I can't figure this out. I have a Grinch+ Ren-C Combo that keeps losing it's heartbeat. When that happens, the lights just stay on, or flash uncontrollably. You don't have to touch it or anything, it just does it. I've used two different Ren-C's and get the same problem. What do you think it is?
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Grinch + Ren-C Losing Heartbeat
- Thread starter jeeves55
- Start date
This is driving me batty! I have two Grinch and Rec-C setups. We'll call them G1,R1 and G2,R2. The problem one was G1R1. It's for my mega tree, and it's all encapsulated in a 3'x 4" PVC pipe. LOTS of wires and network cabling. Because of this, I cannot physically remove R1 without extensive work, and definitely not while it is on the tree. G1, on the other hand is much easier. I have the same problem no matter the combination. G1R2, G2R1, even G2R2 on the tree! And that's without any SSRs plugged in. I am so lost! G2R2 works just fine in it's cable box. I've replaced the network cables, I've checked the replaced network cables. I'm totally lost!
Either the lights stay on constantly, and there is no heartbeat, or the row of LED's on the Ren-C flash violently. And when they do that, the lights follow.
Please help.
Either the lights stay on constantly, and there is no heartbeat, or the row of LED's on the Ren-C flash violently. And when they do that, the lights follow.
Please help.
What are you using as ZC source ???
I would start with that. The Grinch with a Ren-C will behave very strange and unpredictable without a good reliable zero cross signal. I did extensive testing with that kind of a setup over the summer. I learned a couple of things. I had the best results when using an H11AA1 direct from the AC line as a ZC source. I tried the transformer with two diodes and that worked........sometimes but was not reliable. I also had unacceptable results when passing the ZC signal between Ren-Cs on pins 7 & 8 of the data cable. I have 256 channels running on Grinch/Ren-Cs right now. Each of my four Ren-Cs has it's own H11AA1 for ZC. That was the only way I could get them to work and dim the way I wanted them to.
Not sure if ZC is your problem but it sure sounds like it might be.
I would start with that. The Grinch with a Ren-C will behave very strange and unpredictable without a good reliable zero cross signal. I did extensive testing with that kind of a setup over the summer. I learned a couple of things. I had the best results when using an H11AA1 direct from the AC line as a ZC source. I tried the transformer with two diodes and that worked........sometimes but was not reliable. I also had unacceptable results when passing the ZC signal between Ren-Cs on pins 7 & 8 of the data cable. I have 256 channels running on Grinch/Ren-Cs right now. Each of my four Ren-Cs has it's own H11AA1 for ZC. That was the only way I could get them to work and dim the way I wanted them to.
Not sure if ZC is your problem but it sure sounds like it might be.
UPDATE
The problem area is my bazooka. It has 64 channels with relays all tucked into a tube. 49 of those channels are hooked up to the mega tree. When I unhook all of the relays from the Grinch, I have my heartbeat.
I can have up to three relay boards hooked up, and the system functions fine, blinky flashy and all. If I have between 4 & 10 relay boards hooked up, the 5 LED's on the Ren-C flash, so do any Christmas lights hooked up to those boards.
If I have more then 10 relay boards hooked up, then the lights are just a steady on. The only LED lit is the power. No heartbeat.
The order of the connected relay boards doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter if I have power to the Christmas lights as well.
Any thoughts?
The problem area is my bazooka. It has 64 channels with relays all tucked into a tube. 49 of those channels are hooked up to the mega tree. When I unhook all of the relays from the Grinch, I have my heartbeat.
I can have up to three relay boards hooked up, and the system functions fine, blinky flashy and all. If I have between 4 & 10 relay boards hooked up, the 5 LED's on the Ren-C flash, so do any Christmas lights hooked up to those boards.
If I have more then 10 relay boards hooked up, then the lights are just a steady on. The only LED lit is the power. No heartbeat.
The order of the connected relay boards doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter if I have power to the Christmas lights as well.
Any thoughts?
What are you using to supply power to the Grinch and RenC ??? You may not have enough voltage and/or current to supply the RenC, Grinch and all of the relays.
I supply the power individually to the Grinch and RenC. And I inject power remotely to the SSR relays instead of passing power from the Grinch board.
If the voltage and current check out OK then I would reflash the PiC on the RenC board with the newest firmware.
Let us know if you get this resolved it may help others still using the old Grinch boards.
