MarkJames

Actually, OberKc, If you are still using some X-10 I may have some components you might want. I've got a produce box full of x-10 that I've taken out of the house some of which you may find useful. You're welcome to whatever you want - all I ask is that you cover the postage. I have Leviton transmitters model 16400 with four on/off/dim switches, Boosterlincs (not insteon compatible unfortunately but OK at terminal runs for X-10 with no noticeable impact on insteon) Leviton inline dimming modules Leviton inline relay modules X-10 remote controls (the ones with 8 buttons you switch from 1-8/9-16 a few appliance modules a Leviton HCA02 intellisense phase coupler I think I have a couple of 220v switches kicking about... I'm not really sure what's in the box anymore. Anyways - if you want some of it just say so - it's sitting there looking for a good home. I was going to put it on eBay but don't want to mess around selling it piecemeal - it's just not worth the headache boxing it and shipping it.

Not at all.... sorry if I sounded flip. I've just sat there sullenly facing the prospect of 'starting over' so many times now that I'd almost rather speak in public than do it. I started with just x-10 back in the early '90s and got a JDS Stargate when that came available. It's a brilliant controller with a robust programming language but - as you no doubt have found - as you go along with programming your HA it tends to 'get away from you'. I found I was adding bits of code for things I'd added that contradicted the code I'd written for previous devices. Like having the driveway lights turn on when a car comes in and turning them off once you enter the house - but opening the door to the house going out is the same as coming in so when I interfaced with door contacts later and had the lights turn on as I left the house I'd turn the lights on at either end.... I'm sure you've banged your head against the wall with these scenarios too... it's enough to give you a headache. The worst part is that when you try to explain it to your spouse they just kinda smile and nod and hope you'll shut up soon. Anyways - the point being that every year or so I'd have to rewrite the 4000 odd lines of code for the Stargate. Then Insteon came out and I had the Stargate run the insteon through X-10 addressing but that didn't use the full potential of Insteon. So I rewrote the code so that the Stargate could talk to Insteon through an RS-232 interface. This proved to be a lot more than 4000 lines of code and the Stargate memory started getting full. So I made the jump to Houselinc to manage the straightforward non-programmatic stuff. So I entered all my devices into Houselinc and started playing with it. I had a system crash meanwhile and lost all the Houselinc info. So I reentered it all yet again. Then I found that Houselinc is a seriously lackluster product and I quickly abandoned it in favor of Powerhome. So on to Powerhome and reentering all my devices yet again. Well Powerhome is a pretty nice product but it has two big flaws - one is it's not 100% stable so it would crash the PC it was on sometimes leaving the automation system dead and two the programming language is about as cryptic as it gets. Support for it is basically 2 guys in the forum and the logic to it is highly convoluted. The guy who wrote it is very nice and very knowledgeable but he really needs some help as he's rapidly fallihg behind as smarthome evolves. For instance - his linking methods don't allow peeking and poking within a device - so you can't link, say button 8 on a kpl to button 1 on the same KPL. Onwards to ISY. I tried to let ISY spider my links. It ran 2 days after which I named everything only to find it was a big ugly mess. So I reset the PLM and started over again - this time not spidering but erasing links. Finally I'm where I want to be (kinda). Anyways.... again, sorry if I was flip.. it's just that 'starting over' brings back some less-than-fond memories. Doesn't HA just make our lives oh-so-much easier?!?!?!?

