WS2811 Technicolor Strings Have High Failure Rate

[jnealand]

What I realize is that I do not want to be a pioneer on all this new stuff.  I'm thankful that you guys are willing to risk your show for this stuff and maybe someday I can use these new toys.  Assuming I am still above ground.

[Made2Rock]

What I realize is that I do not want to be a pioneer on all this new stuff.  I'm thankful that you guys are willing to risk your show for this stuff and maybe someday I can use these new toys.  Assuming I am still above ground.

Patience my child, patience

WISE, WISE, WISE move Jim

I passed on the first generation of RGBs and then these came along and I figured they had the bugs worked out. WRONG

[rdebolt]

Ok Sorry guys I have been slammed taking down all of my TC nodes and replacing with my old LEDs! I am way behind now on my display. I just skimmed this before posting so forgive me if something has be mentioned already!

1. My nodes were the 1804s... There is NO regulator in them yet I still had horrible issues as you have seen. Ray is going to replace all of my nodes with the resin filled "bullet" nodes. They will be 2811s.

2. Someone asked if they are working for anyone. The answer is yes the 5 volt TC stings are not having any failure issues. Anything 12 volt has been bad. I guess the first batch were not as bad, but all are having issues and that is why there is a redesign of the board that holds the LED and reg.

3. The reason that the ATX is bad (ONLY for Technicolors) is because of the output voltage is too high and cannot be turned down. They say that is what is taking out the regulators. I am using 8 ATX supplies to run my SSCs.

4. I have NO idea why mine went out....except maybe a bad batch of 1804s. Like I said mine do not have regulators in them. Maybe still too much heat, I'm not sure.

5. I did do a burn in on ALL of my nodes. Some as much as 3 days with no failures on burn in. Strange I know, but that was my experience.

It has made my year a very tough one to start, but I will say that at least Ray is going to replace all 65 strings of my nodes. I won't have them for this year, but at least I will be ahead of the game for next year..... hopefully.

Keith thanks for posting my video!

Roger

[rdebolt]

What I realize is that I do not want to be a pioneer on all this new stuff.  I'm thankful that you guys are willing to risk your show for this stuff and maybe someday I can use these new toys.  Assuming I am still above ground.

LOL!!! Jim this has almost put me 6' under! 

Not really... Things will work out and I will still have a display, just not the one I imagined.

[Made2Rock]

Ok Sorry guys I have been slammed taking down all of my TC nodes and replacing with my old LEDs! I am way behind now on my display. I just skimmed this before posting so forgive me if something has be mentioned already!

1. My nodes were the 1804s... There is NO regulator in them yet I still had horrible issues as you have seen. Ray is going to replace all of my nodes with the resin filled "bullet" nodes. They will be 2811s.

2. Someone asked if they are working for anyone. The answer is yes the 5 volt TC stings are not having any failure issues. Anything 12 volt has been bad. I guess the first batch were not as bad, but all are having issues and that is why there is a redesign of the board that holds the LED and reg.

3. The reason that the ATX is bad (ONLY for Technicolors) is because of the output voltage is too high and cannot be turned down. They say that is what is taking out the regulators. I am using 8 ATX supplies to run my SSCs.

4. I have NO idea why mine went out....except maybe a bad batch of 1804s. Like I said mine do not have regulators in them. Maybe still too much heat, I'm not sure.

5. I did do a burn in on ALL of my nodes. Some as much as 3 days with no failures on burn in. Strange I know, but that was my experience.

It has made my year a very tough one to start, but I will say that at least Ray is going to replace all 65 strings of my nodes. I won't have them for this year, but at least I will be ahead of the game for next year..... hopefully.

Keith thanks for posting my video!

Roger

Thanks for the info. In my case I took all my extra Express boxes and used them elsewhere. So I have the old lights for the megatree but have nothing to drive them. I have 32 strings on a megatree and yesterday I turned off one of the zeus because not node would work.

I'm going to look at my power supplies and see if I can reduce the voltage but my guess is I will not be able to do anything about it. I'll also try reducing the demand on the RGBs and see if that helps.

Joe

[keitha43]

You have my sympathy. As someone who was cutting and splicing everyday back on the original ip66 nodes I feel your pain. Ray swapped all mine for the newly created ip68's after the season but I had to pay shipping back to China. I think it was in the 250-300 dollar range the cheapest I could send them. I haven't seen any speculation as to why the TM1804's were failing. Maybe the lack of conformal coating on the circuit board and maybe the black material of the node is not adhering well to the wiring between nodes.

[zwiller]

Jim, as usual, your posts are very wise.  There IS a cost to be being on the bleeding edge.  If we were running a couple of LE's we'd be making videos already (remember those days???).  I think SS gear is high risk, high reward and I am the same as Jim and will always be one year behind (plus a few weeks for waiting on a shipment of Ray).  My sympathies to all those affected. 

