random_rodder
11-16-2008, 09:58 PM
Hey everybody. Been a while. I wasn't sure if I was doing a display this year or not until this past Friday. Just couldn't get into the holiday mood. Yesterday I dug out the 595's to test them. Figured if they still worked I'd go ahead and get set up this week and next weekend. I still have my sequences from last year, I could expand then if I wanted to and I still have time for a new song or two by Dec. 1.
Got everything hooked up to the show computer, power LED's glowing, fired up Vixen to test TSO's Wizards... nothing. Did a channel test, no response. Get out the DMM to take some measurements and everything looks good except pins 7 & 8 on the 595's RJ-45 jack; no voltage on pin 8. Checked everything I could think of, no change. Even got out another PC, same story. About midnight I gave up and went to sleep.
Got up this morning, got out the second 595, same darn thing. Now, I'm not at my best at 7:30am on a Sunday morning. It took a while for the thought processes to come to the idea of testing the pins on the connector. Pin 8 read 3.98vdc. Plugged it back into the 595, got 0.25vdc. Changed the connector and now everthing works. Always check the obvious things first!
So now, I'll be a light hanging fool for a few days. Hopefully I'll reach 15,000 this year, up from just under 10k last year.
Got everything hooked up to the show computer, power LED's glowing, fired up Vixen to test TSO's Wizards... nothing. Did a channel test, no response. Get out the DMM to take some measurements and everything looks good except pins 7 & 8 on the 595's RJ-45 jack; no voltage on pin 8. Checked everything I could think of, no change. Even got out another PC, same story. About midnight I gave up and went to sleep.
Got up this morning, got out the second 595, same darn thing. Now, I'm not at my best at 7:30am on a Sunday morning. It took a while for the thought processes to come to the idea of testing the pins on the connector. Pin 8 read 3.98vdc. Plugged it back into the 595, got 0.25vdc. Changed the connector and now everthing works. Always check the obvious things first!
So now, I'll be a light hanging fool for a few days. Hopefully I'll reach 15,000 this year, up from just under 10k last year.