lol That made me grin. I have, at this moment.... 5500 sqft in 3 buildings 4 signalincs hardwired into the panels 8 access points 19 keypadlincs 65 switchlincs 9 inlinelincs 8 motion sensors 5 iolincs - 2 of them with photobeams 8 appliancelincs - 3 of them outdoor, the rest indoor Elk M1G with M1XEP interface connected to the ISY 1 serialinc to interface with my Stargate for phone integration and irrigation using legacy X10 1 usb plm (legacy) to interface with powerhome on a standalone PC for HA - this is for TTS primarily and I just ordered 3 of the BK2440 remote controls - 2 for the cars and 5 more motion sensors. 'Starting over' has happened a few times now... I'm realllllly not willing to do it again. It's no big deal anyways... the only time it shows up is if one of the switches needs to be restored and then it doesn't do what I thought it should because the scenes aren't doing it all - some of it is left over from before. You're right, though... when things aren't seeming 'OK' - I simply hard reset the device, restore it from ISY and then confirm that it's all working properly. Since installing the signalincs and the extra ap's everything is pretty solid. Thanks for that... I didn't know that was available. I'm gonna do that today - well worth the time, I think. I only have to do the ones that were 'original'. Some of the insteon has been there for a couple of years while I overlapped with X-10. I've tried to take out all the X-10 responses but I find them once in a while. Those and links I created manually, with powerhome, or with Houselinc as things evolved. Thanks! Mark

hmmm..... That was how I assumed it should be but hasn't been my experience. I'll have to be more careful and see if I'm inadvertently creating both links or if the links are pre-existing. I totally agree with you about making it a three way in that manner being easier. I'm just trying to set up certain scenes where there are multiple responders to a single controller but don't want the relationship reciprocal - like where one kpl turns on 2 lights but I don't want either light switch to turn on or off the kpl - rather I use a programmatic control so that when BOTH of the lights are on the kpl button gets turned on and when BOTH of the lights get turned off the kpl button gets turned off. This was just kinda the way you did things in powerhome - in ISY the 'scene' is everything - not the controller-responder links which are somewhat hidden from the end user. Using scenes certainly makes it more apparent what you're doing and makes it easier to reuse your link tables - it just takes away the nitty-gritty control that I'm used to. Anyways - thanks for your answer - It makes perfect sense that it's like that. It just seemed to me that ISY was automatically creating a responder link in the controller in order to 'complete the n-way'. It's likely that I have some remaining links that are causing the confusion. mark

Hi, Prior to ISY I was manually linking my switches. Then I switched to HouseLinc2, then to PowerHome, and finally to ISY. Just fyi - so far I'm happiest - by a long shot - with ISY. There's an aspect to ISY that I don't understand though and perhaps you could clarify for me. Let's assume I'm linking a KPL to a switchlinc. I can make the KPL control the switchlinc - so the KPL is a controller and the switchlinc is the responder. This will have the effect of the KPL button turning on and off the switchlinc. The switchlinc will seem to 'follow' the LED on the KPL button. If I then turn the switchlinc on or off the KPL button will NOT turn on and off to follow the switchlinc unless I FIRST make the switchlinc a controller of that KPL button. In other words - I must deliberately create the controller - responder relationship both ways. This relationship is true in manual linking and in powerhome software. In ISY, though, the creation of scenes seems to automatically create the '3 way link' - where the KPL LED will follow the switchlinc and the switchlinc will follow the KPL. This is, of course, not true in devices like a motion sensor or iolinc where turning it 'on or off' is meaningless. So how does one create a one-way relationship in ISY - where the KPL button can turn on the switchlinc - but the switchlinc does NOT turn on the KPL button? Thanks, Mark In many cases this is fine - but in some it's not.

ahhh.. doubleclicking the line made it appear again in the left hand pane. I can now replace it. I'd left and right clicked it but not double-clicked. Thanks, Michel.

Unfortunately that's not an option. The switch no longer appears in the lefthand pane where you would normally select it to add it to scenes or replace it or what have you. It only appears in the rightside list when I bring up the my lighting choice - you know, the screen that shows all the devices with state, address, and type in alphabetical order. On that side it shows with an address and type but the state is blank. Somehow it's gotten 'misplaced' mark

