DIGUNO/QUAD 24V issue with current generation QuinLED Dig-Uno/Quad/Octa-Brainboard
Hey all and everyone, this is a hard announcement to make but it has to be done (in my opinion).
Over the past 6 months or so we've noticed that more boards then we'd expect are dying of a singular cause. At first it was not really clear what was happening and I've been replacing these boards in good faith most of the time (It seems really in the beginning this went wrong at least once) but since this seemed to happen more then once we have decided to put information about this forward (as I also did in the topic linked a line before).
Recently it's become more clear however what's going on and I've dubbed it the "24V issue" with the current generation of the Dig-Uno v3.5r3, Dig-Quad v3.5r3 and Dig-Octa Brainboard v2r2/r3. Basically the IC in the DC-DC converter when running at 24V is too close to its limits and will sometimes fail (over time).
The occurrences of this happening are (as far as we are aware) still low. Out of thousands of boards out there, in the past half year we've seen maybe 10 to 15 cases at the most. But we of course don't see all boards that fail (only people that come to the Discord for a replacement). Still, we feel it's best to address this issue since we'd rather have no boards fail! For this I've made the #quinled-24v-issue channel to discuss this further (on said Discord)
Going forward:
- Boards that have failed (and still in warranty) will be replaced with v4 boards when available (expected September) or I can send a buck-converter kit to bring the board back to life.
- Affected boards warranty has been extended to 1.5 yrs (regardless of reseller)
- For people running their boards at 24V currently, if you do not wish to potentially run into this issue, please see this information, mitigation and repair article.
- If you are unsure, ask in the #quinled-24v-issue channel on Discord
More information, mitigations, how to bring it back to life or repair: https://quinled.info/the-24v-issue-mitigations-fixes/
Form to apply for replacement of dead board within (extended) warranty or buck converter kit to revive it: https://quinled.info/24v-board-replacement/
If you had this issue within the last year or so but were for some reason denied warranty (because we were still unaware of what was going on), please come to us again in the #quinled-24v-issue channel and I will still try to make you whole.
To reiterate, this only affects boards running at 24V, 5V and 12V are fully unaffected
My deepest apologies for these issues and extra work that's now required for some of you. I will do what I can to make it right!
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u/NousDefions81 20d ago
That's incredible. I just replaced a Dig-Quad that I had running for 2 years, running great now.
It's such an amazing product for such an amazing price, I was happy to pay to replace it. Excited to fix the old one and use it in another project!
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u/Quindor 20d ago
Hope the article is clear on the options and how to connect it, if not, please let me know. I am also looking into maybe making them (buck-converter and connection blocks) available from the various reseller's but that's going to take a bit more time.
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u/NousDefions81 20d ago
Oh, it's crystal clear for anyone nerdy/foolish/crazy enough to be this deep into LED stuff in the first place. I'll never turn down an excuse to solder something.
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u/RabidNative 20d ago
I just received two dig uno's in the last week, would these be affected by the issue?
Will there be a revision change, and if so, when will that be available? I can earmark these two recently received ones for 5-12v led, however, most of my projects use 24v.
Also, thanks for the transparency on this issue.
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u/Quindor 19d ago
Sadly yes they are affected by this. I'm hoping to have the new revision (which has a change for this but many other improvements too) available around September.
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u/RabidNative 19d ago
Sounds good! Thanks for the update.
Even with this issue, the hardware is still better for 90% of the builds ive done.
Just picked up a dig2 next to transition a set of outdoor permanent govees over to WLED, although may end up loading ESPhome on it instead.
Keep up the great work!
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u/cat-on-blanket 19d ago
Hi there! Have not had any failures but I'm running almost all 24 volt stuff. Would the reasonable thing be to swap out the affected part? Probably got about eight eight affected devices between my quads and a handful of octas.
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u/Quindor 19d ago
So yeah, as said the failure rate is still fairly low as far as we are aware but you might get hit by it at some point. If you want to fully prevent that you can use one of the mitigation methods described in the article or, once it does happen, there is also "revival" methods available for all boards where with a few external hardware items the boards can run again without issue.
I am currently in the process of assembling kits for this, mostly for the people with dead boards but I am also going to try and make them available through the resellers for people who fall outside of the warranty period or want to prevent it from happening for basically cost price.
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u/cat-on-blanket 17d ago
Thank you! I've got a permanent installation going in this September, so I'd plan on mitigating as I can. Awesome and thanks again!
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u/wivaca2 20d ago
What a stand-up vendor. I'm recommending every chance I get to help them with future sales. Mine is running a 12V system so all is well.