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CMB 24 blinking during fades


Al Saunders

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Hello Everyone,

I have a CMB24 controller being powered by the LOR power supply. I have Holiday Coro 12V dumb pixels in window frames. Each frame has 2 strings of 50 pixels on it. I just ran a test sequence and during all the fading the strings blink badly, mostly white while changing from the desired color to black or to another desired color in the sequence. In the Hardware Utility if I pick a color and put it at 100% the string looks perfect. If I use the pixel controller in HU, while fading up the string blinks until it gets to 100%. I am reading over the manual and will double check my power hook ups tomorrow. Does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on and how I can fix this so the fades are done properly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Al

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26 minutes ago, Al Saunders said:

Hello Everyone,

I have a CMB24 controller being powered by the LOR power supply. I have Holiday Coro 12V dumb pixels in window frames. Each frame has 2 strings of 50 pixels on it. I just ran a test sequence and during all the fading the strings blink badly, mostly white while changing from the desired color to black or to another desired color in the sequence. In the Hardware Utility if I pick a color and put it at 100% the string looks perfect. If I use the pixel controller in HU, while fading up the string blinks until it gets to 100%. I am reading over the manual and will double check my power hook ups tomorrow. Does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on and how I can fix this so the fades are done properly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Al

Are you doing all the windows at the same time? I am wondering if you are pushing the power limits. Two strings are 54w or 4.4 amps per port. What is the wattage of the LOR PS?

Edited by Mr. P
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2 hours ago, Mr. P said:

Are you doing all the windows at the same time? I am wondering if you are pushing the power limits. Two strings are 54w or 4.4 amps per port. What is the wattage of the LOR PS?

Also a CMB24  has 2 banks. Running 100 nodes on all ports (in a bank) will seriously be over the 30A bank limit if you run them WHITE (HC bullets run 3A/50 ).

IMHO you need to load balance your banks to keep them down to 30A (360W EACH)

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Good Morning Guys,

I now know I need to get another power supply as I looked at the LOR store and this is what I'm using: PS-LED-12V-200W. So it's only 200 watt and I'm powering both banks with it. But the other thing is during setup and testing I only had two strings plugged into two ports of the CMB24. Each string was only 50 pixels. When using the Hardware Utility the string blinked as I bright the power level (fade) up. When on 100% whatever color I was using it worked fine.

Last night I had all windows on different colors all at 100%, each frame had 100 pixels on them and two of the channels (ports) only had 50 pixels on them and they were on the color I chose. Each of the colors were the basic red, green or blue.

I need to run the speed lower than 500K because of the A/C channels on the same (regular) network. I noticed as I slowed the speed the blinking got slower but still blinked.

Why would the string blink when powering up on the pixel control board in HU? Does the controller know it's not being powered enough even without the load being applied?

Thanks for the help.

Al

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13 minutes ago, Al Saunders said:

Why would the string blink when powering up on the pixel control board in HU? 

You say Pixel Control in HU? The CMB24 doesn't use pixels so are you actually using the Pixel Console in the HU to test? You would test the CMB24D just like a CTB16, select unit from the drop down and then select the channels you would like to turn on 1-24.

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14 minutes ago, Mr. P said:

You say Pixel Control in HU? The CMB24 doesn't use pixels so are you actually using the Pixel Console in the HU to test? You would test the CMB24D just like a CTB16, select unit from the drop down and then select the channels you would like to turn on 1-24.

The pixel console does work with The cmb24 and 16 controllers. I use it to test my rgb floods all the time. There is a selection button specifically for the cmb 24.

Is the unit ID for the 24 unique, and set via the dip switches. It will revert to 01 if not set by the dips.

 

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38 minutes ago, PhilMassey said:

The pixel console does work with The cmb24 and 16 controllers. I use it to test my rgb floods all the time. There is a selection button specifically for the cmb 24.

Is the unit ID for the 24 unique, and set via the dip switches. It will revert to 01 if not set by the dips.

