lights sticking

[a8184]

Hate to beat a dead horse, but I've read the boards and tried the suggestions and things are still sticking. I have 5 LOR1602W with ELLs. I have channels that come on and don't go off until the next command or they stay on and don't go off until end of song (1 mega tree channel). My deer don't run, they stutter and my stars don't cascade, they crash and burn. This is what I've tried so far with info obtained from boards:
1) Reset all controls (ie. set to zero, turned on, off after 10+ secs and reset original assignment).
2) Relocated my power cords so they aren't as close to my cat5s
3) Checked channel assignments
4) Lights work perfectly in the animation screen and during Hardware utility checks. My running deer and cascading stars look really good until I stand outside.

Box 1 works perfectly (mostly). sometimes comes on when show is done, but its really pretty so i don't complain. + they're all LEDs on that box, so figure there's just enough power to make them come on.
Box 2 has the running deer. Each of the 6 have 150 lights, and an LED river.
Box 3 is perfect, but just got that back from LOR.
Box 4 is the stars. It has 4 CFL spot lights and a set of strobe lights (interference?). Other lights on stars are incans, ranging from about 50 lights to 150 lights per channel
Box 5 Odds and ends that work fine except for channel 15 that has 16 strands of incan lights on mega tree. when they come on, they don't go off until end of sequence. I haven't overloaded box or circuit as I have several projects that didn't get completed.
Box 6 works fine.
Units are only 2 or 3 years old. I am running boxes 1 & 3 to the 2nd port on the usb because output on box 4 was dead and wasn't communicating to any subsequent boxes.

Sorry for length, but trying to give you all the pertinent data. I'm frustrated and will pay someone next year to troubleshoot my display. I'll still program everything though.

The only thing I know I haven't done is replace all the cables for the 4 boxes that have intermittent glitches. I don't have any new electronics, at least that I've plugged in. Got some new phones, but didn't want interference.

Cord to Ell to outside antennae is short as recommended. I can't figure out the rest to fix it. Thanks for any assistance.

A

Sorry if I just put someone to sleep or made things clear as mud

[cmoore60]

Filtered USB cable between the computer and the usb adapter?

Temporarily remove your CFL and see if the issue clears. You may have to permanently remove them. They have been reported to generate noise that interferes with the controllers.

Chuck

[Max-Paul]

cmoore60 wrote:

Filtered USB cable between the computer and the usb adapter?

Temporarily remove your CFL and see if the issue clears. You may have to permanently remove them. They have been reported to generate noise that interferes with the controllers.

Chuck

What he said..

I saw them CFLs and it just screamed at me that this should be removed. is this the one thing you have not tried yet that you read on the boards?

[Rick Hughes]

You didn't mention (I don't think) whether your timing events are *really* fast. I know that's not supposed to be an issue ... BUT ... I had a sequence which had a section of .03 second events which worked flawlessly when the controllers were all wire-connected, but they it seemed to overwhelm the network when I moved to wireless ELLs.

[a8184]

Sorry for delay in replies, work nights and caught up on missing sleep. My timings are .05. channels 1-8 are supposed to be cascading stars, but 1-7 all come on and stay on. Channel 8 is a star and strobes together. Because of the strobes, i don't fade that channel, just have it on for a longer amount of time, then turn it off. Channel 8 and with star and strobes works perfectly. I'll remove the cfls from that box to see if that helps. I was trying to save energy. I was also having a problem with my whole house transmitter not being clear, so moved it to last years location upstairs. Went to call my husband on the cordless near the new location and couldn't dial out, only heard my show. This phone is 17 years old and may be a culprit as well so that has been disconnected. I'll let you know the progress. Just saw my post, good lord that was long...sorry.

[a8184]

cmoore60 wrote:

Filtered USB cable between the computer and the usb adapter?

Temporarily remove your CFL and see if the issue clears. You may have to permanently remove them. They have been reported to generate noise that interferes with the controllers.

Chuck

I assume it is Chuck, its whatever came from LOR. Also I did notice a nick in the cable to the adapter, could that be a problem too? Will electrical tape temporarily take care of it if it is a problem?

[a8184]

Max-Paul wrote:

cmoore60 wrote:

Filtered USB cable between the computer and the usb adapter?

Temporarily remove your CFL and see if the issue clears. You may have to permanently remove them. They have been reported to generate noise that interferes with the controllers.

Chuck

What he said..

I saw them CFLs and it just screamed at me that this should be removed. is this the one thing you have not tried yet that you read on the boards?

The one thing I hadn't tried was changing the cat5s just in case they were bad. Ok, so now maybe 2 things I hadn't tried.

[cmoore60]

Depending on when you purchased your adapter from LOR it may or maynot be filtered. The filtered USB cable has "lumps" on both ends where the cable is looped thru the filter a few times. It really is pretty easy to tell the difference. If you don't have the lumps then my guess is it is not filtered. The filtered cables are in the LOR store. If not sure, you can call Mary and she will help you out. Just a nick in the outer insulation should not be a problem If you can see broken wire inside where the nick is, then that could be a problem. Other than that to cover with electrical tape should be no problem.

Since you mentioned a cordless phone in a previous post. That is a possibility also. I remember reading when the ELLs first came out a person not having any problems at first. Then a neighbor got a new cordless phone and their display went bonkers. This might be worth a bit of investigation if the other avenues do not help. Since I do not use the ELLs myself I am not sure what frequencies they use.

Oh1 you do have my symapthies working nights. I have been on working nights for 21 years. The nice part is not having to deal so much with managers.

Chuck

[mhowcroft]

Last year I had lights that would come on that were not suppose to. Some would stay on, etc. Skrewed up the whole show. This year I checked all the channels so none were conflicting, I made the snubbers, I updated the firmware for the controllers and when tested with labtop each song individually worked fine. Hooked up to main pc and same problem, sporatic channels would come on when not suppose to. Bought new Cat5e cables and problem solved. Show has run perfect for last two nights since I changed the cables. Using LED mini lights and they fade perfect and work perfect witht he snubbers and new cables.

[-klb-]

Any results from testing without the CFL?

[baseball2011]

I had a similar problem last night. I have 6 controllers and had a problem with random channels not working during my sequences. Some would flash on/off for a few seconds at the wrong time then wholes sections would stop working. I re-booted my show computer and all my problems went away! (Well, at least my LOR problems!) Have you tried that? I know it seems obvious, but thought I would suggest it.

Hope you get it working....Mike