EngMarc

yeah, I did use the spare 100uF 50v caps in C7 and C13. I didn’t want to wait on the other ones I ordered. they are there and working so far.

So, took out C1 and checked it against the new one (bought two) and the forward and reverse resistance was quite different. So, I put in the 2nd C1 which is a 400v 10 uF electrolytic capacitor. Replaced the 2W resistor that blew. Checked resistance and polarity and then put it to the 110v test. Volia! Everything seems fine now and the green light on the side is light up. I pressed the button and it beeps in sync mode. This is a v2.0 PLM so it has some changes but not all the 2.5 changes. Evidently the C1 did short in reverse. I checked all the subsequent capacitors I had replaced and they are correctly polarized. So now I have a spare PLM! A BIG BIG shout out to both Brian and Teken for their great support, feedback and knowledge. On another note, I have lots of spare components so if anyone needs some capacitors or 2W resistors let me know. I’ll happily send some. Marc

So I went through D1-D4 and they seem to test fine with 0.5 positive and 0 negative direction. D10 was also good. when I put full 110v on the inputs it shorted the same 2W resistor. This is new after my recapping so suspecting my work. at first, I wasn’t aware a cap had a plus and neg post. So it is very possible C1 or C3 are in opposite as designed. Would that cause a short behavior? i think I just found my answer online which states electrolytic capacitors will short if connected in wrong polarity. I'm going to remove C1 as when I checked it, the black negative stripe is on the (+) side which means it is reversed polarity. C3 and later were when I realized there was a polarity to these caps and they were installed correctly. I have a spare C1 (ordered 2 or 4 of everything since the postage was more than the parts). I’m going to see if I can tell if the current C1 is completely gone or if it just shorts - ideas?

Thank you, sounds like a plan. I’ll work on it in a bit. also, I noticed yesterday when soldering in the 2W resistor that one leg is VERY close to the head of D3. From the schematic it appears this is ok as it appears the 2W 27 ohm resistor is indeed connected to D3 input. Can you verify for me (four eyes are always better than two )?

Brian and others, I soldered in the 2W resistor and connect a low ameperage 110v feed, it seemed to have a possible short but I can’t find it. Not sure if the initial charge of the new caps was large. the 2W resistor is still intact but seemed odd. I’m not too good at low level debugging of the circuit but will try some later on. I did use an isolated 110v power supply and ran it through a mAmp feed. I’ll try the direct connect to the isolated power supply and go through the voltages at the locations of interest to see what I find. Ideas?

yeah, I’ve got both in my possession now. the 2W is almost exactly the same size as the old PLM has installed. I’ll play around with debugging that unit and the circuit with the replaced caps.

Brian, actually Indigo has a link update function which reads the new PLM and then will send all insteon devices a refresh link update and synchronize it with the PLM. I ran this yesterday and it ran like a charm. The new PLM is up and running nicely. I did notice that when the old PLM was running near the end of its life, there was some very odd behavior in the insteon devices (flashing lights on same device with ceiling fan turned on, etc.). This had completely gone away. At the time, I thought this was an insteon fan module going bad. Turns out, it seem that the PLM was going bad. Today, I on a whim found 2W and 5W resistors on Amazon. I ordered them just to have them and start some testing. The 2W is almost exactly the same size as the old PLM resistor so it is likely a 2W as theorized.

Brian, I use my 2413U with a usb cable to my mac which runs Indigo. My whole house automation platform.

So the new 2413U arrived and is a rev 2.5 I’ve attache’d some photos inside and as can be seen it has the two larger caps laying on their side as has been posted here for other newer revisions.

Thanks for the page reference. My 2413U looks kind of like the v1.7 shown in the photo but not quite exactly the same. I’ll see what the new one looks like when I receive it tomorrow and post a pic. I ordered it from Amazon which appears to come from Smarthome. I saw a ton of them on ebay but didn’t want to go down that path since I’m going to be repairing the old one I have - I wanted one that definitely worked.

yeah, I’m using the 2413 USB version and not the serial version (2413U vs 2413S). Not sure the exact difference as I don’t have a 2413S to compare to but the daughter board is likely the difference rather than the parent board.

so for now, going to purchase a new 2413U since it’s mission critical and waiting 2-3 weeks for these resistors is more than I want to put up with. I’ll continue to work on repairing this older version. I did open up an insteon 2450 serial interface to see what resistors were in it. they appear to be red-brown-black-gold and about the same size 2W or so. I don’t see any part numbers on them so can’t tell where they came from.

was told the 1W and 2W resistors are on back order so won’t get my shipment until around end of July or early August. More to follow…..

Just ordered these: Qty. Stock# Mfr. Part # Cust. Part # Price (USD) Total (USD) 4 70723850 1W027 $0.140 $0.56 RESISTOR 1 WATT METAL OXIDE FILM FLAMEPROOF 27 OHM 2% AXIAL LEAD 4 70725136 F2W027 $0.400 $1.60 RESISTOR; FUSIBLE 2W 27 OHM 5% 4 70112166 107CKH050M $0.150 $0.60 Capacitor, Cap 100 uF, Tol 20%, Vol-Rtg 50 VDC, Radial, 8x11.5, ESR 1.658 Ohms

ok, let me see if I can order/get an F2W027 (2w 27ohm 300v). Thanks for the quick response. I’m trying to resurect my PLM. Last resort is to buy a newer version but I really want to resurect it instead