Arches Broken

[EmmienLightFan]

Today I had just put my arches up and they were all working when the arches stopped changing and my window lights stopped working.

 

 

I think that the WS2801 controller got a tiny drop of water and it caused something wierd down the DMX line and that caused my DMX dimmer upstairs to trip it's own little circuit breaker.

 

 

The arches stayed on white. I thought it was cables at first but I opened up the controller and the light was off. It did nothing when I tried a etst pattern either.

 

The controller is one of these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DMX-to-SPI-decoder-for-WS2801-WS2803-WS2811-WS2812-UCS1903-/221548869762?hash=item3395577882:g:SBAAAOxyLN9SjJVp

 

I now need to either try and dry it out and get it working, however I think it is to late now as I am not at home and the controller is still on, or buy a new controller and get it by Tuesday.

 

Nowhere in this country sells them. And Ebay shipping from China is either expensive or way too slow. Ray Wu has one but it would be cheaper to buy two WS2811 strings and use them with my Pixlite4 than buy that.

 

I am really sad now. 

[Ebuechner]

You seem to be having quite a few problems. I'm assuming you checked for power at the controller. If your Pixlight has open connections that would be the safer way to go. I thought the Pixlight could do the 2801 lights? When I got into doing pixels I made sure to buy nothing but the 2811 for compatibility reasons

[EmmienLightFan]

I think that the pixlite4 can only have one type of pixel, not individual ones for each output.

 

 

 

The outputs are currently controlling WS2811. I got WS2801 for the arches because they were exactly what someone else was getting (I brought the same controller, dongle, power supply and pixels) and I was just strating and didn't want to buy the wrong thing.

 

The colours on the pixels are much, much better on the WS2801s. However they cost £36 for two strings, compared to WS2811 being about £7 a string.

 

From now on everything is WS2811 unless I really need something different.

[Ebuechner]

Yeah you're right I just went into my pixlight controller and you can't configure the output For each individual output.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Ebuechner

[Ebuechner]

While trying to diagnose that bored that is acting up did you try disconnecting the DMX line while putting it into a test pattern? Also while DMX is disconnected try powering it down and back up again. The reason I say this is most DMX boards won't go into test pattern while you have a DMX signal

[EmmienLightFan]

I haven't disconnected the DMX signal yet.

 

I will do it later. You could be correct as the first time I did a test pattern I didn't have DMX connected, before they went wrong.

 

The controller is similar to my WS2811 one but the lights do different things. I can't remember what the different lights mean. 

 

I have not checked power to the controller, but after it went weird, the pixels stayed on, so there must have been power.

 

I really wanted to get all lights working by tuesday but that seems unlikely.

[EmmienLightFan]

EDIT: The power to the arches comes in at the start of the first one, then runs back to the controller. If the wire was damaged, the arches (pixels) would still have power but the controller would not. I will look at the wiring when I get home.

[EmmienLightFan]

I came home and saw the arches were on. I got really excited and opened it up but the controller was off.

I checked the voltage. On no load there was 5.8 volts and it dropped to 4.7 on full white. The same configuration was working before so the SMPSU is not the problem.

While I was looking at the controller, the LED on the controller flashed on. The arches all stayed on Whitgift Hospital. I don't know why. I was just looking at them and had not changed anything.

I removed the controller from it's enclosure and it is on top of the radiator right now.

[Ebuechner]

Just a question. Did you install the jumper on the board to run it at 5v? I looked up the specs on a different site for that board and it can't be run under 7 volts unless the jumper is installed. You might get it to work but it would be sporadic.

[EmmienLightFan]

I did have the 5v jumper installed. I found some software for the Raspberry Pi which takes in DMX from E1.31, ArtNet, A DMX dongle or ShowNet and can output it to pixels. It is working perfectly and the arches are very good.