channel issues

[BryanV]

last year i had 4 expresses give me trouble.  1 express  channel stays on steady, another 1 channel flickes, another1 channel not on at all and the 4th one one channel stays on at startup and then goes out after awhile.
Any ideas

Bryan

[rrowan]

I'll take some guesses:

channel always on - possible bad op or triac or soldering problem
channel flickers - cold solder joint
channel on at startup and then off - ? (using LED lights?? if so might be a resistor problem)

Unless you have some bad parts I would guess soldering problems. Make sure your iron is hotter than normal when doing triacs (you want to heat it quickly and move the iron off of the triac). Look for any solder joint that is dull (normally a clue of a cold solder joint). Slowly check the board with a magnifing glass

What version of the LEs do you have?

hope thats a starting point

Rick R.

[BryanV]

all the expresses with problems are version 3. I will look things over and see about solder joints to start.
Thanks

[rrowan]

I know RJ made changes to the LE with version 4 & 5

That also could be some of your issues. Take a look at the version chart You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Rick R.

[BryanV]

dont thats the issue.  They were working fine at beginning of season and then started to peeter out. I ended up just unplugging the channels for the rest of the season.

Bryan

[rrowan]

I had my roof LE give me problems last year. Turns out it was not the LE's fault. First it got too cold (hmm can a pcb get sick?, anyway). I added some c7 bulbs in the case to help keep it warmer. Second the last night of the show I lost control of the LE. Turns out the output of a SSR4-DMX got corrosion in it from the elements and the signal was not getting though to the LE. Have you recheck each LE for this season?

I still want to know if you are using LED lights with the LE or incandesce lights

v3 and v4 had issues with LED lights, reason why v5 has snubber resistors

Cheers

Rick R.

[RJ]

The only issues I knew about where cold temps at or near freezing. We changed to different regulators to resolve that. The snubbers just help with leds in general and many people made them up and added them to there led strings so I added to the pcbs so it was really cheap and you did not need to do it yourself then.

The channel on always is likely a possible bad triac as said. The flicker I would make sure my opto is in its socket well and that you have good solder joints. You really should not have that much problems with expresses. 

RJ