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mtwalsh367
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Posted: July 22 2007 at 21:55 \| IP Logged

I have had a solid Insteon network for over a year with about 25 devices and via powerhome reporting have consistently shown good communications and typically event 03s were around 1 for most devices.

All of a sudden I noticed my devices responding slowly so I reset my communication counts and let the status checking run on a 5 second invterval for an hour. My comm reports now show event 03s averaging 3 for alomost all devices with a few devices at 4.5. I don't have many comm failures but this would possibly explain why the network is responding slowly and is not 100% consistent.

I have not changed any wiring or anything related to the Insteon network. I have 3 signal lincs installed and I went back through the setup on these to ensure they were still linked. I reset the PLC as well.

Any thoughts as to what might be causing this. Maybe one of the signallincs is not working even though it shows that it links OK.

Edited by mtwalsh367 - July 22 2007 at 21:56

cmhardwick
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Posted: July 22 2007 at 23:53 \| IP Logged

Have you added anything to your house (appliances, CFL bulbs, surge protectors, UPSs) that will be either putting noise on the line or sucking up the signal? This would be my first thought. I no you mentioned you've changed no wiring or anything related to the Insteon network, but NON-insteon related items can have big effects as well.

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keepersg
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Posted: July 23 2007 at 11:09 \| IP Logged

mtwalsh367 wrote:

I had this happen recently (or something like it). The network began behaving in a flaky fashion with a lot of 03s. There was one switch that was particularly difficult to access and nothing I did for it helped (reset, factory reset, check the wirenuts, unplug all of the noise producing items....). It wasn't completely broken, would work manually and inconsistently remotely but I had a particulary difficult time writing lincs to it. Again not a total failure. I pulled it, replaced it with a new switchlinc and the entire network is now fine. This switch was not in a particularly critical place as there were multiple devices on the same circuits, phases were connected properly with signallincs...I can't explain what happened but replacing it definitely cured the problem.

mtwalsh367
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Posted: July 23 2007 at 18:39 \| IP Logged

Thanks for the replies. I wanted to confirm that I have not done anything to the environment as far as Intsteon changes and can't think of anything else that has changed other than I recently swapped out a poorly working dehumidifier in the basement with a newer model (and its not even turned on, its just plugged in to the same filterlinc that the old model was plugged into).

I was origninnaly thinking that it must be a defective device somewhere that is causing the problem and this would be consistent with the last posting. Since everything is still responding properly I am not sure about how to go about identifying the problem area other than the process of elimination. This sounds like a painful process. For things I can unplug I can do this without a problem. For everything else I guess I could turn off circuit breakers one by one to identify a device on a particular circuit.

It would be nice if there were a more logical explanation to the issue described in the last post. I have heard of failing devices cuasing problems on the network in the past but can't understand why the network performance is impacted unless there is a tremdous amount of noise being introduced into the network and this is causing the multiple hops (03s) to get around the noise.

Thanks again for the input and I'll report back any findings.

Matt

TonyNo
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Posted: July 23 2007 at 19:41 \| IP Logged

Dave may have some other ideas one he sees this.

dhoward
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Posted: July 24 2007 at 15:39 \| IP Logged

Matt,

I wouldnt think it would be a defective Insteon device (I guess you never know though) as I think that would show up rather quickly in the COMMs report.

Since every device seems to have increased 3 fold in Event 03's, I would suspect that something in the area of the PLC itself is probably introducing noise. Has the PLC been plugged into a different outlet or did you plug something into the same outlet as the PLC? Did the computer that the PLC is plugged into change? A common problem is to have the PLC and computer plugged into the same outlet (or outlet strip which could also be a problem) since they are usually in close proximity.

Sorry to not be of much help, but it's all I can think of at the moment.

Dave.

mtwalsh367
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Posted: July 26 2007 at 21:57 \| IP Logged

So good news. After unplugging and/or turning off circuit breakers to isolate the problem I finally figured out what was causing the problem. As my luck typically goes it was the last two devices in the entire system that I checked. Turns out it was one or both of my signal lincs causing the problem. After disconnecting every Insteon device I was still getting three or more O3 events as I turned each device on one by one. After turning everything back on I decided to unplug my signal lincs. Immediatley the majority of my devices dropped back down to 1 or fewer event 03s. Even the several devices on the opposite electical phase are only showing up with 2 or less event 03s.

Even though everthing now works pretty well I am thinking I should do something to bridge my 2 electrical phases to get my communications all back down to 1 or fewer event 03s as they were in the past. I could buy a new set of filter lincs but am considering a more traditional phase coupler from the x10 days. I have not used such a device in the past but have to think this would be more reliable and trouble free solultion. Why invest in a signal linc when Insteon doesn't even use them for anything else like the remote linc. Anyone see a problem with this.

Thanks again for the input and help. Hopefully this information will be helpful to someone else.

Matt

keepersg
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Posted: July 27 2007 at 00:18 \| IP Logged

Glad you found it. I think Smarthome still has the deal on where you can trade your signal lincs for two of the new access points and get a free remotelinc. Might be worth considering.

dhoward
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Posted: August 04 2007 at 21:21 \| IP Logged

Im pretty sure this deal is still available since I just got a print catalog with it.

It would definatley make sense to get the new Access Points since this is the way that Insteon is apparently going. Dont' know if it will improve your communication statistics though...

Dave.

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