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OMG,   ok so it wasn't supposed to rain  till after 11 pm, nope just poured , 6:10pm est   Ok waited till it stopped , well that didn't work only one of six controllers,GFCI  gona nuts, worked , the biggest nite of the year.   I will try again later but it was a down pour ,  there were cars sitting in the street beeping their horns.   One guy says I drove all the way from north MIA, whata mean it dont work, ya know really. The post on the neighborhood site says RAIN NO SHOW ,GOLLY.  DUGH

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Sorry to hear this, we also got this storm on the absolute worst night possible, I walked out after all our phones got the severe storm warning's, when I got out there you could see trouble coming but there were a lot of cars and walkers still out, I spoke with the walkers and warned them it was almost upon us, and lucky for all they quickly left.

 

I shut my show down right after and it was dark except for the lightning for about 15 minutes, I brought it back up and was very surprised everything came back up without fail, and now at 2100 it is again a very busy street. Hope it is past you by now, we are past the worst and I only anticipate some rain for a while, we can take a little rain, I just don't like the 55 mph gusts we got with all the lightninig.

 

Good luck, hope your back up, Merry Christmas, Keith

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Keith , was not able to get it back up , feel awful. The rain down here is like a fire hose .   I tried about 9 pm and only one controller would work , so tonight was shot ,sad !  My neighbor Seth's show was shut down also, I will be so glad when this year is over ,it's just been a struggle.

Thanks Keith and A Vey Merry Christmas to you

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That is truly awful, I had problems with rain a couple years ago on my Mega Tree, the GFI's would trip with any significant rain, I solved my problem by elevating the 48 electrical connections off the ground. Tonight we haven't had much rain, maybe 1/2 to 1 inch, more wind than anything else, Nas Jacksonville 3 miles away reported 55 mph wind and that is what really worried us. I hope you can solve your problem and get the show running.

 

You are very right, this has been a lousy year but it is going to get better now, and Thanks for your Spirit, Merry Christmas

 

Keith

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It started around 7pm here north of Tampa.   It gave me the opportunity to finally get my rain detection and show shutdown system working.    Once we get over 1/10th inch of rain total, it automatically shuts down the show, replacing it with a "Sorry, due to the weather..." sequence while the power to the controllers is cut via my home automation system.     If we get too much rain before the show starts, it will simply start up in that mode and never power up the controllers. 

The only problem is that it plays the shutdown sequence before doing the weather sequence, which is worded to be played at the end of the night.   I don't see a way to get around that.  

 

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Rain does not bother my show at all.  One advantage of being almost all pixels.  The only things that could theoretically trip a CFGI is the three CCP controllers, but they are very well protected - they have to be because they get watered by the lawn sprinklers every few days.  That would take out my arches.

 

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Got some heavy rains here in North-East Orlando {I'm about 8-9 miles from the Orlando UCF Campus}, they said it'd start around 6pm, didn't happen here, it started around or close to 11pm, no lightning and no high winds either in my area, but hours prior to the storm that finally did it's thing, we got some windy gusts, but they weren't as bad as we had heard on the local news.

My show usually runs until midnight on Christmas Eve, and my shows have ALWAYS ran, RAIN or NOT.   And during that hard storm we got, didn't slow down or stop my show at all.

Only thing I have in my show that might be affected by a rain storm would be the 8 blow molds{All incandescent standard and C7 bulbs}, 1 trio set of Gemmy Showtime Twinkling Stars{L.E.D.}or my Snowfall lights {L.E.D.-2 strands}.  Everything else is either LOR RGB Bullets{Trellis Arches - 2 strands} or LOR Cosmic Color Bulbs {8 strands}.   

And this is how I keep my show operating, even under the most inclement weather conditions {in Florida}:

Any and all unused controller dangles{female plugs}, Male/Female pass through plugs and all female plugs at the end of any light prop are al;l capped off with child proof {plastic} outlet cover caps painted flat black.  All cord connections are elevated off the ground as high as I can get them so they are out of any puddles, although I've had connections fall in to a puddle that had the outlet covers in place and never affected the show, kept right on going.   

