Bummed and Ticked Off all at once....

[Jeffl]

I still think the learning experience to having a triac fail is to have a spare board sitting on the shelf if possible.  If this isn't possible, have a few parts on hand that have been possible problems in the past.  For the express, there are probably only a couple possible parts.  I think for the most part these things are bullet proof workhorses.

The second lesson for me is don't put the controllers in places that are near impossible to fix, or could cause bodily harm in trying.

[rrowan]

I still think the learning experience to having a triac fail is to have a spare board sitting on the shelf if possible.  If this isn't possible, have a few parts on hand that have been possible problems in the past.  For the express, there are probably only a couple possible parts.  I think for the most part these things are bullet proof workhorses.

The second lesson for me is don't put the controllers in places that are near impossible to fix, or could cause bodily harm in trying.

I totally agree with the controller location. The past two years I had a LE on the back of my roof. It was impossible getting to it when the roof was covered in ice or snow along with the box getting too cold and causing issues. This year I mounted to my back wall and with a spool of wire extended the outputs to reach the lights on the roof. This year not one single problem with that LE.

Rick R.

[tng5737]

I learned that I have to mount my LE differently.   I had been using the part of the case which fits over my utility fence poles.  After ruining two cases, I realize that there is not enough material there to take any kind of stress and the case tears at that point.   This year I will remount onto thick plywood base using the internal bosses to screw into the wood and the wood will be what I mount to the fence poles!   Hope that this saves someone some grief - it's no fun having to disconnect everything so you can put the LE into a new case!

[J4A4E]

Sorry to hear about your display Dean.

Just know you were not alone with having problems with the rain.

John

[rimist]

I have to add... I think I was just lucky. I had no problems. I did have the correct case, under an eve for the express, but the ssr4-dmx was barely protected at all. I used dollar tree cords wired into both controllers. I didn't protect the outlet ends. They were on the ground, and it was damp. The only thing I did was use corrosionx on the boards.
After hearing about others problems, I started to elevate the outlet ends using the c9 stakes, but probably only did 20 percent

-Rimist

[inzeos]

Rant mode on.....

About an hour before my show was to start (last time for the season) I decided to do a quick test to make sure the GFCI's hadn't kicked again and to make sure the etherdongle was doing it's part...  Wouldn't you know it half the show was dark...  GFCI's kicked....  numerous times...  Tracked it down to an Express...  bypassed the GFCI's just to see what was going on and a Triac failed for starters.  So swapped out the controller only to find out after 14 of the 16 channels were re-wired that I had another Express failed.  3 Triacs shot..  Tested this board too and it was fine or so I thought.  After an hour in the rain trying to get it all working again my temper kicked and I threw in the towel.  Took over half the display down tonight as a result.  High winds tomorrow (65+ mph) so I started early.

The kicker is I never got to video tape my show.  17 songs sequenced and no proof.  Time just ran out.  I had time tonight to do it and wouldn't you know it...  Murphy's Law followed me right to the end with my display this year..  Not good for my first year.  Depressing in fact.  I was looking forward to watching it one last time too...  This rain has killed my display though.  And for NY this is strange.  Has me worried enough that first light tomorrow I'm taking the rest of the display down before more rain and high winds arrive.

On a lighter note Happy New Year to all!

Rant mode off...

Dean

That sucks dean!

You are right it is very strange to have such a wet winter.  We are slated to get some major snow; however, so far it has not materialized at all.

I want to break down the show but we've got some people visiting early January who want to see it.

No GFCI problems thankfully, knock on wood!

[shaunkad]

I plan on fusing the out puts of my LEs this year to protect the triacs.

Good luck getting any help from it. The triac gets damaged faster than a fuse will blow. The junction of a triac is much smaller than the conductor of a fuse.

It has been tried and while you could put a undersized fast blow fuse on the channel you start popping fuses easily then and it becomes the bane of the GFCI all over again.

The better way to solve it is to make sure you cords are not down getting water in them or laying on things that can get wet and conduct. Make sure they are all good as I had one triac die in 5 years of doing this and it was a short in the cord from the controller(cheap $.99 extension cord with a short in the molded plug end).

Unless you just had a bad triac which I think there is the possiblity of from time to time. you likely had to have something pull a large amount of current to damage the triac.
There is reasons all the controllers do not have fuses on the outputs (not just mine) They will add to your issues at worst and do nothing at least. It is hard to protect a triac with a fuse with out reducing the current rating so low it is useless. Triacs get damage in very fast time periods compared to the blowing of a fuse which is our scale is slow to say the least.

