When Controllers Spaz out.

Had a rocky start this season. The most troublesome was there were a few controllers that would lose their ID at odd times, necessitating having to reflash the controller ID. Finally discovered what the problem was, so a few tips for when things get weird.

Naturally, the first thing to check is to make certain the sequence itself is bug free. When reusing the same sequence for several seasons, its easy to overlook/forget that IDs and/or channel assignments might have changed in your layout. If you've been using Aurora for years, there is also a small chance that ramps/fades may have been stretched all the way to the next command or end of the sequence.

1. Network Connections. After a few years of use they WILL tarnish or worse, develop corrosion. A bronze bore brush for .22 cal rifles is the perfect thing to clean both the plugs and receptacles. Be careful when cleaning the receptacle as the contact tines can easily be bent. Of course, power should be OFF when doing this. If there is debris in the receptacle, blow it out with some canned air. If the retaining clip has broken off - REPLACE IT. Just because it stays in now doesn't mean it won't work loose through some misfortune - usually during a show when you're not home.

2. While it hasn't happened to me - Keep your data cables at right-angles to power cables. In short, do not bundle power cables in with the data cables unless the CAT-5/6 cable is double-shielded. Where data and power have to cross each other, present the smallest cross-section possible.

3. On very rare occasions there are instances where a USB port isn't up to par. Try moving to a different USB port. This was one instance in my case where the Discover in the HWU was showing all controllers on my notebook PC but not the show PC.



Edited by LightChristmas - 17 Dec 2011 at 10:49am