I'm probably wrong, but if this is the rope light I think it is, it is 120V common positive. So it is above the max voltage that the LOR DC cards will switch, and the common positive is making it a bear to try and run full wave on standard AC card. I really don't like the products that switch the common, and leave the hot lead on all the time, but that sounds like what this stuff is doing...
jwilling wrote: All of which makes me a bit curious...
What sort of prices are they getting for the RGB-LED rope light?
I'm thinking that it should be controllable via the LOR CMB-16D DC controller with a small bit of tinkering. Seems like a bit of overkill to have go the whole DMX + controller route for a rope light.
Even if the DMX controller is a bit dodgy, if the rope light is decent... (for the price)
Hi Doctor
The pricing is $9.85 per meter of rope light. The 512 decoder is priced at $33 each. However the freight by DHL is $465 for 600' of rope light and 10 decoders. I now find out from their manual they build a different model U108 rope light that has selenium rectifier built into power cord. If this has neg neutral, it would be ideal to run direct from LOR. The K108 rope light has + neutral and operates on 120VDC. I tried for weeks to use (3) bridge rectifiers and run direct from 3 channels of LOR. However I had cross over voltage problem on input side of rectifiers. I could get 2 colors to operate normally but 3rd channel turned on all 3 colors of lights. I could handle this with relay to turn off 1st 2 colors but then I couldn't fade the channel with the relay. I tried diodes all over the place but couldn't handle the cross over voltage so finally gave up and decided to go with their 512 decoder. You can check out my schematic on "All About Circuits" under controlling multiple rectifiers. Wish I could post the link to this but don't how to do this! If you can't find it let me know and I will send you schematic if you have any interest and it sounds like you may.
I agree 100% with your analysis. I tried to do with attached schematic but couldn't handle the cross over voltage that existed on ac input side. Do you see any way to do this?
Here is an American supplier of these types of controllers. I have the 120 volt "basic" version controller. It does DMX and has a few stand alone features. This was all I could find for controlling that type of common positive RGB LED rope light. IF I had known that BEFORE I bought that rope light, I wouldn't have bought it.
Let me know. If it still doesn't work, Fed-Ex it to me. I will turn my dissecting technicians on it and they will make it work or kill it.
Charles
Thanks Charles for the offer. I will wait until I get replacement unit and see if it works. I'm hoping they will exchange this unit if it is bad which I'm sure it is.
BILL VANDERSLICE wrote: I agree 100% with your analysis. I tried to do with attached schematic but couldn't handle the cross over voltage that existed on ac input side. Do you see any way to do this?
In this configuration (120-volt LED strings with a common lead), the only practical solution is 1/2 wave.
The only way to run the rope full-wave using a triac-based controller (like the LOR AC controllers) is to cut into the rope and separate the common lead into separate R, G, and B strings.
I'm guessing the DMX rope controller from China is a 120-volt DC controller with an internal rectifier/capacitor DC supply?
Let me know. If it still doesn't work, Fed-Ex it to me. I will turn my dissecting technicians on it and they will make it work or kill it.
Charles
Thanks Charles for the offer. I will wait until I get replacement unit and see if it works. I'm hoping they will exchange this unit if it is bad which I'm sure it is.
Bill
Charles
Finally received my complete order from China and the were very fair as they sent extra decoder and didn't ask for bad unit to be returned. The good news is my 11 new decoders were able to be set up with LOR and iDMX1000 and work very well from LOR sequences. The only problem was setting ID's as LOR didn't want to reconize the reed switch settings on the decoders. I kept trying until I would find an ID that LOR would reconize and use it. I have units set with ID's of 10, 21 ,22 and 32. They all work so I am happy guy. Now to change my display but at least I know it is going to work.
I had 2 controllers I was testing, one worked, one did not. One had logic board and 36 different settings for different color combinations with position 36 for DMX encoding. This controller worked OK. The 2nd was a decoder with reed switches for setting ID. This is the unit that would not do anything. When I received the 11 new encoders, they all worked great after getting ID's set which was a challange. I tried the old decoder after setting up all the new ones and it still would do nothing. I now have a decoder that would make a good boat anchor for a very small boat.
Yes I agree that this decoder has two parts, one the power supply as you point out, the other side is a decoder to handle DMX. So far I have only run these decoders under test set up but I was able to assign IDs to all 11 units and they work very well with LOR control. I will be setting these up next week so we'll see how well they operate once they are daisy chained with my LOR.
Thought I should give some type of final report on the ATG decoders and rope lights. I have all the 680' of LED rope lights up and running with 8 decoders controlling the lights from LOR. I had bit of problem setting the ID's but once I worked it out it went well. It ran great for 4 days and then quit as I could not turn off lights. With Dan's help at LOR he suggested checking polarity switch on iDMX1000. Sure enough it was in wrong position as I must have bumped it in moving the iDMX1000 to its final location. I also lost my monitor and this took place after installing nice new 20" monitor. I am most happy with these lights as they are bright and very vivid. Be happy to post some pictures if anyone is interested. Another minor problem came about after my downtime. When I refresh on my HWU, I can only find the DMX (16 units) and the last LOR unit 7 in my daisychain. All 7 LOR units work normally when controlled by sequences and all 7 controllers have solid red lights. Why are they not being reconized by HWU as they are all operational by sequences? Sure makes it tough to install lights when you can't test them on HWU. These all worked fine until I had the DMX problem and has not worked since and I have tried everything. Interesting that if I remove iDMX from the network by connecting my cat 5 cable direct to computer and bypassing the iDMX1000, the HWU still finds 1 DMX and my last LOR unit 7. Any ideas would be appreciated.
BILL VANDERSLICE wrote: Thought I should give some type of final report on the ATG decoders and rope lights. I have all the 680' of LED rope lights up and running with 8 decoders controlling the lights from LOR. I had bit of problem setting the ID's but once I worked it out it went well. It ran great for 4 days and then quit as I could not turn off lights. With Dan's help at LOR he suggested checking polarity switch on iDMX1000. Sure enough it was in wrong position as I must have bumped it in moving the iDMX1000 to its final location. I also lost my monitor and this took place after installing nice new 20" monitor. I am most happy with these lights as they are bright and very vivid. Be happy to post some pictures if anyone is interested. Another minor problem came about after my downtime. When I refresh on my HWU, I can only find the DMX (16 units) and the last LOR unit 7 in my daisychain. All 7 LOR units work normally when controlled by sequences and all 7 controllers have solid red lights. Why are they not being reconized by HWU as they are all operational by sequences? Sure makes it tough to install lights when you can't test them on HWU. These all worked fine until I had the DMX problem and has not worked since and I have tried everything. Interesting that if I remove iDMX from the network by connecting my cat 5 cable direct to computer and bypassing the iDMX1000, the HWU still finds 1 DMX and my last LOR unit 7. Any ideas would be appreciated.Bill,
I go through that "HWU not finding controllers" thing every year. The controllers always work with the LOR sequence/show/scheduler so I have stopped worrying about the HWU. Dan pretty much told me the same thing.
