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Messages - galgon

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1
Lynx Smart String / Active Hub Replaceable Fuse Mod?
« on: December 20, 2021, 10:17:39 pm »
I am curious if anyone has modified their Hub to use replaceable fuses like on the Zeus?  I seam to manage to pop a fuse or two a year and replacing them (even if mounted from underneath) is a challenge.  If there was a plug and play fuse setup i would start adding those as I fix them each year. 

2
Sale/Trade / Wanted SSC v4s - assembled, kit or bare PCB.
« on: December 19, 2021, 04:39:39 pm »
Looking to increase the pixel count of my show over next few years but am out of SSCs. 

Willing to buy any flavor of v4 SSC.

Thanks.

3
The Porch / Heathkit Chips
« on: July 20, 2016, 10:34:41 pm »
This is quite random but this is the only place I thought may have someone with the answer.   I found a box of Chips in my wife's grandfathers house (he passed away many years go).  Doing a little research the chips are from a Heathkit based on the part numbers.  Heathkit sold kits to build of things like ham radios, clocks, and other home electronics may year ago.  My guess is these are from the mid to late 70s.  However only having the chips it is hard to know what project the chips were slated for.  Below is the list of chips and a description I could find online.  Does anyone have an idea as to what type of electronic component these would be used to build?  It would be really interesting to know what he was trying to build.

443-54    7403N    Quad 2-input NAND (OC)
443-25    74151N   8:1 Multiplexer
443-46    7402N   Quad 2-Input NOR
443-53      7442N   4:10 Line Decoder
443-90    74123   Dual Retriggerable Monostable
443-612   74193   Binary Counter
443-680   7495    Shift Register
443-694   F9368DC   7-Segment Decoder Driver Latch
443-698   7486N    Quad 2-Input Exclusive OR

4
The Porch / Re: Next years light purchases
« on: December 26, 2015, 06:31:03 pm »
Which sites tend to run group buys from Ray?  I have bought directly before but would love to save a few cents per node.

5
The Porch / Re: Pixel identification
« on: December 21, 2015, 12:40:56 am »
One thing that might help on the soldering  side - only the data line needs to run serial. You could connect all 8 strings +/- lines in Parallel from a single source.

6
Lynx Express / Channels flicker under low power level
« on: November 27, 2015, 10:39:19 pm »
I have an LE in my show that I am testing using the bobcat tester.  When I turn on channel 2 at full power all is well.  When I drop it down to about 50% channels 3 8 and 15 start flickering.  As the level goes lower more channels come on.  I tested the other channels and none show this issue.

Thoughts? I have (too many) spare LEs but would prefer not to take the hour to swap out the box if there were a couple of quick things to try first.

7
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: May 17, 2015, 05:43:05 pm »
Well,  I have built my zues 16.  Works fine with my ether dongle.  Also works fine down stream of one of my hubs.  But try as I might I cannot get my SSC v4 to light up with my hub(s).

So I need some help at this point.  Is there anyone I could buy a working SSC v4 with 1 node attached?  Or perhaps I could send a SSC and hb to someone to debug.


8
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: March 31, 2015, 11:23:46 pm »
Well more diagnostic tests were run to no avail.  1st I have eliminated the etherdongle as a source of possible issues.  I created a 4 pixelnet universe profile in vixen 2.1.  I set the hub to pixelnet universe 4 and a random DMX universe and I was able to get the express to work correctly using only those channels.  Took a while to actually do the math on that one.  So vixen is definately putting out pixelnet and the etherdongle is relaying that to the hub.  I have re-flashed the hub with the wiki firmware.  No luck.  I tried flashing the firmware on the SCC4 and using the corresponding utility to set start channels with no luck.  I understand that the firmware should set the start channel to 1 by default.  So I tried vixen outputting all channels on - nothing happens.

Put away the hub and went back to the zues.  I can successfully use the utility to set the start channel of a single string on the zues (string flashes).  However, when I attempt to use vixen to control the channel I get nothing.  All channels set to on and no luck.  I tried flashing one of the zues chips but I dont think it worked right as I could not set the start channel for that string anymore.   Had to give up after that.  Any reason why I would be able to set the starting channel on a string on the zues but it would not turn on?  Really confused by this now.   

Makes me think the etherdongle is not working properly (but as shown above I can confirm DMX output).  Is there anyway to debug the data lines to see what is actually being sent? 

9
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: March 19, 2015, 09:43:25 pm »
Actually had some free time today.  So I tried plugging the ETD directly into an express.  No DMX light no flashy (good).  Then took out my Zues 16 kit and soldered it up.  Wired up one node pulled out the SS Utility and amazingly I got the node to be programmed and it lit up.  Went over to vixen and got it to flash and change color.  So I can now firmly say that the ETD is working properly and I have at least 2 working nodes out of the few hundred I have.  ;D ;D

 Back to the Hub/ssc problem... I moved one of the proven nodes over to an SCC.  No lights - but getting 12+ on the output side of the node.   Pulled the SSC chip - replaced with an unused one.  Flashed with firmware from wiki.  Tried to program the SCC - no luck, tried turning on all channels in vixen, no luck.  Gave up on the SSC v4s.  I have a couple v1s from way back when that I never used.  Took the V1 - soldered the pigtail and a working node to it.  Flashed the chip using the V1 firmware from wiki.  Plugged it in and would not program.  Tried vixen with no luck.  Checked power and node is outputting 12+.  Tried swapping ethernet cords around a few different ways to no avail.  I am now really stumped and dont really know how to troubleshoot anymore.  Clearly the hub and/or the ssc is the problem but what is the likelihood that both of the hubs and both of the different versions of SSC would have the same problem? 

