In helping my son prepare and set up his Christmas light show this year we discovered half the channels on this controller stopped working. This is our second Light-O-Rama CTB16PC controller, both were purchased as a kit.
Just in case another Light-O-Rama ower runs into this page here’s the troubleshooting we performed and the ultimate solution that fixed our issue. (Spoiler: Assembly Mistake!)
Symptom: Channels 1-8 Not Working. The controller connects to the network fine, 9-16 working 100%.
Troubleshooting: First thought, blown fuse. We were setting things up in the rain and assumed it was related to a short.
Fuse tested fine with a multimeter, swapped the two fuses in the unit, again fuses working fine.
Used the multimeter to confirm 120v making it through fuse hold and tested each “hot” channel output. Things normal, although no voltage on channel 1-8 hots, as expected.
After reviewing the Light-O-Rama forums I decided to take the controller completely apart and check for any bad solder joints. Of course, I made this decision at 11 PM. I was really trying to avoid this, such a time-consuming process.
Success! After a few minutes of careful inspection, I found two pins on an IC that I plain missed completely during assembly, no solder! I carefully applied solder, checked a few other spots and reassembled.
BINGO! Problem solved.
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