larryllix

Can you identify the timing of the mode change with a cycle turning off? This would zoom in on the relays dropping out causing spikes doing the damage.

I don't know what happened to this thread but here was my last response. ----------------------------------------- Connect one wire of your transformer to the wire of the furnace transformer that is connected to the metal frame of the furnace (ground). If you can't locate a jumper to the metal case then it won't matter. It will probably have a black wire going to your stat.(24COM) Now take your voltmeter on AC volts and measure across from the free wire on your transformer to the "other" wire of the furnace transformer (live=24Rh&24RC). This terminal will probably have a red wire in it going to the stat (24Rh and 24RC). Make sure you stay on the secondary sides so you are only dealing with 24 volts, if you're are poking around inside the furnace. Now if you get less than 5 volts the secondary windings are in phase with each other. (small difference) If the reading will be about 50 volts then the secondary windings are out of phase. The voltages add up. Turn off power and change your transformer wire, connected to the furnace common, to the other wire on your transformer.(or reverse your plug) Repeat voltage test to prove them in phase. It may not make any difference but why have the higher voltage around? If you are doing this at the stat you will need to shove both established common wires into one terminal (24COM). Pull the red wire out of the R terminal(s) and replace it with your transformer live wire. Tape up the furnace feed R wire so it doesn't bark to anything. Good luck!

You would have to read in the homeseer.com forum probably for that. I only saw the PLM and the Hub was a beta thing at the time I was playing with it. You could check out these guys http://www.simplehomenet.com/cats.asp?id=23. In other discussions it came to light that Europe uses different RF frequencies for Insteon also, so you will have to watch your compatibility. The receptacles will be different on European modules. Here is a quick list of SmartHome devices that give some hints to European devices. http://home-automation.smarthome.com/search?view=list&w=europe

For a trial run I would get something and plug it into a AC wall socket completely separate from the furnace and prove the point first. I don't know how much electronic gadgetry you can borrow to try these things but before you go drilling and mounting things I would make sure your plan works first. If you can get it working reliably then start moving things in permanently. To try a doorbell transformer comes to mind. There are cheap 24v units but a 16v unit may work, also. (Edit: I can't find anything to support anything other than 24vac might work) Don't forget, you are going to have to tie the commons of the two transformers together to make your controls work. Only one 24vac side though, not both (live and common.! After doing some thinking I am becoming convinced the signal lines are the ones bringing the noise into the unit as per my second thoughts above. I am not sure, exactly what he components are on the 2441TH circuit board but they sure look like plain old triac output devices. This probably means no isolation or noise suppression on the lines that run the relays that run the fan motor, heating contactor, or A/C contactor. Coils are real nasty for putting out huge spikes that destroy electronics when interrupted (turned off). If you interrupt them at the peak of the AC waveform you can easily get 10-20 times the supply voltage in a short voltage spike! Interrupting them right on the sensitive circuit board is asking for trouble without special opto-isolating output parts. I doubt they have used that much protection technology there judging by the picture of the board. Another thing I just thought of: Do you have one of those modern DC fan motors with multiple (like 10) speeds? I have a GE one with programmable logic inside and one 24v AC input was phase sensitive. That means I was supplying 24vac from another transformer source and the fan motor wouldn't start off at it's slow speed and ramp up the way it was supposed to. I went through some voltage measurement with the factory guy on the phone and he freaked when I told him one voltage was 24.6v and one was 26.4v. When I retorted "What's the difference?" He admitted they used polarity sensing to reduce the number of logic inputs required. I temporarily changed the supply breaker over to the other 120 volt leg, matching the furnace supply, and the ramped up fan speeds worked again. I couldn't believe it... 24 volt A.C. system and it was polarity sensitive on a furnace fan motor!