I have a switchlinc relay which hasn't been working properly. I think it's defective. I removed it from all the scenes it was a member of and then I removed it from the folder it was in. It now no longer exists in the left pane of the administrative console. It still exists under the 'my lighting' list, though. I don't seem to be able to do anything with it from there. I can't delete it or reenable it or anything and I get errmsgs from the isy saying it can't communicate with it. Any suggestions on how to 'get rid' of it? The firmware is 2.7.9a Thanks, mark

lol... yes - button. For some reason Insteon refers to the buttons on a kpl as groups. Groups 1-8 on an 8 button kpl, and group 1,3,4,5,6,8 on a 6 button kpl. Thanks for the reply! mark

Hi, Just to clarify something... When you do a restore device to a KPL does it matter which group of the KPL you have selected? What I mean is does restore device rewrite the entire database for all groups on the KPL or does it only rewrite the portion related to the group you have selected? Thanks, Mark

Thanks, Michael. I'll check the access point location as you suggest.

Once again - I'm a relatively new user so if this is not a bug forgive my ignorance. I have several motion sensors (2420M) in my installation. They are linked to the ISY. I am getting reports from the ISY that it is 'unable to communicate with the sensor'. I wouldn't expect it to be able to communicate unless the sensor is in linking mode. Is this normal behavior? Mark

[edited] - changed my mind but couldn't delete the post

Nope.. I have an ISY99i-IR. It prompts when linking but not when restoring. Mark

I don't know if this was reported or not - and I'm not entirely certain it's a bug as I'm reasonably new to ISY but I noted that if I perform a restore device to a motion sensor in 2.7.9a the ISY software doesn't challenge me to put the motion sensor into linking mode. I don't know for certain that it's necessary but I would assume it to be. If this is normal behavior or has already been reported then my apologies.

Actually that just made me realize why something I was doing wasn't working. I was using a photobeam connected to an iolinc to turn on a bunch of lights approaching my house. The code basically said If photobeam status ON set scene pathlights ON wait 10 minutes set scene pathlights OFF This would turn them ON but never turn them off. I see now why - when the sensor beam broke it turned the sensor ON which turned the scene on - but when the beam restored the conditions changed and were reevaluated. That terminated the program so the wait 10 minutes was never completing. I guess the right way would be to put the WAIT and the scene off in the ELSE portion Interesting... I'm gonna hafta be careful of this, I see. Thanks for the time you spent explaining it - this will save much hairpulling.

THAT is the part I was missing. I assumed each instance was allowed to run to its conclusion. OK... that opens up quite a bit of flexibility. Thanks, mark

Yes - but repeating every second without nested if-then would be an endless loop. It would never reevaluate the IF condition

Thanks, guys, I understand what you're saying. I was worried to continuously re-run the program from within itself as I was afraid I might run into some stack overflow issues if the program continuously recursed. Sounds like that's not a problem. Much thanks! Mark

Ahhh.. OK... that makes sense then... I was trying to understand it in light of a program I saw where the IF was executing and when the condition was no longer true the ELSE executed. I didn't understand why that would happen as in general a program would evaluate the condition and then execute the THEN or the ELSE - not both but in ISY it seems that the THEN can be executed and if the condition changes the ELSE will execute as well. A bit confoozalating. So... if I were to want an IF to continuously evaluate and continuously execute until the condition is FALSE then I could simply change part of the condition from within the THEN portion forcing the iSY to reevaluate the condition? Or is there a more direct approach? And thanks for both the link and clearing up the folder issue.

Thanks - that actually made perfect sense. I did two things to make it work. First I downloaded the 2.7.9 firmware as the iolinc options are better there and I could set it up as brad77 indicated (mine was wrong, it turns out - it was set for latch). Second I wrote the following code snippet so that the light for the door flashes to get your attention if the door is open It flashes the lights a few times, waits 10 seconds and then runs itself again. I wanted to use the repeat command for the flashing but I couldn't figure out how to stop a repeat - it seems once you hit repeat then the rest of your then statement is all repeat. Anyways - thanks all for your help. This works nicely now. Mark [/img]

