Power outage problem

[beeiilll]

Good morning all.

This is not a critical problem but I wanted to throw it out there and see if anyone else has seen this behavior with the controllers.

My setup consists of a dedicated 3.0 GHz computer with 2GB ram, Windows XP with service pack 3 and am running LOR version 2.6.2. Have a USB485B with ferrite filters. The computer is on a UPS. I have disabled auto updates on that machine for the season just to be safe but I keep it internet connected for weather updates for Zara radio which runs 24/7 when the show is not running. All controllers are running firmware version 4.30 and are CTB16K units that I built with high power heat sinks and dual power cords.

I have 14 controllers out in the display and am using 208 channels of them presently.

When we have a power outage and the power comes back on I have 3 of the controllers that will bring lights on in a twinkle mode. Not all the channels will come on just a few and it varies from power outage to outage. One of the controllers is on a set of 4 mini trees with 4 colors of lights. One of them is on my mega tree and the other is on my blowmolds. Funny on the blowmolds since there are 4 controllers for them and only one of the controllers "acts up" when power returns.

Usually the one on the min trees turns on all 4 colors on 2 or 3 of the trees and then one or two of the colors will twinkle and the others will stay on full.

The mega tree controller seems to always turn on the 3 channels that my strobes are on, although I have seen it turn on strings of lights on twinkle as well. I have 4 controllers for the tree mounted in a Nema 4 enclosure for the tree.

The blowmold controller will turn on one or more of the molds and sometimes quite a few. Sometimes they twinkle, other times they just come on "full on".

I do have my data cables seperated by 2 feet or more from power cables and where they do have to cross it is at a right angle to each other.

I am assuming that this is a "power on reset" glitch that is coming over the data lines since it is entirely random with no definate pattern to it other than I always get the strobes on the mega tree firing after a power restart.

Anyone else have any similar situations happen to them when having power restart? Certainly is an irritating thing during the day since I am not here but I try to get home to check as soon as possible since I don't want the strobes sitting out there firing away all day. I go out and unplug the controllers for a few seconds and then plug them back in which solves the problem.

It would be nice if the controllers could be set to do a "channel off" command a couple of seconds after power comes back on, but not sure that is something fesible or how you would impliment it.

Last year I had only 5 controller out there and never saw anything like this happen. We do tend to get power glitches quite often in the winter time here since I live in a remote small town a couple of hours away from any major cities.

So that's the story. Any ideas from you gurus out there or suggestions as to how to stop this problem?

Something to think about while you work on that second cup of coffee on a cold winters morning.

Thanks

Bill