NDSSM

A heads up. I've had a few people come to me with devices that were "unrepairable by Insteon" with "daughter card is bad" as the reason. I've been able to repair these without issue. Its covered under my "comm repair", as well as "the works". If you dont want to give up on your device or feed the landfill, I'm here. Also, I'm disappointed to open units repaired by Insteon only to find 4 replaced capacitors out of 10 replaced, and nothing else serviced for a $50 service fee despite the claim "have it repaired to the latest factory specifications". If someone high up from UD or Insteon see's this, I'm open to taking on the repair side of things even if its just PLM's and Hubs. I'd love to see Insteon succeed.

To be more clear, my comment is directed to Insteon themselves, not the great people of UD or other forums. From revision 1 to 2.6 C3, C11, and C8 have gone ignored among other components, by Insteon.

The 100uf/50v is the Fujicon ty1h101m-rbf11wp00 and is indeed rated for *5000 hours. I dont have much faith in their rating, or their formula. I havent found a Fujicon calculator like other manufacturers have to get a realistic life for application expectancy either. And again, its too bad no attention was paid to all of the capacitors. The C8 as I referenced above is almost always out of spec (RM series, 1000 hour life @ load...which it often is at), and then there is the lovely, cheap, "CI" branded C3, which should have been rated at least 100 volts higher...if not 200, and really the only electrolytic cap on the board that needed a voltage upgrade.

Even Fujicon spec sheets make me cringe.

I was actually working on splitting the 5v section to a separate power device, but the idea got shelved. Havent had the time.

Yes

The Fujicon TY's aren't fairing very well either. They are only rated for 1000 hours at their peak temp (previous Fujicons were 500 hours iirc), and I find that number to be a bit bloated. Most I yank out test significantly out of spec. I bench tested these as well as other popular caps being used in other devices... the results were sad. I did a test run with cheap ChongX caps for the heck of it, and the PLM's lasted 3 months. ChongX is another one that promises "high reliability" and has gained popularity in factories... yet I've lost count how many I've seen dead, including dead shorts taking out transformers in 5 and 12v power adapters. It's surprising, but I've repaired more of the revised daughter boards than any other, including fried memory chips and zapped serial controllers. I've never seen an official document regarding "better ESD protection" (nor am I doubting you), but on my end, its as if ESD protection ended up being worse. My assumption had been this change was made to allow the use of non-electrolytic caps. The unnoticed elephant is C8.... Focus was never put on C8... these are almost always 50% out of spec and showing very high resistance. This resistant puts stress on the voltage regulator (U3), and that stress ends up putting more stress on the 20v rail. I've replaced a ton of regulators because of failed C8's. The trace design under C8 prior to is position being revised was also troublesome, if the trace becomes too hot, I've seen the trace burn and fuse to the grounding plane. Many seem to ignore the electrolytic on the daughter boards too. Dont. There also issues with the communication side of the circuitry that even the last revisions did not address. I have my own design and fix for these issues. When I look at the changes over the years on these PLM's... it makes me shake my head. Many of the revisions made could have been avoided by just using quality components elsewhere from start.

I lurk around every now and then, this may even be my first post. It's been an honor to see all the suggestions for my service on eBay. I thank all of you that have suggested my service, and those of you that have purchased my products and services. I don't plan on stopping anytime soon despite repairing Insteon gear becoming a full time job in itself. If Insteon themselves ends up taking over, I'll just be less busy in the electronics repair world. I'm happy to see Insteon succeed, and even happier to be part of making your smart homes continue to function. With that said, It'll be interesting to see if they continue to use the same, mediocre at best, 1000 hour Fujicon capacitors. It'll also be interesting to hear back from those that use this service, and how many Insteon deems unrepairable. I often find a multitude of failed components in these devices... I'd say a solid 75% of the time there are other component failures especially when communication issues arise, thus why I offer various services. $50 is cheap, especially after paying someone to rebuild them, paying shipping, taxes, etc. The RJ45 connectors alone are near $5 each, even in bulk. I dont see any warranty's on the work either. Thanks again everyone! You know where to find me :-) -Chris @ NDSSM (Nilachi Data Systems / Sydney Micro)