Zeus kept losing its mind...

[pokey]

Folks,

I've wrapped up the show for the season.  I added a Zeus 16 version 1 to my display for a megatree.  It ran wonderfully for a few nights, then a single strand failed, then another, then another.  After troubleshooting for a while, I decided to reflash the PICs and all was well.  Then, after running a few more days, the same thing happened.  Another reflash of the 16 PICs and it was fine again.  Then - failure just like before.

Any idea what could be going on?

[tbone321]

It sounds like you are not giving it enough power.  What size power supply do you have on it and how many nodes do you have connected to it?

[taybrynn]

And I think making sure every single chip is flashed might make a difference also.  So if your not using a channel, its my belief it should be flashed with the default firmware ... and that means no prior programming either.  Once I did that. I seemed to have reliable zeus operation. 

[pokey]

It's a 600 Watt single rail power supply - I ran the main connector and then ran three of the funky connectors off a single feed.  I'm running 704 pixels (44 on each string) so it should be more than enough juice.  I've got a couple backup PS (500 Watt and 450 Watt) which I could try and see if it's the problem.

When I reflashed, I always reflashed all 16 PICs, then used the SS Utility to re-program.

[taybrynn]

Are there upstream units from this zeus?  meaning fed by an pixelnet out from other controller(s) and/or hub(s) ... I did discover that if you terminate incorrectly anywhere upstream, then the downstream zeus using that PN Univ may not act as expected, because the signal gets terminated, but still may partially working giving the appearance that something else is going on.

[pokey]

I've got a 16 port active hub upstream from the Zeus which feeds via the PixelNet Out port.  It's getting fed from my Ether Dongle.  It also feeds six six Smart String Controllers (v4) which worked fine during the whole season.

Everything is in Universe 1.

[taybrynn]

That all sounds good ... so on the zeus, are you using channels 1,2,3,4,5 ?  Or skipping some?  Is this a zeus v1 or v2 ?  Unused channels, are they just flashed or did you program them to anything at all ?

[tbone321]

Whether they are programmed or not should not have much effect on them, as long as they are flashed.  I think that the real issue is the way that they are all sharing a common program jumper and the noise on the board both from so many nodes switching on and off and the PIC's themselves. 

[pokey]

It's a Zeus v1.0.  Programmed them sequentially starting at channel 250 and up from there (44 lights per channel, 16 channels).  It all runs wonderfully for a few days, then it slowly starts losing its mind.  First one strand goes dark, then another, then another, then it all goes south.

[pokey]

Folks,

I posted last year about my Zeus losing its mind.  What happens is that it runs perfectly fine for a couple nights, then one by one, individual ports/strands start failing.  If I reflash the chips for each port, it behaves fine again.

Is anyone else seeing this behavior?  I want to turn on my mega tree, but having it fail and having to pop all those chips out to reflash is an absolute pain.

Help!!!

[tbone321]

You could reflash them with the Falcon firmware and then you can change settings at will without the need to set the jumper.

[pokey]

Tbone - I'm not sure what the Falcon firmware is.  Can you nudge me along?

[pokey]

Nevermind. I found what Falcon firmware is....now I've had a "holy crap" moment of what have I been missing???

[LasVegasF250]

I had this happen when I had thin gauge wire (LED wire probably 22 gauge) going from the controller to the water proof connectors. Replaced the wire with 18 gauge and haven't had an issue.

[zwiller]

Yep, I think the chip is sensitive to power issues and loses it's programming when too low.