Is An Intermittant Triac Failure Possible?

[DownTown]

Hello all... I have some LOR-1602W controllers. Last Christmas, I had one of the channels on one of them get stuck about half on, about the same as a shimmer. It was on all the time, even if the LOR PC was shut down. Definite hardware problem, I thought. OK, I had some extra channels on the controller, so I switched to an unused channel. About a week later, I had the same problem on that new channel. Darn! Another hosed channel. (I was driving one string or 100 minis with that channel) Switched it to another spare channel and was fine for the rest of the season. I figured I'd send it in for repairs in the spring or summer when it was warm and cozy, and I could test things again without freezing my buns off. Well, tonight when I went to verify the channels that had failed on me during the winter, I can't find any bad channels. I am sure this is the right controller, and I have tested all 16 channels with the hardware utility, and all channels operate as designed. I'm stumped. Can a problem like that just go away, or is it going to rear its head again this December?

Thanks for your thoughts.

D.T.

[Dale W]

It is probably broken. Contact the LOR Service department for instructions on how to do a return. You do not want to wait for next year because it will not fix itself.

[zman]

DT, you mention mins. Were they regular incandecants or LEDs? I had something similar to this happen. I was running LEDs. They are not polarized. Dan told me if this happened to unplug the string and turn it 180 degrees and reinsert it. It should unstick the channel.

Also might you have a wiring problem with that string? Was it the same string in all cases having problems? Maybe it just connected finally for the latter part of the season. Intermittent problems like that are not normal with the triacs. When they go bad, it is my understanding that they usually just stick ON. Which I did have happen to one of mine. LOR fixed it no problems.

[Brian Mitchell]

Sounds to me like the controller just needed to be reset.

[-klb-]

The reset is likely, based on the number of posts where a reset solved a similar sounding issue.

Or, if we are looking for reasons why it might have issues outside during the season, but not during test in the summer, I think there may also be a possibility of some contamination on the board. Get a little condensate on the card, and it dissolves whatever polar/ionic compounds are on the card, and starts conducting through the solution. Try it again when all is dry, and it works fine... Not saying that it is particularly likely, but just listing other possibilities, when we likely have no positive way to identify the issue.

- Kevin

[DownTown]

Brian Mitchell wrote:

Sounds to me like the controller just needed to be reset.

Good thought... I had tried the reset back in December when the problem originally surfaced. That did me no good, so that's when I switched over to a spare channel. I'll be emailing support soon to see what their recommendation is.

D.T.

[joshua]

let me know what you find out as i had this same problem on 2 of my channels for the 16.

[TraceWilson]

I had pretty much the exact same issue with 1 channel on one of my controllers. With the show stopped, 1 string of greed C6 LEDs looked about 1/2 on. On further inspection, I noticed it was only 1/2 the string lit. Reversed the plug and the other half lit. Took a multimeter to it and found a constant 48VDC on the channel.

Fortunatly, had a spotlight on my sign, so rearranged the channels to use that one on the spotlight. Worked most of the time, but occasionally I would notice the spot on very dimly during the show when it should have been completely off.

Tried the reset a couple of times with no luck.

Guess I'll be emailing support soon too. :D

[tonyjmartin]

DownTown wrote:

I had one of the channels on one of them get stuck about half on, about the same as a shimmer. It was on all the time, even if the LOR PC was shut down.

joshua wrote:

let me know what you find out as i had this same problem on 2 of my channels

TraceWilson wrote:

I had pretty much the exact same issue with 1 channel on one of my controllers.

I had the same problem with two channels on one of my boards during setup last season. Upon closer inspection (with a lighted magnifier), the solder joint for one leg was "iffy" for each of the two malfunctioning triacs. Just to be thorough, I unsoldered/resoldered all three legs of each of these two channels' triacs. The problem has not occured since.

BTW--this was a D-light ACx16, but it is essentially the same design as the LOR PC controller (picture of offending triac connection below). If you're not comfortable checking/resoldering the triacs yourself, then by all means, just send the controller back to LOR.


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