Prior to using these, I had issues with GFCI trips and lights, extension cord connections or dangles getting water into them and shutting down my show and not being able to restart it until things dried out.   So I swear by these child proof outlet covers, just make sure they are inserted in the female plug as far in as you can get them without forcing it in.   These little plastic covers have saved my show from shutting down in the harshest rain and wind storms that we get in Florida.  

I also use assorted sizes of plastic "C" clamps that have the ability to be screwed down for Cat5 cables, extension and power cords, and on my display elements, along with zip ties to bundle like items together {don't bundle or run Cat5 cables and power cords together!}   Cat5 cable should be no less than 6 inches away from power cords.  And if a power cord and Cat5 cable need to cross, make sure they cross over each other like a highway intersection {example: look like a + symbol when crossed over each other}.  But try to avoid any crossovers if at all possible.

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My show runs rain / snow / high winds.

Yesterday though I did lose ny drummer snowman but Im thinking that was due to my laziness in using a cat5 coupling for that run that I just couldn't see running one of my 500' cables or cutting from a new 1000' spool. I may be out there shortening one of my 500' cables. The wind and the rain were relentless for the past week with only one day with no downpours during the show, yet people still sut out and enjoyed the show. Not many around here keep their shows up during the rain, another one of those , I do not understand things. Why shut down for rain. No matter what if it runs it runs if not it will go out.

On another note the high winds appear to have dried out my leaky nodes. 5050 series been up for 4 years and during the hurricane a section was damaged by flying debris. When I went up the 40' to replace it I noticed at 365 days a year for 4 years the sun had melted the coating to the point the chipset are exposed to the weather. The 6 high peaks are probably all suffering from the same problem and 2021 I will be redesigning my roofline nodes to get some really cool effects. 

Here's the video of what the sun has done to the nodes

JR

 

Edited by dibblejr
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15 hours ago, Orville said:

 

Any and all unused controller dangles{female plugs}, Male/Female pass through plugs and all female plugs at the end of any light prop are al;l capped off with child proof {plastic} outlet cover caps painted flat black.  All cord connections are elevated off the ground as high as I can get them so they are out of any puddles, although I've had connections fall in to a puddle that had the outlet covers in place and never affected the show, kept right on going.   

Prior to using these, I had issues with GFCI trips and lights, extension cord connections or dangles getting water into them and shutting down my show and not being able to restart it until things dried out.   So I swear by these child proof outlet covers, just make sure they are inserted in the female plug as far in as you can get them without forcing it in.   These little plastic covers have saved my show from shutting down in the harshest rain and wind storms that we get in Florida.  

 

Even with all of these precautions, I still have enough ground leakage to trip a GFCI, so I have to split the show onto two circuits.   I have no wireframe props, everything in the ground is plastic, so I have no idea where the ground leakage is coming from - I just know it exists, and that's in bone dry conditions.  In rain, before I took the steps above, it would shut down even split onto two circuits. 

I'm planning on gradually converting more and more to pixels, so hopefully the problem will start going away over time. 

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On 12/25/2020 at 6:29 PM, jtomason said:

Even with all of these precautions, I still have enough ground leakage to trip a GFCI, so I have to split the show onto two circuits.   I have no wireframe props, everything in the ground is plastic, so I have no idea where the ground leakage is coming from - I just know it exists, and that's in bone dry conditions.  In rain, before I took the steps above, it would shut down even split onto two circuits. 

I'm planning on gradually converting more and more to pixels, so hopefully the problem will start going away over time. 

If you have replaceable bulbs or L.E.D. type strands, and there isn't any dielectric grease in the sockets, that could possibly cause your issue.  When I was using replaceable bulb/L.E.D. strands I had to add in the automotive dielectric grease to all my replaceable lamp strands along with the above precautions.

