Dang flickering

[Mudsculpter]

As the title suggests I have some flickering going on in my display. I have a pair of ren-c/595 chained together on one serial port and a pair of ren24s daisy-chained on another serial port. I have not noticed any flickering in the ren24 chain, only in the ren-c/595 chain. I have no LED strings and It is not confined to the ramping channels, it also happens in the steady channels too.

So far to remedy the situation I have,...

1. re-flashed the pic to both 824a and 831 FW
2. replaced the 485 chips
3. masked unused channels
4. used "End-it-all" to get rid of stuff running in the background
5. shortened cables and power cords that were unnecessarily long
6. set the max illumination level to 192 (it made sense at the time)
7. re-installed the "USB to serial" drivers.
8. changed out the PS. (grasping for straws)
9. other ridiculous stuff that may have involved incense and a chicken head.


Got any other ideas??

[P. Short]

You might try decreasing the number of channels on the port, and/or making use of that modified Renard plugin that I posted on some other thread (I don't remember where I posted it).

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Phil

OK, I found it...not a very good place for it.

http://www.christmasinshirley.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1221

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Phil

[Mudsculpter]

I'm only using 20 channels on the first ren-c/595 and 8 channels on the other.

I guess i will try the 831 FW again

[P. Short]

It isn't the number of channels that are in use, it's how many channels you have vixen configured for. Try going down to just 24 channels, for the first ren-c.

Also, what baud rate are you using?

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Phil

[Mudsculpter]

57600,.. i didnt think we could use any other

[holtm]

Have you tried swaping serial ports with the Ren24 line? It would rule out the computer serial port if it was still there on the REN-c and not on the REN24s. If the problem moved to the REN24s it would point to the computer.

[Mudsculpter]

Yea ,... tried that. the issue does not appear on the ren24s

[holtm]

If the second REN-c is disconnected does the first one still flicker?

[Mudsculpter]

If the second REN-c is disconnected does the first one still flicker?

I'll put that on my list to try tomorrow but the more severe flickering happens on the final ren-c

[xmus]

I had some strobes that were causing flickering on ramping and 100% on channels. Turned off the strobes, problem went away. Are you using any "non incandescent" lights?

[Mudsculpter]

just minis so far,... before i added more channels, I wanted to get the existing channels working 100%

[Mudsculpter]

well whaddya know,...

First tried the modded plugin (which worked like a charm on the ramping channels that were the most severe, but I still had some random flickering in the steady channels.

Then I set up the plugin to only utilize the first 64 channels and no flicker in the steady ones either.

it seems that I cannot run more than one ren-c/595 combo per serial port wthout flickering

[BillAd]

I have three ren-c/595's on one serial port and originally had the same problem. Each of the ren-c boards are separated by approximately 80 feet with the first one approximately 110 feet from the computer. I was using a single power supply located near the computer to supply ZC.

My solution was to build separate power supplies for the ZC signal and locate one near each of the ren-c's. My problem was completely eliminated with no other changes. Good luck.

Bill

[Mudsculpter]

I resolved the issue so far. I split the ren-c/595s to one per serial port. Luckily the ren24s were able to get serial signal without a ren-t as far as they are from the computer. I only had two ren-ts to utilize so freeing up one fom the ren24s was a blessing.

Thanks for all the help,.......again,.....