Texas Siberian Winter

[MattJ]

I had a quick search around on the forums and couldn't find anything so figured I'd ask.

It's cold here in North Texas right now, 10F this morning for me. It's by far the coldest temperature I have had the display running in the 6 years I've been doing this. 

I believe the components of the display are rated to cope:

• Pixie boards operate down to -30F (-34C)
• Power supplies down to -13F (-25C)
• Pixels down to -40F (-40C)

But I am seeing some weird behavior that I have got to believe is temperature related. I have pixels "stuck-on" across the display, from different props on different controllers and I've had a pixie 4 controller that won't talk to the rest of the network when it's cold but when I bring it inside and warm it up... it's happy again. 

It's not a big deal. I'm not going outside to fix anything in this cold so I'll just wait until after Christmas when it warms up a bit and see how much real damage has been done. 

I know there are folks on here that run displays in parts of the world that get WAYY colder than north Texas so I'm a bit curious... anything special you do to to keep a display in top working order when it's this stinkin' cold! 🥶

Cheers & Merry Christmas Y'all.

 

[k6ccc]

Note that your power supplies and controller will be quite a bit warmer inside whatever enclosure you have them in - at least if you leave them powered during non-show hours.  The pixels themselves are the only parts that are truly fully exposed to the cold.

I have temperature monitors inside all of my controller enclosures.  It's a bit entertaining to see what the temps do.  I'm having just the opposite.  It's a couple days into Winter and I'm getting high temp alarms...  This is the power supply box for my pixel tree for the past day:

http://www.newburghlights.org/images/Pixel-tree-power-supply-temps_2022-12-22.png

[Don]

4 hours ago, MattJ said:

It's cold here in North Texas right now, 10F this morning for me. It's by far the coldest temperature I have had the display running in the 6 years I've been doing this. 

It's been colder. We got down to -2F during the 2021 Winter event. :)

[PhilMassey]

It was 6F this morning in East Tennessee but my Falcons reported a toasty 50F inside their enclosures. I think this is my coldest display in my thirteen years.

[MattJ]

9 minutes ago, Don said:

It's been colder. We got down to -2F during the 2021 Winter event. :)

Yep I agree but that was in Feb '21 and I was not running a display. Everything was packed up inside. I don't think I have run a display in temps this cold

[Don]

Oh yeah .. that was Feb. I'm not awake. Ignore me.

[ItsMeBobO]

5 hours ago, MattJ said:

I'm a bit curious... anything special you do to to keep a display in top working order when it's this stinkin' cold! 

It was -6 here this morning.   I pin all my cat5 and electric runs to the ground and lift the plugs off the ground.     I have one AC controller which has a cold bug,  Channel 16 gets stuck on but only when its cold below freezing.    Many other controllers but only one has acted this way. 

Edited December 23, 2022 by ItsMeBobO

[dgrant]

It was +1.9 here this morning. So far, my controllers are happy. Its up to a whole +15 now.

[lightzilla]

This past week we had -30C (-22F) as daytime highs & sometimes the odd pixel acts goofy but for the most part things went pretty smooth this year. In -40 some pixels shimmered on there own, but still the display still ran decent.

[Brad Stucky]

36 minutes ago, lightzilla said:

This past week we had -30C (-22F) as daytime highs & sometimes the odd pixel acts goofy but for the most part things went pretty smooth this year. In -40 some pixels shimmered on there own, but still the display still ran decent.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!   We did have a -10F on one day, but at -22F, I imagine the electrons in those circuits are shivering a bit.

[k6ccc]

By contrast, it's getting so warm that I'm going to have to turn the air conditioning back on for my data cabinet this morning.  NWS forecast for Christmas day here is 79 (earlier in the week the forecast was for 80 tomorrow).

Sorry, I had to do that 😃  There's a reason that I live here.

 

[PhilMassey]

5 degrees on the 24th. Forecast is for 70 next weekend. 

[Orville]

Not too bad in Florida, Christmas Day was a high of 48 in Orlando where I am, but the wind chill was something like 36-38 degrees, evening temps dropped to just below freezing on Dec. 23,and 24th, no issues with my display, ran fine every night in those cold temps.  Although I did have one strand of RGB lights that one bulb failed on 12/22/2022, but trying to solder in a replacement bulb with the wind and wind chill was a no-go during the day on 12/23, so I had to replace that entire strand with a different one. 

Took me about 2 hours to unmount the failed strand and remount the replacement RGB C9 bulb strand.   

That wasn't much fun, but had to be done since 95% of the failed strand was not working and would hang on in the ugliest color I had ever seen an RGB strand come up with.  Not even sure what color to call it, but it was sure ghastly! LOL The only way I can even come close to describing it is, it was kind of a cream, dark orange and reddish brown looking color all mixed into one color, gad, was it ugly!  And this being a strand right out front in the display, like stated, had to be replaced.   Since my soldering iron thought it was just too windy, and too cold to work outside. LOL

Other than that one failure, everything was fine.  NOTE: The cold had nothing to do with the failure, I knew there was one bulb in this particular strand causing issues, but I couldn't find it until it finally failed completely, and I cut it out of the strand.   Well, just another repair project for later.