Now that I've gone to mainly pixels, I only have to add this automotive light socket grease to my incandescent bulb sockets in my blow molds.   But that's a whole lot less than when I was doing 100 count and 200 count incandescent and L.E.D. strands years ago.

So that could be where that little bit of leakage comes from, morning dew, sprinklers or rain could do it, even if it's dry, might be some moisture trapped in one of the sockets.   At least that'd be my guess as to why your GFCI trips with little leakage.   Since I don't know if you're using sealed strands or replaceable bulb type, I'm guessing replaceables as sealed strands are not prone to these type issues.

 

Edited by Orville
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I guess I'm lucky. Last Wednesday into Thursday we had 2.5 inches of rain and everything stayed up and running. We had some high winds, although not the 50-60 that was predicted. At least I don't think so as nothing blew over. I have some wire frames in the yard. One is a sleigh outlined with incan rope lights. That went out out but the incan rope light packages inside it did not. That sleigh is about 20 years old so I thought it's time had come. BUT the next night it came back on. Same thing with one candy cane that I switched from incans to LED last year. It went out but the other four on the same extension cord did not. Next night, it too came back on. Everything else was fine.

I did have some of my 10 lampposts leaning more than they should, but the ground is really saturated from the snow last week and then the rain. I think it probably had more to do with that than the wind.

Hope everyone came through OK and has their show back up.

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Hey, Could you all  send some of that Rain out here.  I had .02" yesterday, bringing the 6 month total up to .12"

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OH gladly, mid November we had 18" in one 24 hour period , 50 MPH winds, bent three of the fake trees over broke the main poles, the rain was so strong it washed the lites off one tree , and this is suppose to be our dry season!!!   

 

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12 minutes ago, DLH lites said:

OH gladly, mid November we had 18" in one 24 hour period , 50 MPH winds, bent three of the fake trees over broke the main poles, the rain was so strong it washed the lites off one tree , and this is suppose to be our dry season!!!   

 

Us too, i was lucky though only a couple of ground problems. My sail props (singers stacked 14' high) made it through unscathed.  Unlike the hurricane where I was up 40' making emergency repairs on Halloween day.

One of the members that live close by found his ccr tree on the ground.

JR

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10 hours ago, Orville said:

If you have replaceable bulbs or L.E.D. type strands, and there isn't any dielectric grease in the sockets, that could possibly cause your issue.  When I was using replaceable bulb/L.E.D. strands I had to add in the automotive dielectric grease to all my replaceable lamp strands along with the above precautions.

 

 

Hrmh... I have dielectric grease in the unused (female) end, but not in the extension cable - light strand connection.    I guess that's a project for next year. 

 

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I would like to thank all of you who sent RAIN. We have almost 2" in the last 24Hr.

(Now to find why the front GFCI JUST tripped after hours of heavy rain 🥴)

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3 hours ago, TheDucks said:

I would like to thank all of you who sent RAIN. We have almost 2" in the last 24Hr.

(Now to find why the front GFCI JUST tripped after hours of heavy rain 🥴)

Your very welcome, North Florida is just now starting to dry out and your welcome for the GFCI trip, they come with rain i'm afraid LOL.

 

Keith

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Same here - thanks for the rain.  0.67 inches so far since last night and still coming down.  Everything is powered and the inside of my brick columns are dry :)

 

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We may expect Tornados on New Years eve and day. Going from 20's and 30's to 60's and 70's is almost a guarantee around here we are in for some rough weather. I guess I will see if the show can survive yet more storms or maybe it will help with the take down.

JR

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On 12/28/2020 at 2:00 PM, Kapkirk said:

Your very welcome, North Florida is just now starting to dry out and your welcome for the GFCI trip, they come with rain i'm afraid LOL.

 

Keith

And were going to get more as the next cold front moves in this New Years Weekend too!  Supposed to be 40% over both Saturday and Sunday and possibly thunderstorm activity.   But I've heard it all before and not gotten anything and then I've heard it's going to clear and no chance of rain and then we get hit with a gully-washer!

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