE should have been Step 1.A ...

You got to remember they are not thinking about us using electronic controllers ( circuit boards ) to power the lights...


" I go to step 2 to get the problem fixed. ", I do the same thing...
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  • 3 months later...

I power the lights from a house outlet when I use my light keeper, just beacuse I am affraid of blowing somethng up

chris

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