Hi, all, Before I get too far into my ISY programming I wanted to clarify something that was confusing with my last home automation controller (a JDS Stargate). In the Stargate there was an IF statement and and IF (always) statement. The difference was with the IF statement IF (condition is true) ...these statements would execute ...but only once ...and not again until the condition has changed to false first this was useful for, say, a switch turning on. If you turned the switch ON, say a remote chime would ring. But now that it was on the chime would not continue to ring - however if you turned the swtich OFF and then ON again then the chime would ring again. The second form - IF (always) meant that so long as the IF condition was true the statements would continue to execute. In this format IF (always) condition is true ...ring bell ...the bell would continue to ring until the condition was false My first question is what is the ISY equivalent of these two functionalities. Second - In reading the programming manual the ELSE statement is a bit confusing. If time is 10pm AND button1 is on ... THEN ...... do this ... ELSE ...... do that When and how many times will the else execute? Or will it only execute if it has managed to satisfy the IF at some point? Clearly the ELSE would just continue to run all the time that it's not 10 OR the button isn't on. That can't be what's intended? So... my second question is basically when/how/how many times is the ELSE evaluated? Third - what if there are NO conditions? The language allows these - when/how many times do the THEN statements execute? Lastly.... Programs in a folder..... Can one put a condition on a folder like say Bed Folder (going to bed) ...if (bed mode button is pressed) ...THEN alllow programs in this folder to run ... prog1 in bed folder ... no ifs in this program ... then ... turn off all light ... ... progr2 in bed folder ... if temperature is below 65 ... then turn on electric blanket ... ... prog3 in bed folder ... no conditions ... turn on security system ... You get my gist - can there be a folder condition to cause a series of programs within the folder to run? Or is the folder condition merely to enable/disable the programs within the folder? (or is that reallly just the same thing?) Thanks for the help... understanding this before getting too far will go a long ways towards getting it right the first time Mark

Thanks for the link - that looks like just what I need. I'll try my hand at that tomorrow. I installed a photo-beam today so that as guests enter the yard the path lighting and front door lighting turn on. Insteon is so quick and reliable it works like magic. The photobeam turned out to be quite a bit of work to install. The wiring and all was easy but I had to make a custom bracket to hold it because of the relationship of my garage to my gate. The angle was really acute and the stock bracket that came with it wouldn't work. I'm trying to figure out a way to use a combination of the garage door opening and the beam being broken to decide if I'm coming or going. The whole coming or going thing is hard if you don't want to be burdened with pressing a button to actually TELL the system what you're doing. Thanks again - I'll post back how it goes.

How are your door contacts configured? NO or NC? I don't know that this matters but every little detail might be it. Oh.. and more significantly... are you calling momentary both momentary b or are you calling momentary: look at sensor - b? I have mine on momentary: both (which I believe is the smarthome equivalent of momentary c) Thanks, Mark

Hi, Michael, Sorry for the late reply. It's been deluging here for the last few days and I've not been inclined to do things that involve standing in the rain. Over 320mm of rain has fallen in the last 3 days - that's over 12 1/2"! Fortunately today the rain has stopped and the sky is clear. Things here aren't looking so great for the winter Olympics that start in less than 4 weeks. Much of the local snow has washed away and the mild, rainy weather is here for a bit. Anyways - I've downloaded 2.7.7 and upgraded my ISY. That all went smoothly. There has been no change to the method with which it interacts with the door, though. The iolinc is configured as momentary both - that's the only option ticked other than the LED. The contacts I'm using are NO. When the door is closed the sensor node reads OFF When the door is open the sensor node reads ON When I send an ON command it will set the door in motion - whether that motion is up or down it makes no difference. Sending an OFF has no effect at all. While the door is stationary - whether it's open or closed - if the relay is ON then sending an additional ON has no effect - the door will not move. In order to make the door move an OFF must be sent followed by an ON. I'm seeing many other ISY users garage programs that all reset the relay to OFF a few seconds after it is turned on. I'm assuming this is why they do it? I don't mind programming it this way - it's not really a big deal - I'm just trying to understand why it doesn't behave the way I expect it to. Thanks! mark