Author Topic: Red to Green Resistance  (Read 1404 times)

Offline lboucher

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Red to Green Resistance
« on: February 16, 2014, »
Hi All

Was done debugging my Smart Strings today.
They are the old version 1 type that weren't watertight at all.
I have nursed them along, and plan on giving up and just putting them in vinyl tubing next year.

First, on one SSC I had a short, and after much trial and error, found that the short was evidently within the black molding of the female RJ45, seemed odd but whatever. Edit: To clarify the pic, i actually had to cut into the black to find the charred section.


During the rest of my debug process I noticed something.
Of my 5 strands of 128, 3 had a resistance between red and green of ~950 ohm.
1 had a dead short, which I found, and then half of the rest of the strand had a resistance between green and red of about 6.5 kOhm.
The other strand of 128 had a red to greed resistance of 1.7 kOhm.

I was very surprised to see three strand have a resistance so close.
All these strands have been blown around and through lots of weather, so if anything I would have expected something more random.

Makes me wonder, is the insulation in the wire, or elsewhere slowly breaking down?
Meaning in another 3-5 years it gets so low they could be more of a fire risk?
I have had 1 light actually smoke in front of me from the weather, and I have seen pics of others having burned without the fuse blowing.

Anybody have older strands? What resistance do you measure? What about newer strands with only a couple years on them?

Thanks
« Last Edit: February 19, 2014, by lboucher »
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Offline lboucher

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Re: Red to Green Resistance
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2014, »
Surprised no one has answered yet. Am I nuts?
Does everyone else's strands all have infinite resistance between the red and green lines?
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Offline jnealand

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Re: Red to Green Resistance
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2014, »
I don't even understand what you are talking about or why you would be trying to measure stuff.  I only go by - does this light turn on.  If yes, must be ok.  LOL.  I hope you get some feedback, but I think you are doing stuff way beyond what most of the members here are looking at.
Jim Nealand
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Offline tbone321

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Re: Red to Green Resistance
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2014, »
The reason that nobody is answering is because it really is a meaningless measurement.  Unless you are seeing a short or a very low resistance (again indicating a partial short), what meaning does it have?  This measurement can be all over the place depending on the number of and condition of the nodes in the string and if 10 people measure them, you will get 10 different measurements.
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Offline taybrynn

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Re: Red to Green Resistance
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2014, »
This picture doesn't look like any type of smart string nodes mentioned on this sites wiki ever, gen one or otherwise.
Scott - Castle Rock, Colorado   [ 2 homes, 100% RGB in 2016; since 2008; over 32k channels of E1.31 ]
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Offline caretaker

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Re: Red to Green Resistance
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2014, »
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This picture doesn't look like any type of smart string nodes mentioned on this sites wiki ever, gen one or otherwise.
It wasn't, it's a female RJ45 (cut back to exposed burned section)
Jeff Squires
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Offline lboucher

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Re: Red to Green Resistance
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2014, »
That is correct, i had to cut off the grey outer cover, to get to the black part.
In any case, maybe the question is off.
Next year these are going to be more protected in vinyl tubing, I will remeasure at that time.
If they stay dry, nothing else changes, and resistance continues to decrease, maybe it means something.
Back in one year.
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