le channels coming on with no dmx signal

[CourtBard]

i have 3 expresses and 4 ssrs in my system. they all work fine for my show and when they are receiving a dmx signal,  but when I turn off the lights for the night, I also turn off the computer that the lynx usb dongle is plugged into. This of course means there is no longer a dmx signal going to any of the controllers. At various times throughout the night and the next day, before i turn the computer back on, the channels start coming back on by themselves. The only thing they are getting is power when it happens. Has anyone experienced this before? It seems like it is mainly the expresses and it seemes like it starts out with channels 1-7 first and then 8-16 eventually come on. Is the some easy they could be getting some kind of feedback or interference coming through the power line?

[SteveMaris]

Are the power cords wet? I had the same problem, Some LED channels were turning on.  lifted a few cords off the ground, and it fixed the problem. They were not in water, just had morning frost on them.
I bought the 12" c9 bulb spikes from Home Depot, and used those to prop up some cords at the outlet ends.

[RJ]

this is normal. with the lack of any signal on the line noise will over time fool the controllers into thinking it is dmx and cause them to start coming on. If you are going to shut it all down you need to power the controllers off also. Or leave the DMX dongle powered so it can contine to send out dmx of all channels off.

RJ

[CourtBard]

no, we have not had any weather and I live in Arizona where we don't have a lot of morning dew. It has been dry until today.

I am pretty sure it is what rj suggested because it seemed kid of random on which channels came on and it seemed like it would only happen over a long period of time.

since I am using a lynx usb dongle until the etherdongle arrives, I guess I need to leave the computer on so the dongle always had power? what are other people doing with their computers? I can't really kill the power to the controllers unless i flip the circuit breaker in the panel. I was hoping to be able to have everything be able to come on without me having to switch things on myself.

[rrowan]

I keep the computer running the whole time

Rick R.

[SteveMaris]

Everything on here 24/7

[mmciver]

If it makes you feel any better:)  I also live in Arizona, just south of you, it is dry here, and I am having that issue with multiple different brand controllers.

The ones that are not DMX based don't get sent a constant off message so they stay on also, even with the computer turned on and their dongle powered up:)

At my house I have dedicated circuits for Christmas lights so I put 2 Water Heater timers at the Circuit panel to turn off the controllers after show hours!

I don't like it, but it does fix the problem.

BTW, LED's are much worse to deal with on this than Incandescent strings.

Mike.

[dlhoppe]

Use one of these to keep your dongle powered up without the computer on.

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Although you'll have to switch the cord back to the computer at show time.

A powered USB hub might also do the trick. That way you could turn off your computer and leave the USB hub powered up to keep the dongle alive.

[CourtBard]

If it makes you feel any better:)  I also live in Arizona, just south of you, it is dry here, and I am having that issue with multiple different brand controllers.

The ones that are not DMX based don't get sent a constant off message so they stay on also, even with the computer turned on and their dongle powered up:)

At my house I have dedicated circuits for Christmas lights so I put 2 Water Heater timers at the Circuit panel to turn off the controllers after show hours!

I don't like it, but it does fix the problem.

BTW, LED's are much worse to deal with on this than Incandescent strings.

Mike.

Most of my lights are led, and I have noticed that a couple of the channels that have leds plugged in are on ever so faintly when they are supposed to be off. It is happening on a couple of my expresses. I thought maybe if I changed the light curve settings it might help, but they are barely on, so unless you are right up next to them, you don't even notice.

I think that the issues being more common with the leds might be due to them having such a small current draw, that there is not enough of a load on the circuit. I could be completely wrong on that, but it seems like the incandecent lights don't seem to have as many little issues like the leds. My church is putting on a light show, and I was helping them setup their lor controllers. Some of the led strands would start flickering really bad when you tried to dim them, and plugging an incandecent strand into that circuit caused the leds to stop flickering and dim smoothly. That seems like the same kind of thing you see people posting about adding a C9 bulb to the strand. My understanding is that the c9 bulb adds enough of a load on the circuit to make it act correctly.

[JonB256]

Do you have the last device terminated?  If not, it is much more likely that stray voltages can build up on the data lines.