JDM_ Posted December 5, 2009 Posted December 5, 2009 This is my first year doing a LOR display.I finally got everything up and did a test thursday night. Everything worked great! then.... Then it rained for 2 days and now my wall socket breaker (i forget what this is called) keeps tripping.i have done the following trouble shooting.--> I checked to see if any plugs or connectors were in water but see no issues.--> shook the water off my mini trees--> ran hardware test turning channels on and off to try to isolate the problem.found that there was no pattern to why this was happening. there does not seem to be 1 channel that is causing to problem. It trips if there are 6 trees on at once but it doesn't seem to matter which trees. It also trips if other channels are on with no trees on at all.I have only 1-16 channel kit and it is set up for only 15 amps. I am only using indoor/outdoor mini lights. my setup is as follows.channels 1-8) 8-mini trees with 200 mini lights eachchannels 9-12) 4-wreaths with 200 mini lights eachchannels 13) 90 ft of ice sickles on roofchannel 14) 300 mini lights on roofchannel 15) 100 mini lights on roof (star)channel 16) not being used yet.Any help would be greatly appreciated....
cenote Posted December 5, 2009 Posted December 5, 2009 It's called a GFI. It's there for everybodys protection. Senses and kind of "electric" flowing where it should not. When it is tripping with no rime or reason, this is normal. They work when a certain thershold is met. Sometimes it takes more than one connection getting wet to do this.One sugguestion is to keep plugs off the ground, and don't worry. BE SAFE. I have hundreds of connections, and it is normal for my display not to run durring the rain. People will get used to it, I do run a voice over explaining this durring the rain.Don't try bypassing the GFI's. Only bad can come of this.
cenote Posted December 5, 2009 Posted December 5, 2009 P.S How dare you have a unused channel....Welcome aboard
iresq Posted December 5, 2009 Posted December 5, 2009 Do you have any mini's sitting on the ground? They may trip as well. GFCI's are a bit tricky. Don't be tempted to bypass. Some people just don't run in the rain. Others, myself included, don't seam to have many GFI issues.
iresq Posted December 5, 2009 Posted December 5, 2009 cenote wrote: P.S How dare you have a unused channel....Welcome aboardGood call. Missed that.JDM, LOR hates empty channels. Clearly this is the problem!Just kidding.
JDM_ Posted December 5, 2009 Author Posted December 5, 2009 Don't worry guys.... I just haven't hooked that channel up yet. It is going to a shrub next to my driveway...Thanks for all your help.. I am hoping to resolve this today so our first show can play tonight. I have been beating my ice sickles with a broom trying to get the water off...I will be getting all connections off the ground by using some shims i have laying around but what about the female connectors at the end of each mini light string? will these cause an issue? Seems like these lights should not do this since they are labeled "outdoor lights".
JDM_ Posted December 5, 2009 Author Posted December 5, 2009 Oh yeah.... I only have 1 plug hooked up. My LOR box is set up for only 15 amps. I can't set it up to be 30 amp cause i only have a 20 amp breaker.
Max-Paul Posted December 6, 2009 Posted December 6, 2009 JDM_ wrote: Oh yeah.... I only have 1 plug hooked up. My LOR box is set up for only 15 amps. I can't set it up to be 30 amp cause i only have a 20 amp breaker.What he was telling you is to (if possible at this point in the game) have two cords and plug one cord into the GFI that you are currently plugged into. And take the second cord to a different GFI. Thus you would be splitting up any leakage current so that hopefully the now splitted leakage current would not be enough to trip either GFI.Hope that makes some kind of sense.
JDM_ Posted December 6, 2009 Author Posted December 6, 2009 UPDATE:My father came by and helped me isolate the problem. 2 of my mini trees each had 1 string affected by the wet weather. I was able to unplug the bad strings and add an extra string of mini lights to each tree.The show was on.... and it was awesome!!!!My neighbors were in ah.....Hopefully this issue will not come up again Thank you for all your help and support. I appreciate you guys patrolling the forum and assisting newbies like me. Hopefully I will gain some knowledge by doing this years show so I can return the favor next year.On another note... I already want another 16 channels. Does LOR have a after christmas sale? :cool:
friskybri Posted December 8, 2009 Posted December 8, 2009 Its been raining all day and tonight I keep tripping the same GFI and have all the cords off the ground, checked them again. I will have to look at the mini trees to see if there is a bad string getting wet. I figured I wouldn't have any people but they are still coming.
TJ Hvasta Posted December 8, 2009 Posted December 8, 2009 You can try this to isolate which string is shorting out.. As tough as it sounds:unplug ALL the lines(channels) then plug one in at a time, powering up each time.. first JUST channel 1, then Ch 2 and so on....when you plug in (then power up) the channel that is shorting out, do what you can to either dry it out, using a hair dryer in a GFI (protected mode) (also means NOT standing in water or wet ground when using it), or change it out and tape up the ends/plugs to keep it from shorting out again.
friskybri Posted December 8, 2009 Posted December 8, 2009 It takes awhile for it to trip. I will sit there and wait 30 mins and nothing. Go watch some tv and come back 30 mins later and poof. they are out. I have two GFI's so I plugged them into different ones. At least I will get it down to 8 on the next trip. Thats if both dont trip.lol.
eldoradoboy Posted December 8, 2009 Posted December 8, 2009 I dont run in heavy rain.. i figure no one is going to go out driving looking at christmas dispkays in the rain...most traffic would be from local neighbors going to the grocery, get home from work ,etc.,. and they are through the neighborhood enough they will see it on a dry nightMini trees are notorious for knocking out GFCI's..GFCI measures the amount of current loss from the hot to the earth ground... mini trees are typically metal art easels or tomato cages.. wit htheir legs stuck in the ground and the lights attached to them..add a little rain water and you get current loss to the ground...I have all of my mini trees sitting up on PVC plastic pipe stands and that greatly minimizes GFCI trips that I incur..I have tested my display in rain and it will run unless its real heavy... used to be my mini trees always knocked out the GFCI...I run a separate GFCI for every extension cord i have feeding the mains of my controllers... some controllers are on 1 cord as 15 amp.. others are on 2 cords... this way it helps me to isolate down what channels are causing the issue...someone else i know elevates all of their extension cord connections off the ground on light stakes to help with trips as well... its a learning experience as you go along to learn what most causes issues in your display... every one is different....-Christopher
JDM_ Posted December 8, 2009 Author Posted December 8, 2009 Thank you for your help. All great advice...My show ran flawless tonight... I'm so pleased...
friskybri Posted December 9, 2009 Posted December 9, 2009 eldoradoboy wrote: I have all of my mini trees sitting up on PVC plastic pipe stands and that greatly minimizes GFCI trips that I incur..That's a great idea. I will have to remember that for next year. Now that its freezing out hopefully it wont rain anymore and just snow with no more tripping. I have the entire controller on right now.
mwilliams Posted December 9, 2009 Posted December 9, 2009 I used to have a lot of issues with the rain. In Atlanta, winter usually means a lot more rain than snow. Last year, I started putting all of my connections inside 1" pvc pipe with tester caps. I attach that to a light stake, and voila! no more trips.The price is pretty good, too. Once they're made, they're pretty quick and easy to use. Attached files
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