I supply the power individually to the Grinch and RenC. And I inject power remotely to the SSR relays instead of passing power from the Grinch board.
If the voltage and current check out OK then I would reflash the PiC on the RenC board with the newest firmware.
Let us know if you get this resolved it may help others still using the old Grinch boards.
You may try re-flashing the PIC on the Ren-C board but I would bet that it is either a ZC or voltage/current problem. 4.7 volts seems a little bit low to me especially if you are supplying voltage to relays from the Ren-T, through the Ren-C then through the Grinch to your relays. All of my Grinch and Ren-Cs are running on 5.11 volts and are as stable as can be with no problems dimming or on-off. I know my setup will go crazy if the supply voltage drops below about 4.9 volts. That is why I decided to inject the power to my SSRs and relay boards. Everything was drawing too much power through the Grinch board. I can also tell you from my testing that some Ren-C/Grinch combos work on lower voltages than others. I can't explain why, but I spent about 150 hours of testing different Ren-C/Grinch setups over the summer. I have one Ren-C that only works with a certain Grinch board. Again I can't explain it, as all the boards have the same type of Allegro chip on them and an 820 ohm current limiting resistor. I also could never get two Ren-C/Grinch combos to work from a single Ren-T. In theory it should work but I never had good results. As soon as I added the second set of boards to get to 128 channels both Ren-Cs would go crazy and no blinky-flashy. I power the boards from a small ATX power supply and each of my Ren-Cs has it's own ZC source from an H11AA1. The SSR relay boards are powered from a high-current ATX server power supply with the grounds of both connected together.
You said that things are good up to 10 relays. What kind of relays are you using and how much current do they draw ??? Are they SSRs, if so what kind ???
Also did you test this setup with all of the relays attached and determine that everything worked OK ???
Again I am fairly sure that you have either a Zero Cross or voltage issue. Unfortunately it will probably be hard to trouble shoot while it is all inside of a 3 inch pipe attached to your tree.
PM me if you want, and I can give you a number to call me.
You said that things are good up to 10 relays. What kind of relays are you using and how much current do they draw ??? Are they SSRs, if so what kind ???
Also did you test this setup with all of the relays attached and determine that everything worked OK ???
Again I am fairly sure that you have either a Zero Cross or voltage issue. Unfortunately it will probably be hard to trouble shoot while it is all inside of a 3 inch pipe attached to your tree.
PM me if you want, and I can give you a number to call me.
If I have up to three relays hooked up, everything works fine, blinky flashy and all.
Between 4-10 relays, Everything just flickers randomly; the LEDs on the Ren-C and all the stands of lights hooked up to the relays that are plugged into the Grinch, all flicker in unison.
After 10 relays are plugged into the Grinch, only the power LED on the Ren-C is lit, no heartbeat, and all strands of lights that are plugged into the relays that are plugged into the Grinch remain a steady on.
I am using Sean's SSR's, not sure what version, one of the first.
I have tested each of the relays by having only one plugged into the Grinch at a time, and they all worked OK.
The ZC, is as stated above, I don't know if its a H11AA1, or what. I'm not an electronics expert. I took the plants, bought the parts and put it together. Then relied on this board to get it to work, lol. The Ren-T has it's own power cord, runs the ZC through Cat5 to the Ren-C. The Ren-T sits on top of the computer in the garage.
The Power Voltage for the system comes from the same ATX computer that runs the Vixen Program. I spliced an old plug and every year I just plug it in and run the cord through an open PCI slot in the back.
Yes, it sucks to work on this thing from the tube on the tree. I had removed it, took it into the garage, and got it to work fine in there. Took it back out, hooked it all up, and same problem.
We've got about 5" of snow out there now, not really going to mess with it anymore. I'm going to run a new power cord and see what happens, but if that doesn't fix it, it'll wait until spring.
Between 4-10 relays, Everything just flickers randomly; the LEDs on the Ren-C and all the stands of lights hooked up to the relays that are plugged into the Grinch, all flicker in unison.
After 10 relays are plugged into the Grinch, only the power LED on the Ren-C is lit, no heartbeat, and all strands of lights that are plugged into the relays that are plugged into the Grinch remain a steady on.
I am using Sean's SSR's, not sure what version, one of the first.
I have tested each of the relays by having only one plugged into the Grinch at a time, and they all worked OK.
