lights stuck on - how to turn them off?

[taybrynn]

Hmm ... so twice to today this has happened.

Show seems to be running fine via. xlights and (2) etherdongles ... so all DLA express and Smart String boards.

Most of what is staying on is regular AC channels on the expresses.  Some wired, some wireless.

I have tried turning things off with the software, but the signals are ignored.  I've rebooted, restarted xlights ... send
colorwash black to everything, sent, gone into tester and selected "lights off" ... selected everything, then off ... etc.
Nothing seems to turn the lights back off ... other than me going outside and pulling cords or breakers.

Anyone have any ideas on how to handle this or what could be causing it.  Since 2008 never have had this once ... now twice in a day.

Very strange!!

[urthegman]

Triacs?

[Jeffl]

I'm having strange issues with LE's this year as well but only while the sequences are running. Same issue where they have never been an issue till now.  It's not the controllers from all the testing I have done but I don't know what.

On a side note.  I do know that these things like to be powered up just right or they don't like it.  They are very touchy with the signal.  I have noticed the LOR card is delayed checking the signal at reboot but always reboots like it should.

Hang in there.  You will figure it out or the season will end.  I think in my case the season will end first.

[WWNF911]

When the triacs fail this symptom is normal. The big thingy that is attached to the heat sink for that channel. Until you get a good solder sucker and have the time to remove/replace that channel is down. Unless you're not talking about lights on from PTO (Power turn on) no matter what. If you have some remaining empty channels. (Always leave yourself some extra empties for Murphy.    ) move your lights to that empty and the show goes on.

[taybrynn]

So by resetting every single GFCI on both houses, I was able to get the lights off, and the responsiveness to the computer restored.

I removed a new song which had almost the entire display on xlights random effects ... it kind of looked cool, but now that I look at my TED5000
power graph from last night ... my power usage tripled on that song ... no wonder it blew some GFCI(s) and I'm guessing thats what locked
everything up ... was how it died somehow.

So I removed that song from the show and everything ran smoothly tonight.  I also took a couple of the cords which were doubled up on circuits and put them onto their own circuits instead.

[Jeffl]

I think he's having way to many issues for triac to be the issue.

The question I have is what does activity have to do with the controller going crazy?  This is similar to what I'm seeing in that I have a number of channels that act up at certain "defined" points in my show.  The crazy part is I was all incans last year and only 2/3 this year. 

[WWNF911]

Agreed. After reading his latest post I realized something more must be going on.

Personally, I think someone fed the mogui after midnight. ;-)

[winwin]

my power usage tripled on that song ... no wonder it blew some GFCI(s)

I am not an electrician but I did not think that GFCI would trip because of too much draw but I could be wrong. Maybe someone with more knowledge will be able to confirm if indeed it would happen?

[rrowan]

I know in the past someone had almost the same issue and it was low power like a brown out. Causing the LE to lock channels on and hang. Since you mentioned one song drawing a lot of power it seems reasonable.

Rick R.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tbone321]

I think that you may have hit the nail on the head Rick.  Excess power draw can cause the LE to sorta "lock up" on some channels and require a reset (power down) to clear it back up.  He may want to power some of those LE's from a different power source and see what happens.