I've never shut down a show before, but.... (solved)

[jnealand]

This is my 6th year doing animated lighting and in many way it has felt like the first.  I finally got a show running all the way thru on Tuesday.  I still do not have everything I wanted to set up out.  Thursday my snowflakes on the roof quit working.  One LE running wireless.  Been doing this for several years with no problem.  Today, Friday I spent 2 hours up on the roof trying to figure out what was going out.  Even had a computer and dongle up there.  LE test mode worked great but could not light up one thing either wireless or wired.  Finally swapped out the controller and got the lights working with the computer while on the roof.  The show started on its own as scheduled, but my son came and told me that nothing was working.  Well none of the DMX (all wireless) was working, but all the SS stuff was running fine.  I swapped out the TX connected to the active hub.  Still nothing.  Swapped out the active hub, still nothing.  The wife is waiting for me to take her to a Christmas concert so the pressure is growing.  I finally just powered everything off and went to concert.  In 6 years I have never had to shut down completely, not for weather, equipment failure, anything.  This year I have had nothing but trouble.  Had to reflash PICs, change my sequences to allow for additional SSs, tried to replace my rope light star with a dumb string star and could not get that done before I had to put the megatree up, found that my old show computer could not handle the memory requirements caused by my additional smart strings (over 7000 channels now) and had to learn and go with xlights for running for the first time, etc.  Seems like everything is falling apart and I still do not even have my pixel tree running. Actually put in out in the yard today, but then got hosed trying to fix the roof snowflakes.  Tomorrow I start over.  I'm not looking for answers here, just venting my frustrations with a group that can understand them.  Thanks for listening.

 

[duane.mosley]

deep breath and crack at it again tomorrow.


duane

[dpitts]

I have had several active hubs stop transmitting DMX. Some times just powering down the hub makes it start outputting again sometimes I need to remove the hub and replace it with another hub that had stopped working before but will now work after sitting on my desk for a day or two. I am not sure what it going on. Anyone else have problems with DMX output on active hubs?

[Jeffl]

I feel for you.  That would stink.

[mkozik1]

We have faith in you Jim - You will get-r-done!!!

[JonB256]

I have had several active hubs stop transmitting DMX. Some times just powering down the hub makes it start outputting again sometimes I need to remove the hub and replace it with another hub that had stopped working before but will now work after sitting on my desk for a day or two. I am not sure what it going on. Anyone else have problems with DMX output on active hubs?

I've had problems with the power to the SS active hubs if I turn if OFF and ON too quickly. When it happens, I have to pull the 24 pin power plug on the hub and re-insert.

Haven't lost DMX out, though. Yet.

[SteveMaris]

deep breath and crack at it again tomorrow.


duane

Best advice.

[PJNMCT]

I feel for you Jim.

Hardest thing to do but took a break this year after all the babysitting last year.

...but still prepping, might yet get something out.

I've seen your persistence - you'll get it, I know.

-Paul

[sjb]

Jim

Hopefully the night out at the concert was able to take your mind off of it for a bit. Taking a break and then starting again will sometime take to something you did not think of before.
I wish you all the luck it getting it going.

Steve

[urthegman]

Here's hoping it is something simple!!!!

[hicksjo]

Remember the whole goal is joy

Take some time off to enjoy your family and the rest of your life
The lights, and there associated challenges, will wait for you

Best of luck

[zwiller]

Jim,
Quit your whining and man up.   

Hope the concert was enjoyable for you and the missus.  I am sure you needed a well deserved break from the blinking madness (tm) .  In another thread, myself and some others are discussing a similar experience this year.  You are not alone.  I myself almost gave up a few weeks ago, but managed to push through.  You will too.  Have faith. 

Sam

[caretaker]

Jim, can identify completely with what your going through and want to say hang in there it will get better. My Show started out pretty rocky this year but things have been slowly improving. We all tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to put on a wonderful display for everyone and sometime we just need to take a step back and like you are doing vent a little.

[wftxlites]

This is my second year with SS active hub, everything ran fine last year no glitches. I tested in October in the garage all ok. Got everything setup and wired in the yard. Now the good/bad part. Forgot to turn off the Active hub and left it on for 24 hours +.  The next day DMX output was going crazy. Things were firing when no show was running. OH NO... what is toasted?

After two days of troubleshooting and changing my homemade DMX matrix controller software because I was doing some mods when this all started. I figured that I had a programming glitch. I reloaded a known good program and still had the problem. So, my final determination was noise is doing this.

Solution : I replaced the DMX output chip on the hub. All OK! So,this is what I think happened one of the chips little legs was bent and not always making contact. Sort of like a cold solider joint acts. So, when I left the hub on long enough to heat it up good there was enough separation that it was not making contact all the time and was pulsing the output. I only saw the false firing on my homemade DMX 3'x3' matrix. The only clue was because of a LED I have connected to the DMX data input. NONE of RJ stuff was affected as far as false triggering that I am aware of.

I wanted to share this story with everyone because it is not always the obvious that gets you it is the obscure.

Hang in there. It seems like everytime I make a minor change it always something else. I have determined that starting over is sometimes best. I think this is part of the challenge of technology.

 Remember this is FUN not STRESS.

Greg

[lonewolf41]

Be sure you have the latest firmware on your wireless.  That got me last year.  An old version was in the wiki.  I think it got updated in December of last year.  If you flashed your gear before then, you might be using old firmware that was prone to dropping out and hard to restart.  Just something else to check.  Now that I have updated firmware, my wireless, while not perfect, is tons better this year.  I have other gremlins of my own so I feel for you as well. 

Good luck,
-Keith