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Certain LED strings causing radio interference - Solutions?


Galen

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I have LED dripping icicles on my roofline which I have used for probably 6+ (from Costco) years with no issues (literally, no failures), but this year, when that channel goes on, there is a crackling interference noise on the radio (regardless of the frequency I select).

Each string has a little transformer/control box and I have probably 8-10 strings.  I suspect one or more of these strings is failing and throwing off interference.

  1. Has anyone experienced something like this?
  2. Any ideas for solving the problem? 

The quick solution is to simply not run those lights in the show, which I will probably do until I can solve this.  I will try to narrow down whether it is just one string or multiple, etc. as well, but if someone has been down this path before and has any suggestions, I'd love to know.

Thanks!

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Figure out which one is causing the problem and replace it.  Likely not much else you can do.  Most likely the little control box has whatever electronics potted so you can't do anything with it.

 

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I had issues with crackling and staticy type sounds on my FM Transmitter at one time, I resolved a lot of that issue by adding a Ferrite Filter to the audio cable going from the computer to the FM transmitter. 

I don't recall where I bought mine, but they just snap over the audio cable, you make a small loop around and into the Ferrite Filter then snap it shut over the audio cable.   I have one at each end near the male plug that comes out of the sound card from the computer and a 2nd one near the male plug that enters into the FM Transmitter audio jack.

Hopefully someone knows what these are called, and where to find/buy them.  I tried searching, but got items that look nothing like what I have on my audio cables.   They sort of look like a big bump on each end of the audio cable.  I know they aren't that expensive, and well worth adding them to your audio cables.

 

Edited by Orville
Thanks to the "TheDucks" for supplying the correct name "Ferrite Filter" so I could edit this post with the correct name of the item instead of calling it a "device"
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30 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

Thank you TheDucks.   For the life of me, I could not remember what the heck they were called. 

I haven't had to install any since I added those to my older audio cables and cut down on a lot of the erratic noise it was picking up.   Another thing is, if they can find a shielded audio cable, cost a little more than the standard type, that will help too. 

Mine are shielded, but I still added the Ferrite filters to them as well.   Because they are so close to power cables and other things that may cause interference, I put them on all audio cables on my computer, better safe than have noise creep in.  

On rare occasion I may hear something, but it's very minimal and almost not even noticeable.  But it doesn't usually last too long, so I don't worry about those rare occasions when something sounds a little off, sometimes it could be the MP3 used, so I'll check out the MP3 and run it through my audio editor and fix it.

EDIT: My audio cables were small in diameter, so I had to loop it around the ones I had on hand, otherwise the Ferrite Filter wouldn't stay put where it was snapped over the cable and would slide up and down.  These things need to be secure when placed and snapped shut on the cable.

 

Edited by Orville
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