Brad Bilger Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 Background.My show is 10 Controllers, 160 channels, at an amusement park. All controllers are 1604's. Everything is run with ELL's wireless units. Show has run pretty much flawlessly for the past 3 weeks. Each show, I've been right in the middle monitoring everything. Tonight, I took a night off and let someone else run the show for me.I get a paniced phone call saying that they can't get the preshow to come on. I walk him through the Hardware utility, tell him to update and search for controllers and it comes back with ZERO. Run some other tests and finally give up and drive back out to the park.Hardware utility shows that there is an ELL connected to the computer and can retrieve data from it with no problem. HW continues to show ZERO units out there. Check one of the controllers and the LED is blinking. Open up the ELL at the pc and the led is lit. Go to one of the outlying controllers and strip the ELL from it and bring to the PC and connect. HW shows 9 controllers out there now.Ran the show tonight minus 16 channels. Tommorrow, I am going to run a Cat 5 cable from one of my other 1604's back to the one that I stripped the ELL from to get everything back up and running.Has anyone out there had any sort of problem with the ELL's? My PC is located in the center of a big circle in a sound booth. Not heated, and the outside temp was around 24 degrees.Any ideas about what might have happened or did I just have a normal equipment failure? The ELL that failed is a bit over 3 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmoore60 Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 Brad,Might be worth tryin to configure the suspect bad ELL. Might have lost it's info somehow.Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 cmoore60 wrote: Brad,Might be worth tryin to configure the suspect bad ELL. Might have lost it's info somehow.ChuckAlso agree with Chuck.I never had an ELL fail in any of 4 sites where I have managed installed of LOR equipment. Over all 4 sites, a total of 15 ELLs are in operation over past 2 years. One of the sites is in pretty terrible cold and snow conditions.Another thing that comes to mind is to look closely at the Cat5 connector inside the ELL. It could be that a yank on the cat5 caused it to break connection if you didn't put good strain relief inside. Also, I have heard that if you use "booted" cat5 inside the ELL, it could put too much strain on the circuit board because there isn't usually enough vertical room for the boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Bilger Posted December 23, 2008 Author Share Posted December 23, 2008 Richard Hamilton wrote: cmoore60 wrote: Brad,Might be worth tryin to configure the suspect bad ELL. Might have lost it's info somehow.ChuckAlso agree with Chuck.I never had an ELL fail in any of 4 sites where I have managed installed of LOR equipment. Over all 4 sites, a total of 15 ELLs are in operation over past 2 years. One of the sites is in pretty terrible cold and snow conditions.Another thing that comes to mind is to look closely at the Cat5 connector inside the ELL. It could be that a yank on the cat5 caused it to break connection if you didn't put good strain relief inside. Also, I have heard that if you use "booted" cat5 inside the ELL, it could put too much strain on the circuit board because there isn't usually enough vertical room for the boot.Ok.. quick update. All the ELL's are using the standard 10' Cat 5 cable that came with them. This one particular ELL is at the pc, attached to a pole that I have to raise up to get it above the crowd to improve the range. In the process of taking it up and putting it down every night, I got a feeling that it might have gotten a bit of damage to it. While testing it today through HW Utility, it would only see one controller. And that one was only about 2 feet away from it. I did resets, reloaded configureation in to it and worked on it for about an hour. I applied proper repair techniques.... (I whanged it) and it is working perfectly now. Time for a replacement, but for the remainder of the season, its now at a less visible place in the show rather than being at the pc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 Well a really GOOD fireman would have beat it with a fire axe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyfunk Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 Richard Hamilton wrote: Well a really GOOD fireman would have beat it with a fire axe Okay, that's funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Bilger Posted December 23, 2008 Author Share Posted December 23, 2008 Richard Hamilton wrote: Well a really GOOD fireman would have beat it with a fire axe I didn't have one with me.. . so I just whacked it with my hand. However, you can't tell from the picture, but I be a little guy. 6'5" 290#. Taught it a lesson.But it didn't take. Wound up running a Cat 5 cable from one of the closer controllers to the one that I took the ELL from. It stuttered a bit during the show.Question for the group. I have a controller that is run by an ELL. I run a Cat 5 cable from that controller to another controller. Is there a length limit between controllers. I used a 50' cat 5 cable and it stutters a bit. I feel that I need to slow the speed of transmission, but can't get to all my other ELL's very easy. Will try tommorrow since the park is Closed on Christmas Eve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightORamaDan Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 Between the controllers you can put a long cable without a problem. You only need a short between the controller and the ELL.It is pretty uncommon for ELLs to fail BUT they do occasionally fail. What we have seen is the SAW filter fail. We have talked to the manufacture of the transceiver daughter card that we use and they do not have an explanation.Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Bilger Posted December 23, 2008 Author Share Posted December 23, 2008 LightORamaDan wrote: Between the controllers you can put a long cable without a problem. You only need a short between the controller and the ELL.It is pretty uncommon for ELLs to fail BUT they do occasionally fail. What we have seen is the SAW filter fail. We have talked to the manufacture of the transceiver daughter card that we use and they do not have an explanation.DanWow Dan... didn't expect that. Sheesh.. Like I said, I ran a cat 5 to another controller and brought everything back up and running, but it, for want of another description, Stutters... Tommorrow, the park is closed so I get to do some tweaking. I've got everything set at high speed, so I am going to slow the transmit speed down some and see if it clears the stutter. If so, then I'll run the rest of the season like this and order some replacement parts after the season. I also have one controller that has a flaky Triac that will be making a trip up to see you after the season. Part of my problem with that one I think is that I am pushing them to the limit on power. Next year I plan on splitting my load on two of my controllers to four controllers. My park manager told me the other night that I am getting good at spending his money And just as an FYI, I got the CEO of Six Flags flying down from New York Friday to see the show.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Hight Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Hi-I am having a similar problem. I have two new controllers (LOR1602W & CTB16PC) connected to PC by ELL (also new). Everything worked fine until last night when I lost connection to both controllers. Hardware cannot locate controller by ELL (but is able to after running CAT 5 cable to the first controller). I reconfigured both ELLs --though each showed the current version of firmware. When connected to the PC individually, each shows LED 1 lit, and LED 2 lit when streaming data. All CAT 5 cables are LOR and neither ELL has been subject to physical trauma -- quite a bit of verbal abuse, but nothing physical...yet. I would appreciate any help. Thanks,tlh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Bilger Posted December 29, 2008 Author Share Posted December 29, 2008 Ew... I think that I'd give Dan a call on that one. Mine was 3 years old when mine cratered.. but a new one?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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