Troubleshooting Crazy String

[twooly]

I'm adding some more legs to my tree and I'm fighting a string and not 100% on where further I can look before splicing nodes out.

4 legs of 30 nodes (tm1809 nodes)
SSC V4 latest firmware (I've tested one version lower same results)
Distance to first node is about 14 inches

Picture of the setup.  SSC is connected in the bottom right leg, goes up and then across to leg 2 at the top, goes down, goes across to leg 3 on the bottom goes up and across at the top to leg 4 and down.  I've marked in red the connections.

So when all 4 are connected I'm seeing strange results on leg 3 one the 7th node up.  Video to show
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So I move the SSC over to leg 2 (connection at the top) and test again.  Entire string looks ok
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Move the SSC over again to leg 3 (connection at the bottom) and test again.  Entire string looks ok
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Not sure where to splice since it works when I remove the first leg and I'm not seeing anything strange on the first leg.

Thoughts?

--Todd

[twooly]

Interesting I swapped leg 1 and 3 and now it runs ok 

Call me confused

[txag2008]

Good to hear all is working.  Sounds like an odd one.

Could I ask how you've mounted your bullet pixels in your PVC? (assuming that's PVC)

[twooly]

Yeah very odd one.

Yep its PVC.  Schedule 40 PVC I drilled 1/2 holes every 3 inches and then ripped it in half.  Pushed the nodes through the holes and done. Attached a couple pics looking closer.

[knguyen916]

"ripped it in half" I'm imaging your hands pulling the pvc in opposite directions. did you use a cutter? Those lines look pretty straight. What suggestions you have to "rip them in half"

Yeah very odd one.

Yep its PVC.  Schedule 40 PVC I drilled 1/2 holes every 3 inches and then ripped it in half.  Pushed the nodes through the holes and done. Attached a couple pics looking closer.

[twooly]

"ripped it in half" I'm imaging your hands pulling the pvc in opposite directions. did you use a cutter? Those lines look pretty straight. What suggestions you have to "rip them in half"

I used a table saw.  Used the guard on one side and then clamped a piece of wood on the other to keep the pvc in place while I cut it.

[taybrynn]

Sometimes a node has trouble repeating the signal to the next one.  Sometimes I get rid of those or just splice them onto the end of a string if I need one more.  You might find that the pressure could possibly cause a node to flake out?  I know one of my failed initial testing, so then I replaced it and then it worked.  Well a couple weeks later, that string got erractic ... and about a week later one node died completely.  I believe all the problems may have been from that one node which eventually died.  Its hard to say.

[tbone321]

I would suggest using a thin curf blade.  I would probably use my band saw for this.

[twooly]

and another thing to note, use a new/sharp blade

[arw01]

For the record it is called ripping when you cut a piece of wood lengthwise along the grain roughly.  Then that term for hundreds of years.

I'm thinking a higher tooth count blade might be good as long as you are not generating heat to help the plastic. I've liked the jigs that others have come up to clamp the pipes between two pieces of wood and to hold everything tight while it's passed over the blade.

Glad you got it working by just swapping lenghts around.