Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

When the problem happened:
3 csr+ on the same power outlet were not responding anymore (red box on the cc, no triggering or control from the cc, no triggering from the cst). The test buttons on the csr+ were still triggering the light. The csr+ were all flashing slow green.
The csr+/light on the second power outlet was still responding properly (from the cc or cst)

Debug:
Switching off/on the light was bringing back the light at the previous power/modeling setup. But the csr+ was still not responding. Same with removing the RJ11.

The only way to bring back the csr+ to life was to unplug each of them from the AC and replug them. After 'reseting' the first one, the two other were still unresponsive, after 'reseting' the second one, the last one was still unresponsive.

Again what is strange is while they were unresponsive to RF control, they were still communicating properly with the light with the RJ11 cable as after a light on/off or RJ11 off/on, they came back to their previously set power & modeling level.

Something (conducted EMI?) did crash only the radio module on all the csr+ plugged in the same power outlet while the other one was still working.

Sorry this did not get answered originally. I was out the following week, and this thread got shuffled and missed.

I know I said in the other thread i did not think it was the same issue, but as I think more, I wonder. Have you noticed the Commander reboot just before the unresponsiveness starts, or a random flash of the lights? When the unresponsiveness starts, do you get a different display on the Cyber Commander (same screen, just different settings, or perhaps a different frequency)?

No I haven't noticed. All the settings seems to be identical, the only difference in the CC being the unresponsive CSR+ having the red box. A refresh from the CC does not solve the problem, only a removal of the AC power on the CSR+ works, and then the CC box turn from red to green after the refresh.


I've also noticed that it was happening more often when I'm using high power on the flash. All my guesses are going toward an issue in the radio board in the CSR+ that is going AWOL when there is some voltage fluctuation or EMI on the AC line. The uc controlling the communication between the CSR+ and the strobe on the other hand is still working in this state. I didn't open the CSR+ to try to reverse engineer the board but if you want me to probe some levels inside, just tell me where to look.

The red outline, is that staying on or just flashing on then going off? Is there only one reciever that is experiencing this issue? If so, have you swapped it to a different head to see if the problem stays with the head or follows the reciever?

I'm not sure, my recollection is that the cc behaves the same way than when I have CSR+ not connected at all.



As said before, it has happened so far up to three receivers simultaneously in a series of four.
And often it was with the receivers plugged on the same circuit.
I tried to change receivers/strobe pair, RX channel and frequency but without improving the odds regarding this issue.

But it's happening more often when using full power on strobe.

You said it often happens when all lights are plugged into the same circuit. Do you know for sure that it does happen when the lights are split up? If so, how are they split, 3-1, 2-2, 1-3? What else is on that circuit, a dimmer switch, refridgerator, etc? Have you tried different frequencies? Have you tried reseating the ch/freq dials?

I'm not sure if the fridge is on the same circuit. But there's nothing else (no dimmer).
I've tried all split combination.


Yes I did. No change of behavior.

But again, I'm not too worry about having sometimes an order that is not received by a remote due to EMI or RFI. With 20 years of RF I understand this can happen. I'm more concerned about the state that the remote is after this happening. The remote-light link is working, that's only the RF-remote that is completely dead and need a full power reset to work again.

Photopat,
Please look for an email either today (before 5 CT) or early tomorrow. This a pretty deep investigation that will be laboriously slow via the forum.

Still watching my mailbox, but so far I haven't received it.

You have mail.