Display issue with specific channel

[schbrownie]

I'm continually fighting an issue....  on the top peak of my house, I have permanent bullet nodes installed.  There is one "string" of 256 nodes in Xlights. 

My house is a couple of years old and the home builder pre-ran the 18/3 wire for me from my garage to the peak (along with several other locations - but I'm only having an issue with this one).  I have an F16v4 in the garage, running at 12V.

My issue is that some nights this string/channel will work flawlessly.  Other nights, it will freeze part way through a sequence (usually pretty early in the night) and then stay frozen all night.  Some nights only about 25 nodes will illuminate - and stay illuminated in a frozen state regardless what the rest of the display is doing.

I had this issue at the end of last season and didn't do anything about it yet.  At the start of this season, (late last week) I replaced the first physical string of 100 pixels thinking there might be an issue with the string or a node on the string... and it worked fine for a couple of nights - but now it's frozen with about 25 lights on - more specifically, it looks like there are approximately 23 nodes brightly illuminated and the 24th pixel is dimly lit - and appears to have a more reddish tint [it's hard to tell from the picture my wife sent me].  

Question:  what could be causing this?

I doubt it's a particular pixel or this first string because it was just replaced.  It does appear to be failing in approximately the same location as the original string.

Could it be a bad port on the Falcon?

I noticed that Falcon sells replacement Latch/Data Driver chips - but they are marked for the F16v3 (not v4)... could it be a chip that needs replacement?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[schbrownie]

Update:  I woke up this morning and that channel was on (static/frozen).  The rest of my display was off (as it should have been). 

In my FPP scheduler, about 15 minutes after my show should end, I have a scheduled command of "All Lights Off" - so this frozen channel ignored this command (even through the rest of the outputs on the board worked correctly).

-----------------------------------------
Update 2:  [a couple days later] This afternoon, I moved the string from port 8 to port 15.  Everything worked for the first couple of hours of my show, but now that string is frozen mid-sequence on a different port.


Thanks for your help!

[JonD]

What is the firmware version on the Falcon F16v4?  I have seen similar with older Falcon firmware.  Might try upgrading to at least version 31 if you are lower than that.

[schbrownie]

I'm at build 30... I'll update to latest and see what happens.

[schbrownie]

OK... SUPER WIERD.... 

I upgraded the firmware on all 4 x F16v4 boards in my show from v30 to v32.  The roof peak (channel I'm having an issue with) was still frozen.

I then stopped the show in FPP and rebooted my F16v4.  My show was dark - except for this same channel that was frozen.

Somehow this channel remained on even through the show was stopped in FPP and the board was rebooted!

Any additional suggestions?!?

[JonD]

Hmmm...  30 was unstable, so update was still good.  Unplug instead reboot?  Maybe unplug network to make sure it is not getting data from somewhere unexpected.  I would swap the port to another one if it is still happening and see what happens.

[Poporacer]

I have a feeling that you are using 12V pixels and the lights are frozen white? There are times that the ground line voltage will get too high to trigger the ws2811 signal and the only way to "reset" it is to remove power from the pixels. Some of the causes are:
Long runs
Low brightness
Insufficient wire size.
Sometimes an F-Amp will help. Sometimes increasing or decreasing the brightness will help. Sometimes adding an additional ground line or better wire will help.