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Controller Communication Connectors


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Posted

I am wondering if I may send 1 Controller back for repair. I find it difficult to compress the small tab on the Communications Cables when they get cold, and the other day I was careless and pulled to hard on one of the connections and broke the Female Connection link on the Controllers Panel. I am using 9 Controllers this year, and I did have an extra, so I swapped it out. And I realize that I probably could put this panel on the end of the Daisy Chain but if its not too expensive to get it fixed I would rather repair so that I still have the spare.

Mike

Guest wbottomley
Posted

Mike Schmidt wrote:

I am wondering if I may send 1 Controller back for repair. I find it difficult to compress the small tab on the Communications Cables when they get cold, and the other day I was careless and pulled to hard on one of the connections and broke the Female Connection link on the Controllers Panel. I am using 9 Controllers this year, and I did have an extra, so I swapped it out. And I realize that I probably could put this panel on the end of the Daisy Chain but if its not too expensive to get it fixed I would rather repair so that I still have the spare.

Mike


contact support: support@lightorama.com
Posted

Thankx William for your help. I have passed the e-mail on. I see that you are from the southern regions of our great nation so I suppose that you dont experiance the cold that we do up here that has been creating the problem that I desribed in my note. Started a large display this past weekend, looks very nice. Good luck with yours this season.

Tell me about your business Carolina Christmas, Also about the Free sequences that you advertise. I would love to be able to have access to see others and possibly use in the future.

Thankx again & Have a great holiday season.

Mike Schmidt

  • 5 weeks later...
Posted

Hi Mike, if you have not fixed it yet, let me know I may be able to help and we are almost neighbors :)

-Jim

Guest wbottomley
Posted

Mike Schmidt wrote:

Thankx William for your help. I have passed the e-mail on. I see that you are from the southern regions of our great nation so I suppose that you dont experiance the cold that we do up here that has been creating the problem that I desribed in my note. Started a large display this past weekend, looks very nice. Good luck with yours this season.

Tell me about your business Carolina Christmas, Also about the Free sequences that you advertise. I would love to be able to have access to see others and possibly use in the future.

Thankx again & Have a great holiday season.

Mike Schmidt


Mike... I just stumbled on your reply a month ago, lol.

It's been chilly not cold compared to Mn. We've had snow, then more snow, then near 3/4" ice on top of that.

It's been challenging year as the weather has put a damper on some traffic and donations are off by 50%.

Anyway... sequences and links on CC is nothing but a public service. They cost nothing -- just time to download them.

If you have any to share, a couple of places to share them would be your website or lightoramasequences.com.

Take care and hopefully you had a Merry Christmas and looking forward to seeing video of your display.
Posted

Thankx Jim;

I was able to get the controller in, and have received it back in a very timely manner even with the hectic season for LOR. Good feeling to have that back-up just in case something goes wrong with 1 of the other 9. We took our display down yesterday. It ran for a little over 4 weeks. Went very well. Do you display X-mas lights with the LOR program? If so, how many channels are you working with? What do you think of the LOR products? Look forward to hearing back from you.



Mike

Posted

Thanks Mike, I am brand new to LOR as I received my first 32 channels and FM transmitter for Christmas.

I've has a large static display for years, last year at home depot's after Christmas I picked up a 6 channel GE unit with built in speaker and pre-programed songs, that was enough to get me hooked.

This years display went up mid October, was lit from Thanksgiving to Christmas eve, when one of the GFIs decided to start popping. I finally shut down the static display and only left the GE 6 channel going. it was disappointing, but it did make it thought the rainiest October in a long time, and if we didn't get that warm spell for Christmas eve it would have made it. Alas, I tried but the extension cords were too buried under the snow for me to find where the fault was.
On a positive note, usually the display is frozen in until easter, this year I was able to remove all but about 2 dozen before the temp lowered and froze things in.

When things slow down (and warm up a bit) I'd love to get together with you and see if we can help each other.

Posted

Mike Schmidt wrote:

I am wondering if I may send 1 Controller back for repair. I find it difficult to compress the small tab on the Communications Cables when they get cold, and the other day I was careless and pulled to hard on one of the connections and broke the Female Connection link on the Controllers Panel. I am using 9 Controllers this year, and I did have an extra, so I swapped it out. And I realize that I probably could put this panel on the end of the Daisy Chain but if its not too expensive to get it fixed I would rather repair so that I still have the spare.

Mike


Mike, you can always cut off/remove the boot on the end of the RJ45 connector as you don't need that as the connector is plugged into your controller in a weather resistant enclosure.

That will make it much easier to remove the connector, without damaging your controller.
Posted

Yup.. I use flush cutters to snip the boot off. Generally the same xcelite 170's that I use for pretty much all holiday cutting needs. They aren't rated for quite the gauge wire I routinely cut, and I do tend to abuse them, but you can get them for $5 if you look far enough. I try to keep a several around in season.

Posted

Greg;

I actually have removed some of the boots, and have remade the longer cables with the more user freindly clips. The small cables used for the daisy chaining I have just left since I usually do not need to remove them when they are in use when its cold. Thankx for the tip however.

Mike

Posted

Good post. Bet you really dont get the cold in Texas like we do here. :>)

Mike

Posted

Nope, nothing like as cold as it gets up north. The annoying part is that you can never guess how many 70 degree set up days you will get, or how many 29 degree set up days you get. Dealing with the cable is great in the 60-70 range, but it is a downright different critter when you get below 40... Plus, since we normally take the approach of just avoiding being outside on the cold days, we really aren't well equipped for it when the install time line require being outside no matter what the temperatures are.

But as far as the booted cables, I've had trouble with them at indoor temperatures, so I really don't like them at all. There are other snagless designs that don't have half the problems of the booted cables.

  • 1 month later...
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