DiyLightAnimation
Hardware => Lynx Express => Topic started by: pyrodragon97 on September 23, 2012,
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I was trying out some of my boards in prep for the coming season and noticed that one of them is not dimming. The LED indicators all dim as necessary, but the voltage out is only in the range of 2-3 volts. When ramping, the lights stay off until 100%, at which the lights finally come on with a voltage of 120V as it should be. I have already tried reflashing the pic and setting dimming curves with no success. Any ideas of the problem? Maybe the triacs are bad?
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Are you running one power cord and do not have the last eight channels powered?
Is is only the ch 9 - 16 doing this?
did you leave a fuse off? or blow one of them?
RJ
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one power cord with a jump to the right side to power channels 9-16. it is every channel on this board. I have another from the came co-op working perfectly fine. Fuses are both good.
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No triacs would not do this. Sounds like you have the Strobe curve loaded. this curve works this way it only comes on at full. Try flashing the pic again with code from wiki and do not change anything should come up on channel #001 and work with default curves.
RJ
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Just tried with the same problem. Seems to have no effect. Could it be that the PIC is just bad?
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Run the test and see if what indicators light after it is done running and let us know. Also when the unit boots after power has been off does it say 60HZ or 50HZ.
RJ
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Just tested. I get LEDs 2 and 4, no 3 because the CAT5 cable was unplugged. When it boots i get 60hz, but sometimes it just stays off until booting up with the starting channel.
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Can you post some pictures for the members to look at. Sometimes we can pick out something you are missing.
RJ
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Here is a video showing my problem. The lights are only on when the intensity in vixen is above 95%, but the LED indicators dim as the program says. It is supposed to be on for 2 seconds at 100% and then ramping down for 4, which repeats 3 times.
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Sorry I meant high res still pictures where we can see the board both sides clearly.
RJ
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Greetings,,,
Can you swap pics to see if the issue follows the pic or remains on the suspect board?
Keith
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I think that in the future this needs to be clarified. When you swap pics, just take the pic from the non-functioning unit and put it into a functioning one to see what happens. DON'T put a functioning pick into the defective unit until you are sure that the power going to the pic is correct. Another member fried a few pics by doing the full swap method and put a few goodpics into a defective board and fried them all.
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Here are some pics of the board. I have not swapped out the PICs because i did not want to end up with a possible 2 bad ones like tbone said.
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Greetings,,,
You should always take reasonable precautions, but there comes a point where you have to try something. I happen to be curious on this one. If you choose to try to put in a known working pic from another unit and it fries, I'll send you a replacement.
Keith
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So i tried switching PICs. Good news and bad news. Good news is that the good PIC is still good, but the bad news is that when switched board 1 (the initial problem board) had the same problem and board 2 (the one with the good PIC) went only full on and about 50%, lagging behind the vixen program. I'm guessing that both the PIC and board are bad somehow.
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Greetings,,,
Ok, we have more info now. You might try flashing the suspect pic in a known good board, just in case the suspect board is keeping it from programming correctly, or in case a curve got into it.
Keith
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just re-flashed it on the good board and it dis to about 30-40% when it should go to zero. Tried setting the curve, but the board never restarts, it just gets stuck in PRG mode
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You may look at this solder joint, it looks lite on the solder, and I believe it's pin 1 of the PIC. But I may be wrong.
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The solder looks fine. I had gone back and double checked the joints. They all seem ok.
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So I after many hours of frustration I think I'm just going to have to get a new board. I know that the PIC is bad, but can't find a reason as to why the voltage drops to 0 when ramping, even with a good PIC. If any of you have an extra Express board that you want to sell (can be V 4.0) let me know.
Thanks for your suggestions!
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Got another Express from a member. Thanks for your help!
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where are you located? maybe a close member could take a look at the board for you.
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From the picture of the front of the board, it looks like the heat sink on the 3.3V regulator is broken and not seated on the regulator properly. If the chip is tilted forward, which it looks like, you may have an intermittent short where the leg of the regulator come into contact with the heat sink which would cause all sorts of mayhem. Also any grease that may be hanging around there could be causing a higher resistance bridge if it is a conductive grease and cause the regulator to do some strange things.
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Just checked and there is no contact with the heatsink. It did snap when I was trying to get the regulator in, but there isnt any contact on the legs.
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In taking another look at the front of the board, it doesn't look like the shunt is on the terminator, don't know if it makes that much of a difference but something to look at.
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It doesnt. I tried both with it on and off to no avail.
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I have looked at your board and have found one big thing that has probably contributed to the problems. No mention was made as to the short you had on CH13. I noticed that as soon as I looked at your board upon receipt. next I found one of the vias under the transformer was burnt. I pulled the transformer and it revealed a huge burn mark. I am still working my way thru the rest of the board and debugging as I go
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I should also note that it did still have power but one of the two parallel primary windings of the transformer was not in circuit due to the traces being vaporized.
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was in on backwards?
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no it was on correctly it appears that there was probably something that shorted from line voltage to the transformer. There was a burn mark on the board near CH13 output and just the smallest hint of a mark on the the via visible on the bottom side of the board. At this point it looks like we have correct voltages from both regulators to the pic and to the other chips, the pic is good as well as all other chips as I have swapped them to a good board and they all function. So at this point I am looking for either a solder problem or another hidden issue resulting from the short.
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Problem solved, it was the H11AA1 optocoupler IC which I think is the zero crossing detect circuit. Need to order up a couple of those and have one as a spare. one new IC and replace a trace that was burnt off and it is functional
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Greetings,,,
Thanks for the work.
Keith
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I should probably say no thanks are needed because I actually purchased the controller from the member and gambled on my ability to troubleshoot. It has been years since I have played with dimmer circuits on the bench. All of my work the past couple of years has been flourescent ballast design and now grid tie solar inverters. For a day or so I was thinking I had lost my chops, this has been good.