Controllers without a dongle

[CourtBard]

I was wondering if there is a way to make the express or ssr4s have all channels on without a dongle. If my dongle stops working, I would like to be able to at least have my christmas lights act like plain old christmas light strings and be able to just be on. Is there a way to make the controllers simply turn on all channels when they have power but no signal? If not, what do people do if their dongle has problems? The way I plug my lights into the controllers is different than how I would plug them in if I weren't going to be controlling them, so it would be a real pain to change if there was a problem with my dongle. I would really like to not have a dark house if there is a problem.

[jnealand]

I've never had a dongle problem in the 3 years I've been doing this, but I always have a spare dongle.  I have spare fuses and other parts also so if something fails, hopefully I could get it fixed in a day.  I also have spare channels that I don't use on some of my LEs and I have had the need to use a couple of those when I had a couple of triac failures.  If you don't have a spare dongle make sure you have several power strips that you could use to plug everything into and a way to protect them from the weather.

[bisquit476]

Like Jim says, get a spare Dongle, then you don't have to worry.

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[lonewolf41]

I believe that the test mode leaves all the lights on after it cycles through all the channels and you hit the mode (or maybe select) button again.  I think you may have to use the latest firmware to have that functionality but I think it will do what you want.

Thanks,
-Keith

[RJ]

Yes this is correct. Run the test and then when finished hit select one more time for all channels full on. It will stay this way until it gets powered off, reset it, or you hit mode again.

RJ

[taybrynn]

I think odds of failure are very low.  And with all those ether dongles on the way, I'd suspect a lot of members would have a spare (dmx) dongle in the event you put out the call for help.

[rm357]

I go for spares on all critical components - extra dongle, TX/RX, SSR4 and a spare pic, triacs, and optos, for the LEs...