The ZC, is as stated above, I don't know if its a H11AA1, or what. I'm not an electronics expert. I took the plants, bought the parts and put it together. Then relied on this board to get it to work, lol. The Ren-T has it's own power cord, runs the ZC through Cat5 to the Ren-C. The Ren-T sits on top of the computer in the garage.
The Power Voltage for the system comes from the same ATX computer that runs the Vixen Program. I spliced an old plug and every year I just plug it in and run the cord through an open PCI slot in the back.
Yes, it sucks to work on this thing from the tube on the tree. I had removed it, took it into the garage, and got it to work fine in there. Took it back out, hooked it all up, and same problem.
We've got about 5" of snow out there now, not really going to mess with it anymore. I'm going to run a new power cord and see what happens, but if that doesn't fix it, it'll wait until spring.
Since you brought it inside and all worked fine, I would be willing to bet that if you moved the REN-T outside with the REN-C/Grinch boards that things would work much better. The Ren-T generates a low level signal from a center tapped transformer and two diodes for the ZC. As I said above, I could never get things to work with the Ren-T generating the ZC signal although others have. I ended up building 2 small boards with an H11AA1 and 2 resistors connected directly to the AC feed and feeding the ZC signal directly in to the Ren-C on the onboard header strip. It did strange things when ever I tried to send the ZC over the cat-5 cable. If you check the Ren-C Wiki, at the bottom of the document it gives 3 different possibilities to generate a Zero cross signal. I found that Option# 2 for the H11AA1 works far better than any other solution. Here's a link to the page in case you need it:
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ren-C
Just another thought. When you tested your configuration inside, did you test it with the same length of cat-5 cable as you are using from your garage to your tree ??? I had this bite me last year. I tested everything inside my shop with 10-15' cat-5 cables. When I hooked everything up outside I found that I needed 75-100' for a couple of my cable runs. Guess what, that additional resistance due to the cable length made a big difference. It's not a huge amount of resistance but it does dramatically affect the low-level ZC signal especially when feeding more than a single Ren-C board. It sounds like your Ren-C/Grinches are outside on the mast of your mega-tree with the Ren-T (for ZC) and the computer that supplies 5vdc power to your boards is in the garage. If that is how you are setup I would bet the cable distance is causing your issue. Check the voltage drop charts, it is surprising how much drop there is at 5 volts, even at very low current.
I would test inside with the same length ZC and 5 volt cabling. Also FYI, if you are using RS232 and it requires more than 15-20 feet of cat-5 from your PC to the Ren-C outside, that distance is probably farther than this setup is known to work without probable data issues. I tried RS-232 at 50 feet and had data loss and framing errors.
Let us know what you find out.
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ren-C
Just another thought. When you tested your configuration inside, did you test it with the same length of cat-5 cable as you are using from your garage to your tree ??? I had this bite me last year. I tested everything inside my shop with 10-15' cat-5 cables. When I hooked everything up outside I found that I needed 75-100' for a couple of my cable runs. Guess what, that additional resistance due to the cable length made a big difference. It's not a huge amount of resistance but it does dramatically affect the low-level ZC signal especially when feeding more than a single Ren-C board. It sounds like your Ren-C/Grinches are outside on the mast of your mega-tree with the Ren-T (for ZC) and the computer that supplies 5vdc power to your boards is in the garage. If that is how you are setup I would bet the cable distance is causing your issue. Check the voltage drop charts, it is surprising how much drop there is at 5 volts, even at very low current.
I would test inside with the same length ZC and 5 volt cabling. Also FYI, if you are using RS232 and it requires more than 15-20 feet of cat-5 from your PC to the Ren-C outside, that distance is probably farther than this setup is known to work without probable data issues. I tried RS-232 at 50 feet and had data loss and framing errors.
Let us know what you find out.
I made one realization last night as I was going through and answering your question on weather I used the same wire/cable lengths or not. The SPT-2 cord was shortened when I tested the unit in the garage.....the Cat5 was the same. And I realized one thing had changed on the computer this year as well, the video card. Previously I ran off the onboard video, but this season, it went out, so I grabbed the gaming card out of an old computer, which required an extra power plug. The same cord that I had pigtailed to my Grinch system. I unplugged the video card and my voltage went from 4.97 to 5.11...and everything suddenly worked!
So the video card was hogging the power. I reran the internal power cords in the PC and everything works fine! Too bad I don't have enough time to set everything else up now.
So the video card was hogging the power. I reran the internal power cords in the PC and everything works fine! Too bad I don't have enough time to set everything else up now.