No Dimming on Express

[pyrodragon97]

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?

[RJ]

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

[pyrodragon97]

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.

[RJ]

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

[pyrodragon97]

Just tried with the same problem. Seems to have no effect. Could it be that the PIC is just bad?

[RJ]

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

[pyrodragon97]

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.

[RJ]

Can you post some pictures for the members to look at. Sometimes we can pick out something you are missing.

RJ

[pyrodragon97]

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.

[RJ]

Sorry I meant high res still pictures where we can see the board both sides clearly.

RJ

[KeithTarpley]

Greetings,,,

Can you swap pics to see if the issue follows the pic or remains on the suspect board?

Keith

[tbone321]

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.

[pyrodragon97]

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.

[KeithTarpley]

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

[pyrodragon97]

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.