 

Yeah I used the pixel console for the CMB24 and the light console for my 1602 controllers. I don't remember clicking on a button for a CMB24 controller but will try that later. Yes, the controller is set to #7 by the dip switches 000000111000 on the board.

Thanks,

Al

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Any Single LED colors draw waaay less than White  ~1/3 (the actual amount varies by color. The resistors built into the lamp, balance the light so a single voltage is correct..)

A 200W supply will just run the 10W flood 8 pack.  I happen to use the HC 400W version of the external (rain proof: ha..resistant if mounted properly) supply. You might need 1 of these per bank if you are doing 100 nodes on all ports.

Are you seeing a Blink or just a tiny flicker?  The latter may just be a transient data error

 

 

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3 hours ago, Mr. P said:

You say Pixel Control in HU? The CMB24 doesn't use pixels so are you actually using the Pixel Console in the HU to test? You would test the CMB24D just like a CTB16, select unit from the drop down and then select the channels you would like to turn on 1-24.

The Pixel Console defaults to testing the CMB24.  I did this screen capture for something else yesterday, but this is the state when it starts up.

Controlling_Pixels_using_HU-2.png

Congratulations - you learned something today :)   Makes today a good day.

 

Edited by k6ccc
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2 hours ago, TheDucks said:

Any Single LED colors draw waaay less than White  ~1/3 (the actual amount varies by color. The resistors built into the lamp, balance the light so a single voltage is correct..)

A 200W supply will just run the 10W flood 8 pack.  I happen to use the HC 400W version of the external (rain proof: ha..resistant if mounted properly) supply. You might need 1 of these per bank if you are doing 100 nodes on all ports.

Are you seeing a Blink or just a tiny flicker?  The latter may just be a transient data error

 

 

Ok sounds good. I'll look into those power supply. The blink I'm getting is a major blink, almost strobe like. What I'm not understanding is why when I only have one 50 node string hooked up and ramp up the power in the pixel console the light flashes as it ramps up to 100% power. With one string I'm no where near the power limit, I would think.

Thanks,

Al

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Ok, so when in the Pixel Console it is on CMB24 as in the picture above and I select the correct unit id to test. I get blinking/flashing as I fade a color up from 0 to 100. At 100 it holds the color fine. Last night I had all of the frames lit on white at 100% and my single 200w LOR power supply was powering them. When I went and ran a sequence the blinking/flashing happened at every fade. It looks as if white is flashed VERY QUICKLY during the fades both up or down from 100% of the programmed/sequenced color.

If I end up having to add a second power supply, do both power leads from the power supply go to each bank of the CMB24 or just one of the two leads from the PS?  This is the big WOW thing this year, so I really need these to work.

I appreciate any advice you all may have.

Thanks,

Al

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7 minutes ago, Al Saunders said:

Ok, so when in the Pixel Console it is on CMB24 as in the picture above and I select the correct unit id to test. I get blinking/flashing as I fade a color up from 0 to 100. At 100 it holds the color fine. Last night I had all of the frames lit on white at 100% and my single 200w LOR power supply was powering them. When I went and ran a sequence the blinking/flashing happened at every fade. It looks as if white is flashed VERY QUICKLY during the fades both up or down from 100% of the programmed/sequenced color.

If I end up having to add a second power supply, do both power leads from the power supply go to each bank of the CMB24 or just one of the two leads from the PS?  This is the big WOW thing this year, so I really need these to work.

I appreciate any advice you all may have.

Thanks,

Al

DO NOT Tie the + leads together from 2 different supplies.   It takes a very $pecial $upply to be paralleled with other of the SAME model. Lambda anyone :)

Dumb nodes don't care if the Negatives are isolated, but I would do that (bond them) for Smart units (may not truly be required, bud does no ham)

My guess is while the supply is powering the Load while static, there is no slew rate head room for shifting loads.

