LED strings staying on while show is off.

[chadowamsley]

Hello,

I am not on this site much due to myself using Renard boards and I dont see much Renards here and I know nothing about Lynx equipment. I made a post at other forums looking for help with an LED issue, and figured I would post here also to see if somebody could help out. Below is what I have posted to other forums before now. Hopefully this is understandable.

Thank you for any help in advance.

Having an issue with a couple led light strands staying on when the show isn't running. The green and blue strsnds on one of my four color bushes stay on about 30 percent lit. Then I have one set of lights, in a run of 6 fifty count strands, that barely on. If I unplug they go off but as soon as iplug back in they come back on. I'm running a ren64xc to ssrez relays. The rest work fine except those couple. I have the same issue at my parents house that I set up. I tried swapping relays but the same problem happens. Ordered some resistors to try msking some snubbers, but not sure if that will help as i read that is mostly for flicker. Picking up a glade plugin to try tonight after work.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Trying to figure this out before Thanksgiving.

Lights are from holidaylightexpress if that helps.

I had one incad strand on an arch on tonight when I got home. I tried swapping boards but the did not help. I tried swapping the rj45 couplers which did nothing either. I unplugged the strand and blew on the plugin behind the male end and blew in the female and that was able to get the incad strand to go off. Now once I ran a test sequence that strand came right back on after and I repeated the process.

For the LED strands, trying to blow the plugs did not solve the problem. The LED strands are not noticeable during the sequence though which is good. That was the same for the incad also, not noticeable during the sequence and dimmed and turned off fine.

I also have a really bad flicker in certain parts and one channel that has about 600 LED lights does not hardly dim at all. Hopefully once the resistors come in they will help a little bit to where the lights will dim.Another section has 400 LED lights and the flicker is noticeable a little bit but not nearly as bad as the 600. The 600 basically just turns on and off.

I believe the incad might be due to moisture and the rain considering fixes the problem once I blow the outlet dry some and today we had a lot of rain here.

[keitha43]

Making a snubber using resistors could help. I use a c9 bulb at the end of problem strings. You may not have enough load to turn off the triac. This is a bigger problem when multiple led strings are plugged together. I use a black plastic bag to hide it. The glade plug in would also work. Also if led strings get wet it can also cause it. Also I picked up an extension cord at a yard sale and 2 of the wires were reversed causing the same symptom.

[IndianaChristmas]

I've seen the snubber suggestion several times.  My only question is where does this snubber go?  I have this same issue with some lights attached to my SSR4's.  I don't have any C9 lights to use. 

[chadowamsley]

I tried using a C9 bulb with no luck. The incad lights I believe is a wetness problem.

The LEDs, this is my first year and Im not for sure about them. Willing to try anything. I only have one set of LEDS where they are always on about 10 to 15 percent. but the flickering and hardly dimming at all is on the 400 and 600 light runs.

This weekend when Im off I might try waterproofing the plugs better to see if that helps. Also, my resistors should be in tomorrow so I will try the snubber thing. Really the couple strands of LEDs being on a little bit I can live with, my lights not dimming correctly is going to kill me. And I purchased a lot for my parents home also this year and Im afraid they might have the same problem. As they live a few hours away I cant just drive to check so I have a brother going to check tomorrow that lives there. So hopefully I can find a fix for the flickering or both problems before Thanksgiving.

Thanks Again for any help.

[chadowamsley]

Keitha43 couple questions.

When you say that you use a c9 bulb at the end of problem strings, what type of issues are you talking about with the problem ? Just trying to compare.

And when you mention the extension cord, how were the wires reversed ? Or was it a home made cord ? I use all vampire plugs and spt2 wire. I make each wire the same way each time. Maybe redoing the plugs, just to try, could possibly help get the lights off if the spikes in the plugs arent making good contact ? Just thinking here.

Also, when I move the green LED strand, the lights get brighter and dimmer when I move it around. Not for sure what this means.