You know, would sure be great if someone could design an RGB strand that these nodes could just be unplugged and a new one plugged in its place, mainly for the larger C9 type bulbs  pop off the globe, remove node from a sock and plug in the next one.  Seems like it could be done, at least for these type RGB nodes.   Bullets and Square nodes, probably not.   Sometimes I am so tempted to go back to just AC replaceable type light strands, when failures occur like this, but I know I won't. ;)

[TheDucks]

Orville You really do not want per node connectors. You think you have issues now. My first batch of 120V LED strings (replaceable bulbs,2 wire type) all ended up in the trash by the end of the 3rd year. The leads rusted apart on the LEDs. At the end of Y2, I made sure they were put away dry (brought inside the living space, left ON for 2 days).

I use HC connections. Even with care, I have to work them on and off a few times to get a clean connection to all colors (dumb strings). I tried dielectric grease, but that picks up sand easily. IMHO removable node only belong in protected locations like stadiums (where they can afford the extra $ that good connectors cost).

 

BTW It was 70 today, when I went to inspect the displays.

[MattJ]

Hey - so my cold weather failure happened to be a network connector inside a case. I replaced the connector and all my problems went away. We've been down in the 20s overnight and I've not had any more issues. 

This network failure in one controller caused weirdness across all my pixels strings on both networks (many of my failures were also the cream, dark orange and reddish brown looking color - I'm calling it "Busted Beige")

Looks like I just need to stay away from cheap network cables in future!

Thanks for all the advice folks. 

 

[k6ccc]

Get a box of cable, a bag of connectors, and a decent crimping tool and make your own cables.  That way you get them the length that you need, save some money, and generally getter connections than cheap cables.

 

[TheDucks]

35 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

Get a box of cable, a bag of connectors, and a decent crimping tool and make your own cables.  That way you get them the length that you need, save some money, and generally getter connections than cheap cables.

 

And you can fix them in place when you break the tang.

I like my Klein VDV scout as a tester (it is over kill if you just check a cable as it also has ID plugs for RJ45 and Coax). It will show split pairs.

💡 use loose boots, ones that can slide back. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LYLGWSY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Slide them in place when coiling and storing. Saves tangs

[Orville]

On 12/27/2022 at 8:40 AM, TheDucks said:

Orville You really do not want per node connectors. You think you have issues now. My first batch of 120V LED strings (replaceable bulbs,2 wire type) all ended up in the trash by the end of the 3rd year. The leads rusted apart on the LEDs. At the end of Y2, I made sure they were put away dry (brought inside the living space, left ON for 2 days).

I use HC connections. Even with care, I have to work them on and off a few times to get a clean connection to all colors (dumb strings). I tried dielectric grease, but that picks up sand easily. IMHO removable node only belong in protected locations like stadiums (where they can afford the extra $ that good connectors cost).

 

BTW It was 70 today, when I went to inspect the displays.

WHen I first got into this hobby, I was using both incandescent and LED strands with replaceable LED bulbs.  The strands I started with had already been in service for well over 5 years, first just steady on, then a Mr. Christmas sometime in 2007-2009 era and finally in 2010 with getting into the LOR CTB16PC AC Controllers (5/80 AC Channels), ran those same replaceable LED strands for another 5+ years before getting into the RGB stuff.   Those old standard replaceable LED and incandescent strands lasted me a good 15+ years in service.  Guess I was just lucky with mine.   Sure had a strand that may have had issues, but was usually an easy fix, in all those years, I think I may have had a total of 3 strands I had to actually toss out due to bad, rusted sockets and leads on the LED bulbs.

I still think the C( type bulbs could have the node socketed in a low-profile IC style socket, as long as the plastic globe is fully intact and still clicks solidly in place to keep water and condensation out of the node area, I still think this could work, but like said, I doubt this would be usable for bullet nodes or square nodes.

If my vision hadn't gone as bad as it has, and why I am considered legally blind, no depth perception or peripheral vision now, I'd have attempted to try and perhaps build such an RGB strand and see how well it would or wouldn't work in some of the rainstorms we get in Florida, I'd have the ideal wet proving grounds for the test. LOL   In theory it sounds workable, however, only a real world test in the real world elements would prove it workable or not.  But we may never know.

So, it is, what it is, and we just have to do what we can to repair them when issues occur.  But it sure is a pain in doing so at times.

[Orville]

On 12/27/2022 at 11:45 AM, MattJ said:

Hey - so my cold weather failure happened to be a network connector inside a case. I replaced the connector and all my problems went away. We've been down in the 20s overnight and I've not had any more issues. 

This network failure in one controller caused weirdness across all my pixels strings on both networks (many of my failures were also the cream, dark orange and reddish brown looking color - I'm calling it "Busted Beige")

Looks like I just need to stay away from cheap network cables in future!

Thanks for all the advice folks. 

 

My cat5 were all new, so I knew it wasn't the cat5 on mine, first thing I checked.  I even tried different controllers on the strand before actually replacing it, all had the same issue and at the one bulb that had one color, blue, burned out in it.  Once I cut that node out and did a temp splice of the strand together, all 49 worked perfectly.   So I'll have to solder a replacement in to make it a 50 light RGB strand during the off season time.   Or I may cut it up into smaller sections and use it for some other special project I might come up with for it.

"Busted Beige", I like that term, and I think I'll use that term for that most awful of colors when a node fails, and the lights after it turn that gad awful color. LOL