[Hauvega]

I have the 2811s.  I found no conformal coating on any of the defective pieces.  I had only one with a shorted input on the ic.  They work good indoors. 

[CW]

I have 4 stings of varying length of 2811 TC with no issues yet.  They are driven with SSC v4 from a active hub. mostly using 1 color at a time and they were up since Halloween.  I did not burn them in.  I read on another site that hot swapping or plugging in or unplugging with the power on with 2811 is deadly for the 2811 model. Reducing the voltage will reduce the heat buildup issue.

Question, I have a Zeus 8 and would like to use a lower voltage PS and will the Zeus work with 7.5 VCD or 9 VCD?
If that will work, my run length from a central location of the Zeus / PS to the TC max length will be 25'.  Would 16 or 14 gauge wire work? Max nodes is 73, min is 20.

Thanks,

Craig

[rdebolt]

You have my sympathy. As someone who was cutting and splicing everyday back on the original ip66 nodes I feel your pain. Ray swapped all mine for the newly created ip68's after the season but I had to pay shipping back to China. I think it was in the 250-300 dollar range the cheapest I could send them. I haven't seen any speculation as to why the TM1804's were failing. Maybe the lack of conformal coating on the circuit board and maybe the black material of the node is not adhering well to the wiring between nodes.

Thanks Keith. I tried chasing the issue down. Spent over 3 days replacing bad nodes thinking that they could not ALL be bad. I was wrong!  My issues are not water intrusion as at the time they were going bad we had no rain. Very cold temps, but no rain. I still think that some of my issues were outside temperature related, but I have no proof of that. It just seemed funny to me that indoors I had no issues, the second they hit my roof is when they started going bad.

What the real bummer is is that I have hours upon hours of ziptying each and every node to banding material! I even had my sons girl friends help out with that ugly task. Boy do I owe them some gratitude!

[Made2Rock]

My story is very much the same thing. They worked in the house but I will say I didn't give them that long of a burn in process. They were carefully prepared, in my case we added C7 covers to the megatree. They worked GREAT in the house, took them outside in 40-50 degree weather with no rain and things started to fall apart. I've placed MANY nodes, there was day I up on the roof in a 20 degree windy day changing the 2nd highest node on the house.

The kicker is roger has 1804 and I have 2811. My goal is to see what I can do to reduce the power going to these LEDs and see if I salvage some part of this year. I'm about to the point I'm just going to randomly twinkle what does work.

Joe

[Hauvega]

What is the difference between the 1804s in the tc style and bullet style?  I do see production line failures in ws2811s.

[Made2Rock]

I have one of those boards used in the TC WS2811 right in front of me. The board is about 1/2" x 1/2" so they must be using a different board for the bullet style LEDs.

My goal is cut away the plastics and verify EXACTLY what is in these LEDs. This way we know instead of guessing. I will say these are COMPLETELY enclosed in plastic. There is no air space inside.

Joe

[Hauvega]

I have taken several apart.  On the back side the wires are soldered on.  The front side is where the 78l05 sot89 regulator, 2 smd caps, and ws2811 smd is mounted.  The led is soldered thru hole.  I have found some of the boards are twisted in the body.  I use wood burning knife to cut open the pixel.

[Made2Rock]

I have taken several apart.  On the back side the wires are soldered on.  The front side is where the 78l05 sot89 regulator, 2 smd caps, and ws2811 smd is mounted.  The led is soldered thru hole.  I have found some of the boards are twisted in the body.  I use wood burning knife to cut open the pixel.

Eric, My days of being a hardware engineer ended more years ago then I care to think and my eyes are not what they were but I finished cutting the plastic case on a WS2811 TC node apart and then ohmed it out and here is what I found.

1st -- I couldn't read the chips but counts above are correct and I believe the other chip is a 7805 like you stated. I was able to verify the +12v and ground do you into the 7805 and the output from the 7805 does go to pin 8 of the 2811. The 5V also goes to one of the pins on the LED. So this little 7805 is providing the power to the 2811 AND the LED itself. NOWHERE on this chip do I see the 12volts being used. So if I saw it correctly it makes all the sense in the world to try and drop the voltage to these RGBs. OF course one needs to keep in mind that there is a volt drop as you go down the string of LEDs. So this needs to be keep in mind.

For me my next step is to look at what I can do next. My first thought is to use the 5volt supply from the ATX power supply to power my lights. I have nothing but a pile of pure !@#$#T%#$% in my megatree so if I could get 10% working I would have a LOT. (You know its bad when you joke with the wife and tell to just pretend the tree is covered in snow.

Joe