Olsen 595 Problem: All SSRs Plugged In, Channels Go Erratic

[peejmeister]

My Olsen 595 Bresonik v2.4.1 has been working flawlessly year after year, with Vixen 1.1.11, using the same old PC, same cables, same lights, etc. since 2006. I had to take a 3-year hiatus (2020-2022) while our house was rebuilt after a major fire.

This year, before setting everything up (40 channels out of 64 configured in Vixen), I booted the PC and Vixen came up immediately from startup, as expected. Next, I connected the controller to the parallel port, same as always, everything appears fine via the LEDs on the board when running my all-channel test sequence. I'm feeling pretty confident so on to testing the SSRs.

Still sitting at the PC, I begin swapping one SSR in after another and see that each one works, each of the 4 channels. It appears everything is working fine so I unpack all the lights and spend three days setting them all up. Finally, I plug in all the CAT5s to connect everything and run my all-channel test sequence.

All the channels work, but whenever a significant number of channels come on, all that are on will flicker super fast, and sometimes random channels will come on. Further testing shows that just plugging in the CAT5 between the controller and the PC (about 15'), all the lights will come on rapidly in sequence from 1-40 and stay on, with no sequence running (and even with Vixen shut down). Using the individual channel control, I can use All Off to shut them all off, but within a second or two, they'll all come back on. Running a sequence will produce the behavior described above where the sequence runs, but when a lot of channels are called for, things get erratic.

I reseated and swapped all the 595 & 2803 chips with no change in behavior. I tested using a spare external PC power supply attaching at the parallel-to-CAT5 connector and see the same behavior. I triple-checked the parallel port settings in the BIOS for EPP (tried the other settings with less success). Lastly, I swapped out all the 595 chips for new TI ones bought off Amazon but for whatever reason, those produced constant on, rapid flickering without following the commands from my running sequence. After that, I swapped back in the original 595 chips and I'm back to the described behavior. I have a new set of 2803s coming tomorrow that I'll try but I'm not holding my breath. I also checked the Olsen 595 plugin settings to ensure they're still correct. Replacing the CAT5 between the controller and PC with a new, store bought one had no effect.

I've scanned this Olsen 595 forum front to back for anyone having a similar problem to no avail. I haven't followed the troubleshooting steps where continuity and grounds, etc. are verified since I do see things looking properly without a full load. I've examined all my solder joints, connecters, sockets and all looks really good still. I hate to give up so close to Christmas but I'm just about out of options.

Anyone have any guidance to what could cause such behavior? As noted above, this setup has been flawless for many years and I've just come to expect it all to work out of the box every year. Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[MikeKrebs]

Were any boards anywhere close to the fire? Maybe give everything a scrubdown with some alcohol and a soft brush?

Zero cross good?

What kind of lights are you hooking up versus what you ran 3 years ago?

 

[peejmeister]

Were any boards anywhere close to the fire? Maybe give everything a scrubdown with some alcohol and a soft brush?

Zero cross good?

What kind of lights are you hooking up versus what you ran 3 years ago?

The boards weren't near the fire and didn't even get exposed to smoke. They looked as clean as ever but I soft-brushed them (no alcohol) anyway just to be sure while I took a closer look at the solder joints, etc. No sign of any issues.

I need to check on the zero cross, that was going to be my next move. I'm running the same lights as the last time it ran.

Since I posted, I was concerned that maybe my parallel port wasn't putting out as much voltage as pre-fire (it was in the house, exposed to heavy smoke and maybe even moisture due to our fire sprinkler system and the firemen's hose spray, but it's been running flawlessly otherwise), so I bought some diodes and cranked the PC power voltage to the controller down some and that definitely made the symptoms worse.

Based on the above results and as a last-ditch effort to save any semblance of a display before Christmas, I bought an adjustable bench power supply and hooked it up in place of the PC power and once I cranked it up to 6.7v, it smoothed out most of my issues. When no Vixen sequences are running, all my lights will still come on fairly quickly, but my AllOff sequence that I run will shut them off briefly. If I look closely, I can still detect a minor glitch here and there during a sequence, but for the most part it's tolerable.

I'm not sure why the additional voltage in helps and only tried it because lowering the voltage made things worse. I'd like to salvage what I have vs. upgrading to newer technology and trying to save my songs/programs, but I'm not comfortable running next year like I ended up this year so that may be the route to take.

Finally, I'm still baffled as to why the new TI 595 chips were worthless and am not sure if that adds anything to help solve the puzzle.

I really do appreciate your help, though, Mike! I wasn't sure my post would even go live, much less get any response so many years down the road with such older tech.