What's up with 4.4 firmware?

[chuckd]

I've been messing around with why my LOR setup knocks out my DSL line to the house when running. I 'thought' I isolated it down to a particular 1602 box, as I replaced it with a brand new unit and the problem seemed to become much, much better.

So last night being our first live night, I went out and watched everything just to check it all out. Oddly enough, it seemed that the wrapped trees connected to the new box didn't do fading very well at all. All my lights are the new CDI (not last years crappy ones) LED's (C6, 50 count) with terminators on the lines.

Today, I ran around with my Fluke Oscilloscope, and looked at the power lines when the system was running doing a continual 10% to 70% fade up and down. Every 1602 generated a bunch of glitches on the power line, up to about 40 volts peak. The new unit generated much, much less noise. I found that quite odd that 52 units generated a lot of noise, and 1 unit generated much less.

Checking out the firmware, I noticed that the new unit is running 4.4 firmware. The other units run a mixture of 4.3 and 4.01 firmware.

Did they change something with fading in the 4.4 firmware? Anybody else out there notice that their LED's hardly fade at all with 4.4 firmware units?

I just thought I'd ask before I run around trying to see how the 4.3 versus 4.4 waveforms are different with my scope.

By the way, I did look at the output of the 4.4 non-fading unit, and it is definitely chopping off the waveform like I'd expect a dimmer to do. I just haven't investigated how it's different from 4.3.

Thanks for any help.

Chuck

[chuckd]

Additional info: I just thought I'd try to download 4.3 firmware to the unit, to see if dimming changed. All my firmware is rejected as not applicable to that particular unit. The board is labeled CTB16D V7. I don't seem to have an V7 firmware, only V5. Obviously, I can't use 4.4 firmware on an old unit, as it's not apparently available either.


And I already checked that the min and max intensities are 0 and 100 in the controller.

Does LOR produce a document of what's new with new firmware?

Chuck

[Guest wbottomley]

chuckd wrote:

Additional info: I just thought I'd try to download 4.3 firmware to the unit, to see if dimming changed. All my firmware is rejected as not applicable to that particular unit. The board is labeled CTB16D V7. I don't seem to have an V7 firmware, only V5. Obviously, I can't use 4.4 firmware on an old unit, as it's not apparently available either.


And I already checked that the min and max intensities are 0 and 100 in the controller.

Does LOR produce a document of what's new with new firmware?

Chuck

Why are you changing firmware?

If it's working then don't break it.

All firmware (4.32 & 4.40) have the same affects. The reason for 4.40 is a hardware change.

[chuckd]

It's not working. 4.4 does not dim the LED's properly. All 4.3 units do. The output of the 4.4 box definitely indicates an attempt to fade (normal looking chopped off AC waveform), but the lights are hardly dimming at all, even set at 10%. Every box at 4.3 fades the lights just fine.

I haven't compared the 4.4 waveform to the 4.3 waveform, but tomorrow I will.

I have no units running 4.32, so I don't know if the problem exists with that version or not.

[Guest wbottomley]

chuckd wrote:

It's not working. 4.4 does not dim the LED's properly. All 4.3 units do. The output of the 4.4 box definitely indicates an attempt to fade (normal looking chopped off AC waveform), but the lights are hardly dimming at all, even set at 10%. Every box at 4.3 fades the lights just fine.

I haven't compared the 4.4 waveform to the 4.3 waveform, but tomorrow I will.

I have no units running 4.32, so I don't know if the problem exists with that version or not.

I would send an email to Dan support@lightorama.com and tell him the problem.

[George Cotton]

Now I'm spooked with the LED problems described with the new board and 4.40 softwre. Halloween is over and sure don't need anything scary for Christmas.

I have a new DIY controller arriving tomorrow on UPS. I have already adjusted all of my Christmas sequences for the additional channels and most of those items moved were LED's. I experienced some very minor problems with LED's on my current V6 board and 4.3x. A slight change in programming solved the problems. But overall, my original programming could have been left alone as no one else would have noticed.

So glad I saved the 16 channel versions as they may be needed if what I'm reading is correct with my new yet-to-be-assembled unit. But my original reason for saving them was if I screwed up the new board during construction, I would have working sequencies to fall back on.

Thanks for the info.

[LightORamaDan]

Hi,

The controllers with 4.4 firmware have a slightly different design and their firmware will not run on any of the other controllers. They are supposed to have "smoother" response.

We will double check the fading but we did not see any issues with them and fading of LEDs.

Dan

[George Cotton]

Received my kit this afternoon and was relieved to find that it was a V6 "Blue" board exactly like the first one. Spent a couple hours putting it together and then I had to go out for a whlie. I plugged it in and the LED started flashing - a good sign.

When I returned, I initially had to scan up to 50 units to find the new controller even though it was set for "01". The Hardware Utility found it as "21". Messed with the unit selector switch a few times and finally got it to register as "01" and then I was able to set this unit as "02" so it will join my first unit soon. Updated the firmware from 4.30 to 4.32.

Now, to finish my plans for the extra channels. Not using them all, but I needed 3 or 4 of them to help my display a bit by allowing a bit more versitility in a couple of existing circuits and turning my landscape lights off before each show and then back on between shows. I plan on the 7w nightlight idea I read on here to trick the photo cells. Also to turn my FM transmitter on for the evening so I don't have to use a wall timer.

[cmoore60]

Note on using LOR to turnon your transmitter.

I have the EDM and last year I tried using an LOR channel to turn on the transmitter. This introduced noise in the transmitter. When I put the transmitter on a timer, then the noise was gone.

Chuck

[chuckd]

Dan,

Have you checked out the continuing information on this problem in the thread:

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum76/20653.html

Sorry I broke it in half, but I kind of drifted away from it possibly being a 4.4 issue, and am looking at hardware now. I've got some scope traces on there and a bunch of additional information about this problem.

Thanks,

Chuck

[George Cotton]

Chuck:

I tried this after Halloween and listened to a 5 minute, "silent" mp3 file and sequence I created and heard nothing through 3 different radios. One was a simple table model, next was my home theater system and finally the Bose system in my car. It was basically very clean. This unit has an external "switching" power supply which may be helping filter out any noise from the LOR.

I have one audio problem with the DC-MP3 unit and this transmitter and that's the output from the DC-MP3 will drive decently effecient speakers, which is way over what I expect to see in "line" level outputs. Bottom line is that I've had to reduce the mp3's by 10db from normal in order to use them, plus I've inserted 20db attenuators in each side between the DC-MP3 and the TX to keep from distorting the "line" inputs on my FM transmitter. Unfortinuately my FM TX does not have adjustments for the line or mic inputs and yes, the mic input does respond to a much smaller signal source than the line.

So, I hope I'm good to go on this point. Of course, your milage may vary.