Help with my Renard ss24 setup

[Toemoss]

Good evening,

I screwed up and the 2 Renard SS24's I bought after Christmas from a forum member sat all year long until this week. Now I am panicked.
I am using Vixen 3.5u4 and was able to get one working if I use the serial connection but using a serial to ethernet cable that was provided to me I cannot get it to work. I have plugged into J2 and get nothing. If I go back to Serial it works I also tried patching in the 2nd one from J1 to J2 of the other controller but assuming since the first one is not working the second would not. I did verify when using serial if I plug into J2 on the first controller to J2 of the 2nd controller it mimics the first controller channels and not carries on with Channel 25-49.

Leave it to me to wait to the last minute. I have gotten 30 seconds of one song set and it took me 2.5 hrs.

Any help would be appreciated.

[harpster]

I'm guessing your Renards are OK. Did you install jumper shunt JP2?

"120 ohm termination resistor enable. Normally a shunt will be installed on JP2 when receiving RS485 data. Remove the shunt if you are experiencing problems with incoming data."

I think you did something like this... you can connect USB to Serial db25 to Box 1 (install jumper shunt JP1). Then connect J1 on that box to J2 on Box 2 (install jumper shunt JP2). That should work for all 48 channels. If not check your settings in Vixen. When that's working replace the Serial db25 cable with USB to RS485 Adapter/Cable (note it's not ethernet that goes into J1 & J2... same cable but different protocol - RS485). If that doesn't work it's probably the adapter you are using (you might need special USB drivers for the adapter) or something related to that

I'm not sure how much this helps but I can say that with all my Renard SS's I have never had a problem with the data passing from box to box unless I got J1 and J2 reversed and never had to replace any of the RS485 driver IC's.

[Toemoss]

I had the jumpers installed but what I did do was swap them around incase they had a loose connection. I then rebooted the PC and unplugged/replugged the boards. Then I was was able to get box 1 to work and am identifying the channels on box two as we speak so I think I am good to go. Thank you

[MartinMueller2003]

The Renard controller does not support an Ethernet connection. Use that CAT5 cable (Note I did NOT call it an Ethernet cable) as the connection between the output of your working Renard to your second Renard. This is called daisy chaining renards.

[Toemoss]

Point taken. I got it all up and working. Mounted the board inside the DMARC box and mounted the DMARC box outside. Fired her up and blew a fuse by the transformer. Replaced fuse and now Chanel 10 does not work at all and 18 is stuck on. I am going to assume I fried something but so far nothing looks out of place. I think I am just going to need to work with what I have and try to resolve it after the season because I have yet to have a show yet due to rain/repairs/etc.

[EMKLLK]

You might want to investigate to see why you blew a fuse - they are there to protect the electronics from too much current, possibly you are trying to drive too much with the controller? I think each half of the SS24 is fused at 7Amps - you have 12 outputs on each side so you want to make sure you have less than 7Amps required when all 12 channels are on. Also, I'm not sure the exact specification but it's at least recommended to not exceed 1 Amp per channel. All of this will depend on what you are driving - for a string of 100 incandescent minilights, it's about 0.4A - so if you have one of these on each channel you should be fine (ie, .4 X 12 = 4.8 and each channel is less than 1); If you're using Incan C9 it doesn't take long to really ramp up the current - a string of 25 C9s is almost 2 Amps, that alone is too much for an individual channel; LED strings use much less current, so if you're running all LEDs you probably don't have an issue with current.

[Toemoss]

I am running all LED and in most cases its one strand per channel. From the looks of it my cat 5 cable was up against the rubber cover and it sparked through it. After changing the fuse and moving the wire its stayed up and running. The stuck on channel is still present and the dead channel as well. I know what I need to do to troubleshoot but for now I wanted to keep the show running so I just moved some things around in Vixen and what I have for my first year is going to be it. It worked through the night so I am going to call it a win.

[Amigorick]

Make sure the both wires from the blown channel are seated in the screw strip all the way and that a couple of the strands in one or the other are not sticking out and possibly shorting the output.