fiduciary

Author Topic: released the magic smoke from my prizm 5.1  (Read 1393 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline dangerfantastic

  • No Force
  • *
  • Posts: 4
  • Um...Hello?
released the magic smoke from my prizm 5.1
« on: January 16, 2018, 04:50:23 PM »
Good day all!

I am in the process of building my first saber, and today after completing my test wiring on the bench, I fired it up and it worked second try! (first try I had to bridge the SMDfor the strip data). After a few minutes I noticed some smoke, and I have been doing electronics long enough to know that's no good, so I popped in the kill key and went in to survey the damage. The MOSFET directly adjacent to the first LED point had scorched, but not fried completely. Near as I can tell, I think one of the wires from the switches had lodged in between there and shorted out. For kicks I powered it back up to see how bad I effed it up, and to my surprise it all worked fine *HOORAY*. Unfortunately over the next couple hours of testing, one of the 2 strips started to act oddly, it was flickering too much, it was dimmer, and it was diplaying colors differently from the other. I swapped out the negatives, and sure enough it switched strips in the blade. Here's my question: can I use the third LED driver spot on my Prizm board instead of the first? failing that, is there a circuit diagram of that board so I can attempt to source out that mosfet and swap it?

Thanks in advance!

Offline erv

  • Plecter Labs Inc. "Keeper of the Buttered Toast"
  • Manufacturer
  • Master Force User
  • *
  • Posts: 4920
  • Formerly known as Irvin PLECTER
    • Plecter Labs - Props Electronics
Re: released the magic smoke from my prizm 5.1
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2018, 01:56:41 AM »
Flickering on your strip rather suggest a power / voltage issue or strip damage. I had some cheap strips not reacting well after some time and starting to flicker (pixels got desoldered from the strip).
You should also use at least 2 L channels to power your strips to reduce power losses

Offline dangerfantastic

  • No Force
  • *
  • Posts: 4
  • Um...Hello?
Re: released the magic smoke from my prizm 5.1
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2018, 06:07:59 AM »
Thank you for your quick response erv!

I thought the same thing at first, so I switched the l channel to the other strip to verify that the trouble was coming from the board. The flickering followed the scorched mosfet channel. I also verified the strips were working on my fadecandy. I am definitely using one L channel per strip. Is it possible to use channels 2 and 3 to drive the strips instead of 1 and 2? If not, can I ship it back for repair?

Once again thanks for the reply and thanks for making these wonderful boards!

Regards
Steve

Offline erv

  • Plecter Labs Inc. "Keeper of the Buttered Toast"
  • Manufacturer
  • Master Force User
  • *
  • Posts: 4920
  • Formerly known as Irvin PLECTER
    • Plecter Labs - Props Electronics
Re: released the magic smoke from my prizm 5.1
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2018, 09:16:44 AM »
you can indeed move to other channels. I suspect the mos was damaged first place (maybe) by the wire touching the wrong place like you mentioned.

Offline dangerfantastic

  • No Force
  • *
  • Posts: 4
  • Um...Hello?
Re: released the magic smoke from my prizm 5.1
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2018, 12:08:20 PM »
That's excellent to hear,  is there any adjustments required to the software settings or firmware to achieve this?

Offline erv

  • Plecter Labs Inc. "Keeper of the Buttered Toast"
  • Manufacturer
  • Master Force User
  • *
  • Posts: 4920
  • Formerly known as Irvin PLECTER
    • Plecter Labs - Props Electronics
Re: released the magic smoke from my prizm 5.1
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2018, 11:34:35 PM »
no, if your prizm is recent, it should have all 3 channels enabled in ledstrip mode

 

retrousse