Dead CCB100D Original 5V Pixel Controller ~ Repairable?

[Orville]

Well Monday night, one of my 5V Original CCB100D Controllers wasn't working, it ran fine Sunday night, after a harsh rain we had almost all day, but Monday it wasn't lighting the C9 CCB's I had attached to it.  I checked the power, yes, power was getting to it through the cord it was plugged into, but no lights, opened the box, no green LED was blinking or steady on, even though power was live in the cord leading to the controller, it was dead.    So I unplugged it, took out the fuses in the plug and tested them, fuse in the plug, and the spare one tested good, so I pulled the fuse inside the controller, it also tested good, put the fuses back, plugged controller back in, no power.   So I removed it from where it was mounted and brought it inside for further scrutiny.   Found no damage to the PCB anywhere, but when I turned it over, open area facing down, some water trickled out of it, not much, but the area where the Cat5 enter the controller was where the water was coming from.   The controller was mounted with Cat5 openings and Cord at the bottom, all facing downward.   I have no idea how water got inside, the lid was sealed tightly, I had to exert some force to pop it off when I first opened it up, and again, when I went back out after daylight to see if I could see anything outside.

The only area I can think of would be where the plug goes in that keeps the Cat5 cables in place going up into the controller, but I looked at the plug, it looks to be sealed perfectly all around and securely snug into the hole it fits into.

Anyone ever have this issue with an older CCB100D controller, and if so, how did you remedy it?

I'm hoping once the controller "dries" out, it will start working again, but I'm not sure if the water got in elsewhere and dribbled down the PCB, causing a short and possibly blowing an IC or damaging some other component in the controller.

Does anyone have any ideas what might have blown, or would need to be fixed, if fixing is even possible with one of these controllers.   From how tight everything is inside the unit, I'm having serious doubt that anyone but LOR would be able to repair this unit, if it's even repairable.

Any suggestions or ideas welcome.

 

 

 

[TheSignGuy]

Had the same issue with the 5V CCP after a hard rain a month or so ago. Water got in where the 2 ports come out the top of the controller, the Black seal around the 4 wires failed. It actually shorted out the rest of my AUX network because of the amount of water in the controller. Of all the controllers on the AUX network that controller was buzzing pretty loud and not "normal" I unplugged it, disconnected the network cable from the controller and everything else started working.

Never blew the fuses, opened the case let it dry out in the sun and did a test a week later and still works fine. I just need to seal the tops of those ports better before it goes back out.

[TheSignGuy]

For what it's worth, the 2 CCP's I had trouble with in the beginning of December. After trouble shooting with LOR it was suggested to send the controllers in, shipping was on me.

"Repairs that are out of warranty may incur up to a $30/per device charge. Cosmic Color devices that are out of warranty may cost more. Repairs for in-warranty items are usually free.If your device is out of warranty, you are responsible for shipping both ways"

[k6ccc]

48 minutes ago, TheSignGuy said:

Had the same issue with the 5V CCP after a hard rain a month or so ago. Water got in where the 2 ports come out the top of the controller, the Black seal around the 4 wires failed.

I never trusted that seal.  Ever since I built the arches, I have put a trash bag over each of the controllers every year.  Note that this is southern California, so the lawn sprinklers run every three days during show season, so they would get very wet (and not all of it coming down).  You can see the trash bag behind where the two arches cross.

http://www.newburghlights.org/photos/2014_2_arches.jpg

 

[dibblejr]

3 hours ago, TheSignGuy said:

For what it's worth, the 2 CCP's I had trouble with in the beginning of December. After trouble shooting with LOR it was suggested to send the controllers in, shipping was on me.

"Repairs that are out of warranty may incur up to a $30/per device charge. Cosmic Color devices that are out of warranty may cost more. Repairs for in-warranty items are usually free.If your device is out of warranty, you are responsible for shipping both ways"

LOR has the best warranty policies, hands down. Not sure what you were expecting but that's a pretty reasonable offer.

I had a pixie16 on my large matrix prop get flipped over and dragged about 200' during a hurricane. The vents in the enclosure allowed the enclosure to flood with water. The entire pixie16 and 2 power supply were submerged for well over 12 hours. I put the matrix back in place and opened the enclosure cover. all water drained and it dried out for a few days. Everything still works as if nothing ever happened. 

JR

[TheDucks]

3 hours ago, TheSignGuy said:

For what it's worth, the 2 CCP's I had trouble with in the beginning of December. After trouble shooting with LOR it was suggested to send the controllers in, shipping was on me.

"Repairs that are out of warranty may incur up to a $30/per device charge. Cosmic Color devices that are out of warranty may cost more. Repairs for in-warranty items are usually free.If your device is out of warranty, you are responsible for shipping both ways"

$30 would not cover 1 hour (overhead rate) in most places where the minimum wage is over the Fed. Minimum wage is for grunt labor, not trained technicians.

BTW Overhead rate covers the tools, building and benefits as well as wages.

[TheSignGuy]

On 1/19/2022 at 3:08 PM, dibblejr said:

LOR has the best warranty policies, hands down. Not sure what you were expecting but that's a pretty reasonable offer.

I never indicated that it was unreasonable, lighten up.... I'm just relaying information support gave me word for word, geez.

[dibblejr]

8 minutes ago, TheSignGuy said:

I never indicated that it was unreasonable, lighten up.... I'm just relaying information support gave me word for word, geez.

SMH

 

[Orville]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:41 AM, TheSignGuy said:

Had the same issue with the 5V CCP after a hard rain a month or so ago. Water got in where the 2 ports come out the top of the controller, the Black seal around the 4 wires failed. It actually shorted out the rest of my AUX network because of the amount of water in the controller. Of all the controllers on the AUX network that controller was buzzing pretty loud and not "normal" I unplugged it, disconnected the network cable from the controller and everything else started working.

Never blew the fuses, opened the case let it dry out in the sun and did a test a week later and still works fine. I just need to seal the tops of those ports better before it goes back out.

Yep, that's where the water got in, it never worked after drying out, so I removed the connectors from the board and the power cord for use in other projects that may come up.  Not going to get it repaired, it'd be cheaper just to replace it with a newer 12V CCC-II Controller and just replace the old 5V strands with 12V ones.  I currently have 4 bad CCB100D boards with no power cords, fuses, or connectors on them, 3 were struck by lightning, definitely toast, but the fuses stayed intact.  Weird.   So I pulled the fuses to have spares for the other 8 I still have that are working.  

But I'll absolutely be resealing the port wire areas on the remaining 8 I do have, so this doesn't happen to another one in a rainstorm!   First time I encountered this issue.