Fades not working sometimes

[Guest guest]

I am having something strange happen. I have a show where the fades are not working correctly. I have a song where on every note a channel comes on and then fades off. About half of them fade correctly and half of them just pop ON and OFF without fading.

The show plays exactly the same every time I play so it is not random where sometimes it fades and sometime it pops. This show has 48 channels

For fun I created a new show with only 16 channels and using the exact same song and all the fades work correctly.

Any Ideas?

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Send the sequence to info@lightorama.com and they will take a look at it. Include the following information:

Some Channels that are not working correctly

When they are not working correctly

Type of connection to the units: SC485, USB, Wireless .......

Thanks
Dan

[tsrail]

RichardH wrote:

I am having something strange happen. I have a show where the fades are not working correctly. I have a song where on every note a channel comes on and then fades off. About half of them fade correctly and half of them just pop ON and OFF without fading.

The show plays exactly the same every time I play so it is not random where sometimes it fades and sometime it pops. This show has 48 channels

For fun I created a new show with only 16 channels and using the exact same song and all the fades work correctly.

Any Ideas?

Richard - did you ever get this working? I have the left side of a controller (channels 1-8) all of a sudden acting the way you describe. If I manually fade (in the Hardware Program) all 8 channels are OFF at "power level" 0%; and FULL ON from about 2% - 49%;

THEN they shut OFF at 50% and fade up from 51% to 100%. When the power level is 51%, the lights are at 1% brightness.

I connected different lights, but all minis act this way, but ONLY on channels 1-8.

Channels 9-16, and my other 2 controllers are fine.

This controller worked fine for the Halloween show. I did upgrade software to LORII since then.

I even switched fuses from the left to the right, but the problem remains with Channels 1-8 only.



Any ideas?

Thanks!

Tom

[tsrail]

Nevermind. Figured it out.

It started happening on another controller - again, only channels 1-8 were fading 'weird'.

...Something seemed fishy. So I switched the 2 Power Input circuits going to the two sides of the problem controller, and BAM!...Channels 9-16 were now screwed up, while 1-8 were fine.



I have 8 separate 20AMP circuits in this room (at a church) and 3 of them, when plugged into a LOR box, won't allow a Fade correctly. Now I have to run a few 250' cords to other rooms, but all is well.



Anyone know why some of these power circuits would act like that, and not allow fades to work correctly? They all go back to the same power panel, and according to the blueprints of this room, there doesn't appear to be anything special with these particular circuits. All of these circuits (as far as I can tell) had no other load/use, except for the LOR controllers I am connecting.

[Steven]

The power panel is probably a 3-phase panel, and you are feeding different phases to the different sides of the controller. To do fades, the controller is taking timing pulses from the power connected to the right side of the controller. It uses those timing pulses as the point where the AC voltage passes through 0. If the AC waveform of the power connected to the left side of the controller passes through 0 at a different point, then fades won't work right.

The solution is to power both sides of the controller with the same phase. Unfortunately, I don't know how to identify the phases of circuits without taking the cover off the power panel.

[tsrail]

Steven wrote:

The power panel is probably a 3-phase panel, and you are feeding different phases to the different sides of the controller. To do fades, the controller is taking timing pulses from the power connected to the right side of the controller. It uses those timing pulses as the point where the AC voltage passes through 0. If the AC waveform of the power connected to the left side of the controller passes through 0 at a different point, then fades won't work right.

The solution is to power both sides of the controller with the same phase. Unfortunately, I don't know how to identify the phases of circuits without taking the cover off the power panel.

Steven - Thanks. After 5 hours of troubleshooting, and discussions with my resident electrician, we came to that conclusion as well this morning.

The problem is, I am using all of the 15Amps that each side of the controller will give, and I have 3 16channel controllers to power. The ciruits are only 20A. So I need to test all of the circuits, and record the 'malfunctioning' phases. Then find 6 'funtioning' ones.



Thanks for the info!

[Tim Fischer]

tsrail wrote:

Steven wrote:

The power panel is probably a 3-phase panel, and you are feeding different phases to the different sides of the controller. To do fades, the controller is taking timing pulses from the power connected to the right side of the controller. It uses those timing pulses as the point where the AC voltage passes through 0. If the AC waveform of the power connected to the left side of the controller passes through 0 at a different point, then fades won't work right.

The solution is to power both sides of the controller with the same phase. Unfortunately, I don't know how to identify the phases of circuits without taking the cover off the power panel.

Steven - Thanks. After 5 hours of troubleshooting, and discussions with my resident electrician, we came to that conclusion as well this morning.

The problem is, I am using all of the 15Amps that each side of the controller will give, and I have 3 16channel controllers to power. The ciruits are only 20A. So I need to test all of the circuits, and record the 'malfunctioning' phases. Then find 6 'funtioning' ones.



Thanks for the info!

If you have access to the panel, every three breakers going down should be on different phases. So every 3rd breaker should be on the same phase. This might help you identify things better than trial and error...

-Tim