Pixels for prop dont fully light up

[robledjl]

Sorry if this has been asked before, Ive been searching since last week but cant' really find an answer. 

I have 4 snowflakes all chained up, they are hooked up to an expansion board, they all light up when I manually test them by pressing the button on the board, but that all changes when I test them from Flacon controller webui and or play the sequence, only a hand full of pixels turn on, I have double checked all the start and end channels on both, controller and xlights and they all match, Before I start looking into hardware issue I was wondering if anyone could think of anything wrong I might be doing in xlights or on the controller, sorry if this is in the wrong forum. Thanks in advanced.
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[JonD]

The first snowflake starts at channel 3391 which appears to match both, but the xLights ending channel is 4146, and the Falcon ending channel is 4158. 

snowflake 1 3571-3391 \ 3 = 60 pixels
snowflake 2 3706-3571 \ 3 = 45 pixels
snowflake 3 3886-3706 \ 3 = 60 pixels
snowflake 4 4147-3886 \ 3 = 87 pixels

Are the snowflakes the same size, or is the above node count correct?

Confirming the smart receiver is in native mode and not set to smart mode using a letter such as A,B, or C.

[robledjl]

I apologize, I must have been testing things out before i took the pucture, but the node count is 252 with an end channel of 4146 which is what the controller and xlights are showing so that is correct. These are custom made snowflakes (3D printed) so they are different sizes, the smart receiver is in native mode, I am not using any lettering.

[JonD]

Are ports 17 and 18 working okay? (upper eaves and front eaves)

[robledjl]

Yes, those are perfect, I just dont understand why the lights stop flowing to the last snowflake. Just 3 of them light up just fine and the 3rd one only like 5 or 6 pixels light up.

[JonD]

252 is too many lights in most cases without power injecting.  Are you power injecting?

Confirming "they all light up when I manually test them by pressing the button on the board"?  Channel allocation appears fine.  I would suspect not enough power, bad light string, or possible cabling issue.  Maybe the wire happened to be in the right spot when you hit the test button, and shorted out later when you moved the cable.  Can you confirm they are all lighting in another test?  How long are these cables?   Distance between each snowflake?  Sometimes an f-amp is required to boost the data signal.  Are these 12v lights or 5v lights?

[robledjl]

I did and didnt get no results. Also, when i press the test button on the smart receiver...they all turn on just fine, but when they play the suqences, that last one doesnt get lit up

[JonD]

Just 3 of them light up just fine and the 3rd one only like 5 or 6 pixels light up.

Can you take a picture of this and post?   When you type "3", I am not sure if you mean three snowflakes or three lights at the beginning of the snowflake.   You appear to have 252 lights and 252 allocated.  Could another prop be using the same channels assigned to the snowflakes?  With ports 17 and 18 working perfectly on the same smart receiver, and port 19 having issues this is not adding up.  I believe port 17 will use wires 1&2 , port 18 wires 3&4, port 19 uses wires 5&6, and port 20 uses wires 7&8.  Could there be an issue with the cat 5/6 cable that feeds the SR?  What happens if you move the snowflakes to port 20, or move the snowflakes to port 17 and move the eaves to port 19?

Maybe someone else will have a suggestion.

[robledjl]

Sorry about the confusion, I have a total of four snowflakes. I will definetly go ahead and try to move the string to different port and see what it does.
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[JonD]

Nice snow flakes!  173 pixels in 173x3=519 channels  This makes the issue in between channel 3909 and 3912.  Is that how the pixels are in order?  Basically the first 8 pixels for the forth snowflake light up?  No dark pixels in between 1-8?

I am not seeing any power injection.  Do you have a multi-meter?  I would be detaching the forth snowflake and getting a volt reading on the wire coming out of the third snowflake.  Is it dipping below 7v?  Have you adjusted the max nodes slider accordingly (see picture)
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[robledjl]

Thanks! I was using a pixel calculator to see where i should put the power injector but i think this time I will inject at a different spot and see what happens, or disconnecting like you mentioned, I will keep you posted. Thank you

[JonD]

Usually low power will cause different problems, but all lights are unique and can act differently.  You are running 20% power which should place you beyond the 173 node problem, but it is within range and something to rule out.  At 519 channels, you appear to be just over the 512 universe number as well.  Maybe someone else will have a suggestion.  Good Luck!