Author Topic: Zues issue, help appreciated  (Read 7926 times)

Offline tindivall

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #45 on: November 23, 2014, »
I can try doing all the pics, I have just been doing 1 at a time

Offline taybrynn

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #46 on: November 23, 2014, »
My Zeus issues ended up all being related to faulty 3 pin connectors ... Now I test then for connectivity on all three wires before using them ...
Scott - Castle Rock, Colorado   [ 2 homes, 100% RGB in 2016; since 2008; over 32k channels of E1.31 ]
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Offline tindivall

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #47 on: December 01, 2014, »
Still a no go with the 2 previously working boards.... So I said screw it... busted out 3 V1 Zues boards that I hadn't put together yet....  so far have 2 of them together .... test both those...nothing

green light powers on the board but no output when testing...

pulled the PIC out of these boards and put on the 1 working board.... pic works fine.   Take a pic from the working board put in on the non working board.... still nothing


pull the small chip (??486?) off non working board and put on working board..... works fine..... taking working one and put on non-working board ... nothing




I about ready to introduce these boards to some lighter fluid and give up this hobby  <md..

Offline tbone321

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #48 on: December 01, 2014, »
Did you try swapping out the power supply for a different one?  When a functioning board stops working after shutting down and restarting, that in many cases indicates a low voltage somewhere.  If you are using the same supply with al of these different boards and NONE of them work properly, that is another indicator of an issue of an issue with the one common point, the power supply.
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving

Offline taybrynn

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #49 on: December 01, 2014, »
I spent the better part of today troubleshooting issues ... And found my Zues v2 was not getting data because of a bad cat5 cable.   Then would not pass on pixelnet, again a bad cat5 cable.    So I can't emphasize enough the criticality of the cat5 cables.   
Scott - Castle Rock, Colorado   [ 2 homes, 100% RGB in 2016; since 2008; over 32k channels of E1.31 ]
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Offline tindivall

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #50 on: December 02, 2014, »
I am using the same power supply / cat5 cable / etc.... for each board....

For example.... Working board setup....

  • unplug the cat5 from it and plug into non-working board
  • unplug the power supply from working board and plug into non-working board
  • unplug the lights from working board and plug into non-working board


I do all of this to try and eliminate any other possibility of things like a bad cat5  cable etc.

Offline tbone321

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #51 on: December 02, 2014, »
This is exactly my point.  If you have a defective power supply, then it is going to make ALL of the boards malfunction.  When all or most of the boards are having the same issue(s), an initial step in debugging is to confirm that all of the items that they have in common and are being shared are functioning properly.  This includes the bench setup and that includes things such as cables and power supplies.  Once this is confirmed, then you stick with the known working setup so that you don't introduce added and changing variables during the debugging process.  I would confirm that the CAT5 cables are good and swap out that power supply to confirm that it is not the problem.
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving

Offline tindivall

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #52 on: December 02, 2014, »
Either I don't understand what you are saying or you are not understanding me


I have the working board... board works.   I use the same power supply, cat5 cables, & lights from the working board as I do on the non-working board....I don't introduce any new cables / lights / connectors / power supply  (because I know the stuff works on the 1 board)



I think we are saying the same thing? but if not let me know

Offline tbone321

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #53 on: December 02, 2014, »
The problem is that it seems to be working for only the one board and none of the others.  This indicates a possible problem.  IIRC, you said that you built two more boards (VER1) and they don't work either.  Unless you are doing something wrong in these builds, the cables and power supply are the only common links. 
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving

Offline tindivall

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #54 on: December 02, 2014, »
I can use a different power supply and cables but there is no way to know if they work or not if the board doesn't work, so would just have to hook them up to the working board first and see ... but would be same results as I am getting now from working board... works


Also keep in mind the 2 original boards worked and then just stopped, so doubtful that the power supply & cables just went bad for those 2 but continued to work for the 1 (using the same power supply / cables )

The new boards introduce a whole different set of potential variables, could be bad soldering, something not wired correctly etc....

I am just trying to get 2 working boards to control the mega tree so I then can go work on the SSC and figure all that out :P

Offline tindivall

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #55 on: December 02, 2014, »
I will go home and record the exact steps and the boards, maybe you guys will see something I am doing or did wrong.

Offline t.jo13

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #56 on: December 02, 2014, »
What if you post pics of the board not that it is bad soldering but it could be a part backwards ( that's an example) some of these guys can see a lot just by pics. It might help . Just my 2 cents.

Joe

Offline tindivall

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #57 on: December 03, 2014, »
Apologize I was not able to get the videos done and uploaded last night..  however here they are:


1st Video...
- I setup the working board to show the power supply, cat5 cable, etc.. are all working
- I then use the exact same power cable, cat5 cable, etc... but different board......   nothing working
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2nd Video....
- I setup the working board again
- I pull the PIC that is  working from working board
- Setup 2nd board (non-working) using the PIC from working board and now the 2nd board works
- Power off the board and then power back on .... stops working
- Put PIC back in working board and it no longer works
- Flash the PIC with SSC V4 and place back in working board.... works fine
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Offline tbone321

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #58 on: December 04, 2014, »
This is screaming "clocking issue" but without a scope, it will be very difficult to determine what went wrong.  The first thing that I would suggest is to NOT use the config utility to check for communications.  This forces the chip to write to it's internal memory and that can corrupt the chips config and every time you reflash it, you take more life out of the chip. 

In order to get an idea of what the issue is, I would remove ALL of the PIC's from the malfunctioning Zeus.  Then I would get a configured, functioning, and tested PIC put it on the non functioning Zeus by itself and lets try it in socket 4.  Then connect up the string of nodes that you tested the PIC with to that port, connect up the ETD and power supply, remove the program jumper and see if the PIC functions using sequencing software such as Vixen or Xlights running a test patterns and NOT the config utility.  If not, move the PIC and string to a few more positions and see if any of them work.  If not, then there is a pretty good bet that either the clock oscillator has failed or the signal is either being blocked or interfered with.  If it does work, then start adding PIC's one at a time and retest after adding each one.  If it stops working after adding a PIC, try swapping that PIC with another one and see what happens.  If it works with the different PIC, that PIC is probably defective and is killing the clock signal and if not, then either there is something wrong with that position on the board or there is something pulling the signal down to a point where the load of X number of PIC's pulls the signal down too low for the PIC's to clock properly.
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving

Offline vstar

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Re: Zues issue, help appreciated
« Reply #59 on: December 05, 2014, »
I was having same problems then pulled the pics and ran it on the pickit3 and the check sum was no longer 0020 erased the chips and reprogramed them all again so the checksum was 0020 verified  reinstalled them and worked for 5 days then show started lagging mega tree locked up pulled the pics again read them on pickit3 and the checksum had changed again no longer 0020 pulled them all  reprogramed ,reflashed and reinstalled  them and has been good ever since its a pain doing it in the yard but better then breaking it down
anyway I am not a computer guy but worked for me just trying to help check the checksum should be 0020
John