The issue is when a handful of people post on a forum of 3000 and say I lost triac(s) the thought is there is a problem.

Get all the members to post and see what the ratio of triac issues is and we can tell if there is a problem (you can't do it because most members do not post or at least unless they have an issue). How many people will come in and post "Hey just wanted everyone to know I did not loose any triacs this year?

 I also felt I heard more about triac issues this year than ever before but then I looked and I have many many times the number of controllers this year than ever before in use. Each express is 16 triacs, each ssr4 is 4 triacs, each freestyle could be 128 triacs.

The count gets up there. We have to get mouser to put an order to the triac factory a couple of times a year to fill our need for coops so there are a lot out there.

I watched for a while the renard guys believed last year they had a bad batch of triacs, I am not sure if they ever found out this was true or not (they use different triacs then we do) but I also wondered the same thing I am here in this post. How many did not have any issues? 

I am not saying that the users that had the issues did anything wrong to make it happen this is not my point, just that I can promise extra attention to protecting the outputs form shorts or leaks to ground will ensure less issues with triacs on controllers and that is any controllers be it Lynx, Lor or other.

Sorry for those that had triacs fail, I wish your shows had went off without a hitch for you.

RJ

I lost a triac or two do to some cheap Lowes lights that were supposed to be water proof. the actualy caught fire. It is not just for triac protection.  I melted a 12 awg cord before my controler fuse blew. replaced a 20 amp fuse with a 2 amp fuse (all I had) and the show ran.

[deanathpc]

Dean, sorry to hear of your struggles this year. I think most of us are such perfectionists, that we get really wrapped up in what we had "planned" vs. what we were actually able to accomplish this year. In short, we are all sharing your pain to a point for various reasons..don't be too hard on yourself for not hitting 110% perfection the first year out of the gate. From the looks of your posts, you have done an amazing job so far!

I use weatherproof cases and keep them up off the ground. I use indoor 3 outlet cord ends on my expresses and out in the yard, but they are NOT the cheap plastic ends from $store/walmart that fill with water...pay the extra 25 cents for hard rubber. I'm conscious of their placement (no low spots that fill with water) and try to keep the safety flaps in unused outlets so they don't fill with water...I suppose you could even use some type of silicone grease on them (and vampire plugs). Not a lot of preventative measures you can take with the strings themselves aside from giving them a once over with a leaf blower before the show if you suspect a lot of standing water.

I know there are a few who loved the shows (Halloween and Christmas).  That was what I was going for.  I know I had some people planning on showing up for the "last show" of the season but had to turn them away.  Granted they saw the show before but was hoping for the last go out with a bang type of thing.

Where are you getting your cords from?  I ran out of time / money so I just ran each channel power cord the length I needed and used the vampire plugs.  Talk about a pain when my controllers started acting up.  No easy way to change those out.  I already plan on changing the power cords on each controller so I can easily swap 'em out if need be.  Just not sure how I want to do that though.  I'd love to hear about your supplier so I can look into that.  That is the original concept I wanted to do that way I can run cords easier esp. multiple on one channel.

Dean

[meman]

Lowes seems to have them the cheapest. Just bought a couple more cases of 6' cords @ $1.49 each. They had a sale last year where they were 79 cents for a while, but that didn't happen this year. You may want to get a couple tubes of silicone dielectric grease and squirt a dab in those vampire plugs before you put the wire in and slide the cap on. It will definitely keep the water out, since that seems to be the likely source of trouble based on the description of your current setup.   

I get tons of water being here in FL, but only had my GFCI trip once this year after a particularly hard rain. I noticed a section of the lights weren't on anymore, so just reset it and had no more problems.  Heres a pic of a couple of LEs on highground. I use PVC legs with heavy duty velcro (harbor freight) to attach them to the sides of the cases. This keeps them off the ground and still lets me break them down and store easy. I would use longer legs to keep the cord ends off the ground as well if I had to place the case in a low spot that might get standing water.

Mike E.

[deanathpc]

That's kind of the idea I had for my boxes.  I'm short 4 boxes though but I have at least 6 to start with until sometime this year I'll get more.  I really need to get 'em up off the ground though.  Just haven't decided how I want to do that yet.  I like your idea though.  Gives me some more ideas in fact!   I could have just used my "cases" that I made but I do like the CG-1500's.  Despite I have the new ones so I have to modify 'em to get the Expresses installed.  But that's not biggie....

Dean