[keitha43]

A c9 can act like a snubber. Some people use plug in air fresheners or little 4w nightlights. If there is not enough load to turn off the triac it can stay on. It can also help with dimming. Some cheaper brand leds don't dim well no matter what. I stay away from big box store lights because of this and only use lights recommended by people in our hobby. The extension cord had the end replaced on one end. I discovered my problem moved with the cord. I opened it and saw 2 of the colored wires were switched. It was a few years ago. I think it was neutral and ground but don't remember for sure. A bad triac might make it stay on also (I think). I would try swapping the leds between channels that have a problem with channels that don't to troubleshoot.

[jnealand]

Often times lights stay on when a show ends because they were not turned off before the sequence ended and they remember there last setting.  Make sure that in the last timing segment (50ms or more) all the lights are turned off.

[chrisatpsu]

what are you using to run the show, a dongle?   

does this device get turned off when the show is over?

if dmx devices are left on, without a dongle powered, they can get irregular data in the signal line, and turn on.
i have a couple expresses do that. once i left the dongle on, the devices never turned on by themselves.

not sure if a renard signal is similar, but the device used to send the signal should be on.

[holland lights]

A c9 light bulb and a snubber is basically the same thing; since a light bulb and the resistor both create resistance or load on the light controllers.

Now it could be a dongle issue like i used to have for some reason. I would unplug the cat 5 from the dongles output, and plug it back in That would usually fix the problem.

Renard s work about the same as the lynx expresses do; since the Renard can be flashed with the dmx firmware and run on a dmx network.

[tbone321]

While true, a Renard does not have a true implementation of DMX or at least it didn't.  While the flash would allow it to be able to understand DMX, it would still strip the channels it was using from the data stream which is not part of the DMX512 protocol.  Triacs leak a little and this can cause some LED strings to glow a little.  The C9 puts enough of a load on the channel to pull voltage down below what the LED's need to light and the varying load of the bulb also tends to smooth out the dimming curve of many LED strings.

[chadowamsley]

I tried the snubber with no luck. The channels barely on while sequence is off I can live with but the lights flickering when I dim is bugging me. If Im fading or ramping from say Green to Red, The blue and will turn on for a second and go off during the fade or ramp. Between color fades or ramps is the same. Today I took a spare Ren24 and split one of my long runs up into 3 channels. One has 100 LED, the other two have 200 lights. Splitting them up did not help.

Will running a power cord to each ssrez help with this issue ? Right now for all my ssrez boards around the roof, 5 total, I have them plugged into the same power cord with inline plugs. If I run each their own cord that plugs into one of those green 3 way yard stakes, just wondering if that might help or worth trying.  A bit lost on where to go. Cant leave it this way as when Im suppose to have a slow white fade or ramp I get a brief red blue and green flicker at the start and end which looks terrible. Trying to get this taken care of before Thursday but starting to bang my head on the desk.

I ask about the power cords because tonight while testing I noticed when I had one ssrez running a test, the ssrez beside it that had no sequence going through it, was flickering while fades and ramps were going on.
Anything would be appreciated.

[ahb2ukeith]

I agree with Jim, I had the same thing happen with LOR.

[chadowamsley]

I believe the problem is the triacs. I actually had a guy stop by tonight, first night, he lives about an hour away but also has Renard boards. I showed him my problem and he said swapping the triacs corrected his problem. The only thing I havent tried but will try in the off season, if there is such a thing. Luckily I have extra boards so just throwing a Ren24 out this weekend and running new power cords for the channels and eliminating the SSRez board controlling those channels.

[holland lights]

Yea all triacs have a leakage problem, but their are some that allows more leakage than others. That is why swapping out the triacs fixed his problem.

[chadowamsley]

BTA06-600C BTA06-600 TRIAC 600V 6A are the triacs that I need to update my ssrez boards to as I have the bta04 triacs now. I checked my other boards that are working correctly and they all have the bta06 triacs. So Ill have to try and get my desoldering under control and correct these after the season.