Illusion

Wow, that one post clears everything up for me. Now it makes perfect sense! It also explains why Darrell thought this was an excellent example, and why Michel was so happy you wrote it. Outstanding post, thanks for taking the time to document this and to answer my questions. I appreciate your time.

Okay, That makes sense to me, thanks. I still do not understand why the programs aforementioned are failures though. Also, you did not answer my question about JAJ.

IndyMike, Can you explain a little more for a non-programmer type? I think this concept is a little beyond me but because it deals with 'control' and 'status' I think I need to really understand this before I get real deep into setting up programs. What does this mean? I do not understand why the second bit of code does not work but the first one did. Darrell, I am trying to understand why that is a great write-up of the classic difference between 'IS' and 'BECOMES'. I know that most people get this stuff, but I do not. From reading other posts, I thought that a status change was the event, pretty much like control. It is evaluated at the time of a status change. Darrell, I have read your other posts about programming and I can see that you are way skilled in this, so I think there is something missing here for the lay person. Normally I would not even bother to comment on a thread that is so far beyond me, but this one seems like a really valuable concept to fully understand. P.S. Why do some refer to you a JAJ?

IndyMike, I think that in the second chart you mean 7 controllers not 4?

On the topic of alarm clock: The KeypadLinc with variable times is brilliant. I know you are all crazy (I have been reading all your posts with programming tidbits) so I will introduce some of my own craziness here. I would like to know if there is a way to set events to happen BEFORE a set time hits. I see that we can do this in relation to sunrise and sunset but not with a set time. I get up at a different time every day, somewhere between 3am and 9.30am in 15m breakdowns. In the winter I like to sleep in the very cold. Currently I set two alarms (one back-up) and the schedules on two thermostats every night for the next day, so that when I wake up the house is already warming up nicely. Then I manually activate the IR and Floor Heat in the bathroom. I would love to automate this by just setting one device next to my bedside before going to sleep. If it is very cold outside then the bedroom zone for the HVAC should kick in 2 hours before my wake up time as well as the bathroom heaters. The house zone for the HVAC should kick in 1 hour before wake up time. The Lights should turn on 10m before wake up time. The "Before" offset would be variable based on current outside temperature and inside temperature. Any thoughts on how to accomplish this without a programming session every night before sleep? And while I am on this kick, is there any website that feeds raw weather prediction data that a future release of the ISY could look to to make decisions on the HVAC/ Exhaust fans / Sprinklers?

My X-10 to that circuit always worked great as well (Panel mounted coupler/amplifier). The only thing that I can think of is that A1 A ON is a pretty pathitic amount of data, and I am guessing that restore and query are massively more data intensive and therefore require a little more robust data path. Where are you buying your Insteon if not from SH? Where is this place a couple burbs over that answers their phone at 1am?

Sloop, I dumped my whole system two days ago as well, to make a absolutely clean transfer to the ISY from Indigo (Mac). While I do not have as many devices in my whole system as you do in one room, I had the same problems with "Restore Devices". I put my neighbor on Insteon as well (I set up and control her lights through my ISY). I started doing a network query to see which devices were having comm problems. I went to my neighbors house and got one of her access points to add to my system during this "Fresh Start". The difference was remarkable. I was not able to get a failure in the network query when I added this one additional access point to the circuit I was having the most trouble with. When I am not doing data intensive operations like query or restore, my setup seems to be flawless, but for some reason restore and query cause problems. Before I borrowed the access point, I did have some luck doing a restore on single devices at a time instead of the whole network. Also, to others, do not waste time posting about how I should have tried moving my existing two access points first. I did lots of that, and I have a chart of every light and outlet with a phase notation from the days of pure X-10. I would dump the signalincs and get access points. At least with an access point you can test the function of the device with a remotelinc and have some confirmation that it is not craplinc.

Sloop, I just completely cracked up when I scrolled down your scene list and hit that dusk scene. I am in North Texas as well (Carrollton), and my power had several hiccups right around dusk, I am thinking that you are to blame. You are an excellent case study for the whole Insteon concept as well as the ISY!

Michel, I am a little confused. File->Restore Modem seems like the thing to do here, no? If I Restore Devices, does it also restore their links in the PLM? Which I assume I am wiping out by doing a factory reset on the PLM? I am assuming that by your ommision of starting over again, that I do not need to redo all my adding insteon devices into the ISY again. Thanks for your time.

So I have added back many a device, but not started setting up scenes yet. Should I stop and Factory Reset the PLM? Would this be the clean thing to do? I am not sure I know how to reset a PLM, looking for directions now.

What about the PLM? The existing links for scenes and devices are held within the PLM right? Does Factory Reseting the ISY somehow clear the links out of the PLM?

aLf, I have already experienced the staggering customer service this company provides. I do not think Michel ever got my PMs. That is one of several of my forum issues. Rather than bothering him via email, I just thought I would throw a post out there, hoping someone would know where I should go. I thought there would be a forum topic for forum suggestions, troubleshooting and the like, but I sure was not able to find it. I have enjoyed many of your posts. I look forward to being part of this community. You guys are all smarter than me, but I will try to keep up. Sloop's posts crack me up!

Okay, new guy here. First let me say that I have read about 1500 posts. In one way or another you have already kinda answered these questions, but I think I need a direct answer. (I fully intend on reading every single post, but I am itching to really get started with my isy) 1. In release 2.6 (ISY-26) there is no way to look at a link table for a device, right? I have a Mac and have tried using Indigo with a PLC to import the link tables, but that has not been going too well for me. I think it corrupts them when ever I do that. Indigo tries to add the PLC to the link database, and I loose all my scene fade times. I end up doing a device restore from the isy to correct it. Plus, I know that the link table is incomplete, as Indigo does not show the links from the PLC to the device. 2. This brings me to my next question. How best to start fresh? I had Indigo first, and set up all kinds of scenes and timers. Then I put most of the devices in the isy using the spider and keep links. Well, I am not real sure what links are in there. I know that there are links between the devices and the PLC because Indigo can show me the traffic in its live log window. I am worried that I have created a mess and I think the best thing to do is just start fresh with the isy and abandoned Indigo. I will sorely miss having a live log of all activity. That said, I am a little confused. How do I go about this. Do I need to factory reset the devices, or do I just remove them from the isy and re-add them using option 1 and do not spider the network, repeating this for each device? I have read mention of both. What will really clean the link tables out for me? 3. On a side note: I have read about programing a remotelinc by putting it into programming mode using bright/dim or maybe it was all on/all off. When I programmed my RTL using Indigo I just woke it up by hitting any button. Worked great. Do we need to enter programming mode for isy to set it up?

Where do we communicate concerns and questions regarding the forum itself? I have tried PMing Michel, but I think that is one of the problems I am having. I know that this is probably not the right place for this question, but Q & A seemed like the best topic choice available.