Perhaps I am just color blind and I have the two orange data inputs mixed up? 

10
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: March 18, 2015, 11:08:06 pm »
Well... Incredibly frustrated now.   <md..  So I bought an already assembled and "tested" powered hub from another user.  The thought being that having a second hub would allow me to figure out my problems.  I have been assuming that I messed something important up by mis-wiring the one SSC.  Well - got the package and noticed the pixelnet in wasnt soldered.  No big deal but makes me question the "tested" part.  In any case a quick bit of solder and I powered it up.  Tested it with an express and the DMX output is working fine.  Plugged in my SSC with a square node - no luck.  Plugged in my other 4 SSCs with other nodes - no luck. 

I was able to do another check and daisy chained the two hubs together via pixelnet out.  Then plugged the second hub into an express.  That worked fine.  Testing the SSC I can see +12v going out to the node. 

Really not sure what the issue could be now.  I am guessing it is the SSCs now since both hubs exibit the same behavior and the ethernet dongle looks to be putting out data based on the fact that DMX output works fine. 

Any ideas out there?   
Here is a pic of the one SSC in case you see something I wired wrong.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Time to start building the zues I guess...

11
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: February 27, 2015, 12:52:19 pm »
Well I have had a chance to get back to this again.  I have now tried 4 or 5 different SSCs each one directly soldered to the cat5 pigtail and directly soldered to a node.  These are new nodes that were not used when I cross wired things before so they should be working fine.  Although I currently have no way to confirm this.  I have tried square nodes and rectangle nodes.  I am not sure if the data input should go into the DO side or the D1 side of the node but I have tried both.  I can confirm that I am getting +12 voltage on the input of the SSC and +12 to the input of the nodes.  The nodes are correctly wired.  I have flashed the SSC with both the 4.2 and 4-7 hexes.  Nothing works.  However, the DMX output from the Hub is working fine.  I am using Vixen to turn on all 4096 channels for testing.  So it would seem that something on the pixelnet data path is not working correctly.  Is there any way to test if I am getting pixelnet data to the SCC?  Anything else I can test?

I am working on building a Zues which will hopefully go better and I can then at least test that the nodes work, eliminating one possible issue. 

12
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: February 10, 2015, 10:28:40 pm »
It wasn't switched polarity (that probably would have been better). I shorted the power by wiring 1 positive wire together with 2 negatives. Hence the blown fuses.  I do have other controllers and nodes to test with.  Just wanted to check if I should look at anything else first.

13
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: February 09, 2015, 11:26:39 pm »
Well I did some more testing today.  I tested the voltage coming off the board for each of the ethernet plugs.  It turns out with my wiring error I ended up blowing about 10 of the fuses  <fp.   However the other 6 still work.  Plugging a ssc into the one of these working slots shows 12v on the input side and 12v on the output side.   Still no lights though.

So what else did I break that is stopping the smart strings from lighting up.  The pic seems ok as the DMX output still works to the express.  I have double and tipple checked that the right wires are lined up to the smart strings.   Perhaps I damaged the first pixel of the string?  Maybe one of the other chips on the hub?  Any thoughts would be helpful.

14
The Porch / Multimeter recommendations
« on: February 05, 2015, 10:00:14 pm »
My multimeter is reaching end of life and I was in need of an upgrade anyway.  What must have features do we need in a multimeter for this hobby.  Can you recommend any specific meters?

15
Lynx Smart String / Re: SSC v4 issue
« on: February 04, 2015, 11:23:52 pm »
Finally got back to trying this again.   I wired up 2 additional v4 SSCs.  This time I wired them directly to the nodes (square nodes).  Used vixen to select all channels and no luck with them coming on.  Tried re-flashing the SSC pics with both with the 4 v2 hex and the 4-7 hex.  No luck.  Tried using the smart string utility to program the ssc but the nodes did not turn on.  Tried multiple different ethernet cords and sockets on the hub.  Express still works fine when connected to DMX out.  Touched up a few of the solder joints on the hub with no luck. 

I did stupidly wire up one of the sscs incorrectly.  I swapped one of the pwr lines with one of the grd lines on the ethernet pigtail coming in.  Not sure if that would have messed something up or not on the hub or ssc.  I fixed that ssc when I noticed.

Decided to check the voltage with a multi-meter.  On the one SSC the voltage in is 1.5 on another if I touch find the right spot (on some exposed bare copper) I can get it to read 12 v but other locations on the same solder joint it varies quite a bit. 

Thoughts on where to go from here?

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