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Pony_God View Drop Down
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  Quote Pony_God Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 2008 at 8:14am
It's been really rainy here yesterday and today. The only problem we have is a single GFCI that keeps tripping, even though that's the dryest outlet/wires/controller in the entire yard!
I just re-routed around the GFCI and everything runs.
 
Although, our LEDs are on about 80% on the one controller now. Humidity must be doing something with the power leak in the board.
Fine. You're so smart you rig up the lights.
D-Light users Unite!
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  Quote LightsOnLogan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 2008 at 9:21am
If those are the 2008 CDI LEDs in the longer counts, any of mine that are "superstranded" (braided together with other colors on other channels) act crazy whenever it gets foggy out.  It seems they "see" the neighboring strands (other colors) braided with them in the "superstrand" and start glitching accordingly.
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  Quote Pony_God Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 2008 at 11:42am
Nope, Target el-cheapos I believe. At least they are the mini/micros from a local chain. Some are from Lowes though. It's strill really odd that it's primarily the two controllers. Not quire sure what's going in with them.
The other three that have LEDs are fine.
Fine. You're so smart you rig up the lights.
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  Quote bdkeen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Dec 2008 at 5:06pm
GFI's and I have been beating each other up - well we were anyway.  Ended up routing around the GFI breakers..  We've been running rain or no rain. Ohter than a weak breaker in a surge bar tht kept tripping everything has been running excellent. 
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  Quote Jonathan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Dec 2008 at 7:36pm
That's a big risk you are taking.  Exclamation  GFCI's exist for a reason, and if they trip that's also for a reason.  Bypassing them because they trip is, IMHO, asking for trouble.  Is it more important for the show to run, or to prevent your boards from accidentally being fried?  Unless the news crew was filming, I know what I'd choose.  Good luck mate; I hope it works out for you!  
~Jonathan
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  Quote bdkeen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Dec 2008 at 8:16pm

The purpose of GFCI isn't to protect electronic equipment. Their primary purpose is to offer personal protection against electrical shock wherever there is the potential for contact between a person and an electrical appliance.  So if I'm stupid enough to go grabbing wires in the rain then I probably deserve what I might get.

Only bypassed the GFIs because I'm also providing other forms of protection on the circuits feeding the controllers as well.  Bypassing is temporary until properly functioning GFCI's are installed. Tested the GFIs in question and should trip when a drop off in the current is equivalent to about 5 milliamperes (the way a  GFCI works) and they were tripping at lower. I have others that don't give me the problem.
 
We normally don't get that much water this time of the year as we did when major storm system moved up the northeast.  Never had any problems with the snow.
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  Quote Jonathan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Dec 2008 at 12:52am
I'll be the first to admit I am not an expert (or even an amateur) with regards to electricity.  I just know that I tend to blow electrical things up when I mess with them and that my water lights show kept tripping the GFCI's.  Water would seep through the electrical tape covering the extension cord connections that would end up partially submerged.  My power strips never went off though.  Even if you know what you are doing, I still think it's a good idea to err on the side of caution. 
~Jonathan
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  Quote Slinkard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Dec 2008 at 9:44pm

Becuase I talked about you guys moving to SD, Karma caughtup to me. Been raining bad here and windy. My 6 foot twig tree's fell over so I went to put them back up and bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! yep got a good shock. I thought if the systems boards where not running power would not be going to the tree's. NOT THE CASE! not a huge shock but those tree's will be down until a sunny day dry's them out.

 
Thats what I get,
Slink

Coming soon www.computerizedlights.com
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Jonathan View Drop Down
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  Quote Jonathan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Dec 2008 at 11:44pm
I posted this over on D-Light's site, but since we are on the subject, I too got hit by that same storm... 

Wow, what a night it's been. :%28

It rained here today, quite a bit in fact. The local mountains got 3 feet of snow out of the storm. Down here all we got was soaking wet, and that's where it all began...

I got home and checked my lights. All was well except one firefly strand was dead. Turns out the power supply got wet and won't work. I guess my safe dry spot for it was anything but. I only figured this out when it shocked me. :shock: Funny thing was that my GFCI didn't trip. Thankfully, 12VDC is a lot less than 110VAC! (Been there, done that!)

So I added my inclement weather spiel to the sequence list in a few spots that apologizes for lights not working and kept on truckin'. I went out a bit later to see that one of my ACx16's was blinking, as was the status LED on the wiLink remote. I power cycled, no change. Not wanting to interrupt the show, I ran a CAT5 cable from that box to another ACx16. All was well again until...

I saw one channel on my mega tree sticking on. Hopefully the triac didn't die on me; I'm no good at fixing that kind of stuff. I went outside only to discover that two more fireflies were also now dark as was the problem ACx16 and my DCx16. Ignoring the stuck channel, I quickly figured out that a tripped GFCI was to blame for the other issues. I reset it, and it stayed on, so I left it at that. Turn out I got about 5 minutes worth before it tripped again. Reset, same thing. Finally, I killed the scheduler, had the HW Utility turn on power to everything that could see it, and played my technical difficulties soundtrack while I quickly built a new show with inclement weather spiels after each song, then started it all back up again.

To isolate what was causing the GFCI to trip, I ran an extension cord to a different GFCI outlet and powered just the ACx16 and the DCx16 with it, and I left the fireflies on the outlet that kept tripping. So far neither have tripped, but it's only been half an hour.

The bad news is that the forecast is rain, rain, and more rain for the next few days. At this rate the only thing I'll be playing by that time is my "show canceled" sequence. :cry:

Oh well. I guess you can only do so much. Hopefully things will get better sooner than later! :wink:
~Jonathan
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  Quote bdkeen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Dec 2008 at 7:31am
Yeah, rain again last night ..  I've been back on the GFCI breakers and didn't have any problem after replacing, removing, and  rerouting some wires, plus elevating plugs that I suspected might be a cause of the GFCI trips.  No trips last night but did lose 1 channel on 1 controller. But when I discovered that the business end of a rope light was submerged in about 3 inches of water that had built up - I'm not surprised at the channel loss..  Most likely took out a triac.  Fortunatly it's a channel that was sort of spare and not driving any major display item.
 
Needless to say drain holes were made in the display item that trapped the water to help prevent the water build up.
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