Random channels staying on

[wicket82]

I am running 6 controllers this year. The problem I’m having is random channels will stay lit. Tonight (Wednesday) is on one of my channels on my controller 3. Last night (Tuesday) all was good. No issues what so ever. The night before (Monday) it was a channel on controller 2 that was staying on but part way through the night it went off and was fine from then on. The first night (Sunday) when I hooked everything up and wired it and tested, it was a channel on controller 1 that was staying lit up but then it was only the red LED’s lighting up but not the white LED’s (they are both plugged up together). Several years ago I had a channel stick and had to replace the triac on one controller. But that channel was staying on all the time. Anybody every seen or had something like this happen? Any ideas since it’s changing channels and controllers from night to night and some nights it’s fine? Thanks in advance. 

[Redbirdruss]

I'm having a similar issue

[Mega Arch]

Check your cat5 cables and connections. 

[Redbirdruss]

Is there a limit to the number of controllers you can have per network?

I was looking in the manual but couldn't find any recommendations.

[roverdish]

I am having similar issues. All cat 5 cables and connections seem good.

[roverdish]

Solution found. It was indeed a bad cat5 cable. I knew something was weird because it was channel 8 on 5 different controllers misbehaving. Thanks Mega Arch.

[dansamy]

If it was the same channel, then that's not random at all. 

[TheDucks]

6 hours ago, roverdish said:

Solution found. It was indeed a bad cat5 cable. I knew something was weird because it was channel 8 on 5 different controllers misbehaving. Thanks Mega Arch.

This was a LOR network cable? That symptom make no sense. Random: yes. Repeatable: H no     these are SERIAL digital commands.  Dropping bits would be random. Noise errors, Random.

Same light, says 'same command' received.  Since this is serial, crosstalk  (adjacent pair) is not possible.

[roverdish]

I agree, symptom makes no sense so it must me FM. ( some kinda magic)

Thanks to the ducks for pointing out the impossible. I just know that my problem with the same lights from different controllers coming on without commands was resolved after hours of looking at sequence editor commands and html files without success.  Then I finally started eliminating cat5 cables as possible culprits as per Mega Archs' suggestion. It was not the cable I suspected, it was a new factory made cable between the last 2 controllers in the chain.

I found that the replacement of that one cat5 cables in the daisy chain seemed to cure the problems that were affecting the other controllers up the chain. If this solution or problem was "impossible" perhaps the ducks can offer an explanation and a "possible" alternate cure along with the criticism and h words. 

If the bad cable would like to be examined by the ducks I can pack it up and send it up .

96ac channels 4500 rgb

 

[TheDucks]

3 hours ago, roverdish said:

I agree, symptom makes no sense so it must me FM. ( some kinda magic)

Thanks to the ducks for pointing out the impossible. I just know that my problem with the same lights from different controllers coming on without commands was resolved after hours of looking at sequence editor commands and html files without success.  Then I finally started eliminating cat5 cables as possible culprits as per Mega Archs' suggestion. It was not the cable I suspected, it was a new factory made cable between the last 2 controllers in the chain.

I found that the replacement of that one cat5 cables in the daisy chain seemed to cure the problems that were affecting the other controllers up the chain. If this solution or problem was "impossible" perhaps the ducks can offer an explanation and a "possible" alternate cure along with the criticism and h words. 

If the bad cable would like to be examined by the ducks I can pack it up and send it up .

96ac channels 4500 rgb

 

As a Sr (tube era) ET, I sure have seen examples of 'FM" (and Murphy) at work .  I can't come up with a logical failure mode that explains your success by a simple replacement..

Being retired, I no longer have my employers $$ tool cage available.   A TDR graph might show something, but it still does not explain the non-randomness., which requires the exact same bit sequence failure every time.

The bottom line is, don't argue with success

 

I did notice that LOR has included a RS485 Terminate jumper on the next gen Pixie4 <yes!>.. there are still 2 pair in that cable that are not connected, that could act as an antenna

[Santas Helper]

I had a similar issue this year where random lights came on with my mega tree and mini trees affecting the same channels for each controller. I thought it might be a power cable or Fm cable interference. Nope, it was a faulty cat5 cable that went bad after rolling my dolly over it with a heavy load. It was enough to cause internal failure of the Cat5 and cause strange issues with other controllers on the opposite side of the LOR Cat5 splitter. Replaced the cable and the issue cleared up. Been doing this hobby for 12 years and this was the first time I ever encountered something like this.