KC9LFD.org

So I got the Serial I/O Controller yesterday. First thing I did was jaunt out to my truck and pop it in. Overall review of the board showed no apparent modifications. Oh well. I turned on the MPC01 controller and ran a lightbar diagnostics test. Looking at the lights I saw what I didn’t want to see. The MPC01 confirmed it as well. Same problem, if not worse. I was very sad :’(  (I also never recieved the power supply data promised to me from Whelen).

After returning home from grabbing a bite to eat with my fiance, I had an idea. Getting advice from the Whelen technicians and someone who has worked on Whelen equipment (Mr. W. Jackson), I thought about the grounding issue they mentioned. I thought, why not give the lightbar dedicated power. Sure sure, most people are saying “well duh, stupid” but at the time my quick fix for hooking it up was piggy-backing with the power to my truck’s subwoofer amplifier. I decided to finally remove my KLM 80-watt 2m amp so I could sell it, I used the power leads for the lightbar. I also soldered the shit out of the connection to make sure not even Jesus himself could interfere with the power transfer.  Last night, the MPC01 diagnostics showed everything was functioning nominally. Sweet. But I wasn’t too excited because sometimes the lightbar works and sometimes it doesn’t.

This morning I ran diagnostics and everything was working. Even a half hour ago when I arrived at work, MPC01 diagnostics showed everything working.

Could this have resolved the issue? If so, I would feel like a real dumbass, but live and learn. I’m anxious to get out of work this afternoon to run diagnostics again. I’m going to test periodically throughout the next couple of days to verify reliability.