Edited by TheDucks
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2 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

Dumb nodes don't care if the Negatives are isolated, but I would do that (bond them) for Smart units (may not truly be required, bud does no ham)

On the CMB24, the two negative feeds are tied together on the PC board.  However, I would bond the negatives together at the power supplies.

 

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1 hour ago, TheDucks said:

DO NOT Tie the + leads together from 2 different supplies.   It takes a very $pecial $upply to be paralleled with other of the SAME model. Lambda anyone :)

Dumb nodes don't care if the Negatives are isolated, but I would do that (bond them) for Smart units (may not truly be required, bud does no ham)

My guess is while the supply is powering the Load while static, there is no slew rate head room for shifting loads.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the replies and info. I guess I didn't word my question about the power supply too well. The power supply I have now has two leads coming from the power supply that each have a red + lead and a black - lead. I was wondering if I need to put both positive leads and both negative leads from THE SAME power supply to each bank (One on top the other). Or should I use one lead and cover the other lead of the power supply? And then do the same with the second power supply for the other bank of the CMB24? So one red and one black on each bank of the CMB24 or two reds and two blacks on each bank of the CMB24? In looking over the specs of the LOR power supply I'm thinking I need to have both reds and both blacks on the one power lead for each bank of the CMB24.

I entered a LOR ticket and was advised to reset the CMB24 just in case something got mixed up somewhere.

I really do appreciate the help and any other input.

Thanks,

Al

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37 minutes ago, Al Saunders said:

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the replies and info. I guess I didn't word my question about the power supply too well. The power supply I have now has two leads coming from the power supply that each have a red + lead and a black - lead. I was wondering if I need to put both positive leads and both negative leads from THE SAME power supply to each bank (One on top the other). Or should I use one lead and cover the other lead of the power supply? And then do the same with the second power supply for the other bank of the CMB24? So one red and one black on each bank of the CMB24 or two reds and two blacks on each bank of the CMB24? In looking over the specs of the LOR power supply I'm thinking I need to have both reds and both blacks on the one power lead for each bank of the CMB24.

I entered a LOR ticket and was advised to reset the CMB24 just in case something got mixed up somewhere.

I really do appreciate the help and any other input.

Thanks,

Al

I would.  Those leads are intended to be more flexible (in use and just noodley  😛  for hook up) It is intended to share the 200W (9A per) 

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So the LOR help desk was very helpful and instructed me to reset the CMB24 with toggle #12. That worked and got the strings to fade properly and the sequences run fine.

This being my first time with RGB pixels, it looks like the red seem to fade to pink when not at full power. Like either dimming up or dimming down they look pinkish. Is this typical of these types of lights/pixels? Or is this happening due to them being only powered by the one 200w power supply? Would adding a second PS and putting one on each bank help with the fading?

Thanks,

Al

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A pinkish full white, is often a sign of voltage loss.. it is usually less apparent as intensity is reduced. 

You may find that 100 percent full white is intolerable to look at anyway.

I rarely run at more than 60 percent, with an occasional peak at 90. Even 30 percent is nice and bright.

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what is your data rate? I ran mine with slow default rate and got flickers when also running pixels. I upped to 50 kB and the flickering cleared up.

Edited by hooverrl@embarqmail.com
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what is your data rate? I ran mine with slow default rate and got flickers when also running pixels. I upped to 50 kB and the flickering cleared up.

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14 hours ago, PhilMassey said:

A pinkish full white, is often a sign of voltage loss.. it is usually less apparent as intensity is reduced. 

You may find that 100 percent full white is intolerable to look at anyway.

I rarely run at more than 60 percent, with an occasional peak at 90. Even 30 percent is nice and bright.

Hi Phil,

Actually the white when on full looks fine. It's the fading of the red color looks pinkish during the fading. I'm going to add a second power supply to have each bank being powered by a 200w PS. I didn't know of limiting the intensity on pixels. I have several sequences that are all maxing out at 100%. They are bright, that's for sure. :D

Thanks for the info.

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Al

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