Help Dimming a 595 (Ren-C)

[jmccoh]

I haven’t seen this addressed, so I apologize if it was, but I am reaching out to the gurus for some help.

My set up consists of 595’s from Brian’s coop early in ’07, SSRs from Sean’s coop, populated from Jayson’s parts coop, Ren-C’s from John and a Ren-T from Wayne’s last effort. Just realized how much thanks I owe all of you guys.

My port settings are 57600 – 8 – N – 1 and I have checked Hold Port Open… using Protocol Version 1. The PIC was flashed by John as well and just before he went out on his storm chasing holiday, so I am assuming it is the most recent version of the firmware but I do not know that for a fact.

I noticed when ramping on or off, I would get momentary pulses or flickers in my 150 count mini-light string somewhere in the lower ranges. So using the “Test Channels” I found that this “pulse” occurs at 22%. The first light that my old eyes can detect is at 29% and it appears to ramp very smoothly up to 100%. Does any of that sound normal, or might I have a problem somewhere?

Using Partial Ramp On/Off and down, I am very pleased when setting the starting/ending level at 30 (and 100 for the other end) and ramping on and off over a 10 second period. If that is what I need to do, so be it - to me it looks great and I will just need to adjust when sequencing. My next question would be can I “globally” set this through the minimum illumination in the sequence settings? I also would like to add some Ren24’s to my display, so would the difference in dimming levels give me some grief if I set that?

Any insight, thoughts or experiences that anyone would care to share would be greatly appreciated. And again, thanks for all the work everybody has contributed through design, development, running coops, and answering questions – my kids thoroughly enjoy this hobby.

Jim

[RichF]

Jim I get have the same problem with one of my Three ren-c's I have not tried to move the PIC's around but may try to see if it is a bad pic.

[JEEPGUY]

jmccoh,

I received a Ren C PIC from John just before he went to Fiji. He told me they were programmed with the latest firmware.

[Wombat]

This is probably due to the holding current of the Triacs. The load isnt quite high enough at 22% output to keep the Lights on so they are turning off again hense flicker

Wombat

[P. Short]

This is probably due to the holding current of the Triacs. The load isnt quite high enough at 22% output to keep the Lights on so they are turning off again hense flicker

Wombat

My suspicions are in this area as well.

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Phil

[jmccoh]

Thanks guys. As far as the pulse, as I stepped from 0% through 100% - 1% at a time in test channel - there was nothing up until the 22% pulse then nothing again until I got to 29%. As I said, once I go from 30 - 100 I was very pleased with the dimming and I can live with that as I sequence.

I was just concerned that I could have botched something in the construction. Thanks again.

[RichF]

I think I found the reason for my pulse. Seems my PIC was not installed tightly and after I removed it and pushed it in tighter I do not have the problem. I have also found if the cat 5 on the Ren-T is not in tight I do not get dimming either. I do get lights on but no dimming.

So for all who are having issues with the Ren-c converter and the Ren-T. ensure your pic are in the sockets tight. Ensure your cat 5 cable from the ren -t to the ren-c is in tight on both sides. These little bugs seemed to have caused me the most problems and now I have 3 good ren-c's

[jmccoh]

Thanks for the input Rich - I'll give it a try.

[jmccoh]

This is probably due to the holding current of the Triacs. The load isnt quite high enough at 22% output to keep the Lights on so they are turning off again hense flicker

Wombat


My suspicions are in this area as well.

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Phil


Makes sense guys. Other than the difference in dimming levels between the "standard" Renard designs and the Ren-C is there any other difference in functionality or controling them with Vixen? I do not recall reading that the Renard design did not dim to 0% or does it not?

As this runs today, I get dimming smoothly down to 0% - only thing is Vixen says I'm at 29% when in reality the lights are just turning on (or off). The beauty of KC's program is that I can compensate for this disparity - just wanted to see if there is something I should be fixing.

[P. Short]

No, all of the Renard designs are that way (and I'm suspicious that this is true of some of the commercial products as well). There isn't any logic in place to linearize the outputs. And since different lights will have different curves, I'm not sure that is the right place to put that function anyway. I've always been hoping that Vixen will eventually incorporate dimmer profiles.

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Phil

[daviddth]

I've always been hoping that Vixen will eventually incorporate dimmer profiles.

It certainly would be a good addition Phil. I have found that my 3 main types of lights operate totally differently when it comes to dimming. The 24/36v lights are on (can bee seen from 10 meters) at 38 to 40%, the 240V silhouettes in the windows are on at 30%, and suprisingly SOME the 240V rope lights can be seen at 18%, but at that level they flicker on & off occasionally, but at 25% they are on & stable.

It would be nice to be able to set each type of light so that I can easily dim them from 0 to 100% and have a linear dimming and no dead-band at the start of ramping up the lights. It's not a big deal, but it would be "nice" thats all.

[JEEPGUY]

One of the two Ren C's I finished building over the weekend had some pulsing so I moved the PIC's around to see if I coule allevate the pulse, however, in the testing I noticed that as I ramp down from 255 by the time I am at level 10 the lights are full off. The lights are brand new Lowes 100 ct minis. I even used some rope light and the dimming level is full off at 100 as well.

I am using Ren T Ren C and Grinch. Anyone have any ideas on troubleshooting to increase the range?

[P. Short]

That's the way that it is. As you ramp down with the current setups (vixen as it exists now, hardware/firmware as they exist now) you'll see the lights full-off a while before it hits zero. Firegod has worked with KC to come up with a dimmer profile scheme for the FG system, but it only works with that h/w and plugin. There isn't a general dimmer profile-curve feature in vixen now (hopefully there will be one in the future, although I haven't seen any real discussion of it).

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Phil

[JEEPGUY]

Thanks Phil.