If the PS works then focus on the PS wires for the beads. Putting both wires through one bead will knock out common mode noise but that doesn't sound like your problem with an almost isolated unit. If it had wires into a computer or another system that would be more likely. If you can only muster two cores put them on lead of the 24v supply at first. My second thought on this (editted) is it would be a nasty relay in your furnace on the heat, A/C, or fan control line, whose triac in the thermostat is breaking absorbing the counterEMF spike from the relay coil. Electronics don't like that and it is being done right on the thermostat's board. (thinking of the circuit board pictures nicely pointed out by Brian H) That would be the wires to try the toroid cores or steel nuts, next. I had to put a MOV on a relay that my TM751 (X10 RF receiver) to stop it from zapping a second unit on me. Absorbing the spike right at the source is usually best but we can get to that later. Or do both if the parts are in your hand. You could possibly wrap them a few times if the hole size and wire length permits. IOW pass them through the same hole core repeatedly the same direction (wind a coil). Hopefully you will get somewhere with this experiment. If this works for you I am looking at getting the wireless unit and that would give me some hope for it. If this works partially we are going to get some small despiking capacitors across those terminals too and possibly a low-voltage MOV if you have an electronics supplier near you. Who said you weren't an EE type? They are cheap enough these days but you would want something closer to the 24vac rating. http://www.digikey.com/product-search/e ... -07D820KTR I really want something to get analogue temperatures, as well as other values, into the ISY but I haven't seen any way to do that. It may take some A/D conversion using four or five bits and D/A math in the ISY to get values. The night is still young! We always want more!

Usually these things are not that "engineered". Since you think this I noise spikes coming for the furnace circuitry connected to the thermostat and it is easy to wire the wires into the thermostat I would try running each wire through a 1/4-1/2" steel hex nut and just see what happens. If it works somewhat try to land better ferrite cores to replace the hex nuts. Ferrite cores are not tuned but present impedance to signals that change faster. Since the signals are low frequency 60Hzand slow changing heat and A/C switching signals little effect will be seen on them. It's not rocket science and for a few bucks you may luck-out and have a solution. http://www.digikey.ca/product-search/en ... ng/3408554 I would bet a HVAC supplier could even sell you a few commonly used by installers for other thermostats.

I have the same problem using v4.0.5 and this module. Is this a problem or just an annoyance I can ignore for now?

Thanks again! Strange looking "dongle"!

Same thing here. I have been researching this for a few days and I can't figure out where this dongle would go. If somebody could lay out a basic setup and/or options of hardware it would be appreciated.

Mine works the same when not in "Communication mode", obtained by the button on the MS. Watch the device status page to investigate initial signal reception. You may have to manually reset it to OFF each time.

I guess we think too small just wanting to control our own homes. hmmmmmm... New ISY990004i feature request: WAN networking to talk to other ISYs with P2P. I could save a lot of time by using an accepted temperature schedule from the rest of the world's thermostat settings.

I was just reading (and posted in another thread) Insteon's repeating algorithm where they state the RF data received is repeated on the powerline and vice versa, but I haven't seen anything stating how the arbitration between bands is done. IOW who gets first crack if they differ? Who gets repeated?It also states that RF is synchronised with the Powerline data so is only as fast as the powerline frequency data speed allows. (yay! for N.America 60Hz. ) I make these assumptions: -If a garbage packet is received on either band it will not be repeated on either band. -Simultaneous repeated transmissions, from different modules, are stated to reinforce signal strength. Anybody dealing with audio or any signal equipment probably knows this is not always true. Even if all modules are exactly in phase the phase lag between location distance, wire lengths and impedances (line proximities or concrete walls) can cause complete blind spots at a receiver's location where signals from multiple transmitters, out of phase, cancel each other out completely or weaken the signal strength to the point of uselessness. Simply moving a receiver over a few inches or injecting a loop in one wire may make all the difference. In the powerline frequency multiple unit synchronisation may be possible with the low frequency carrier used, but in the high frequency RF (915MHz) even the CPU being out of sync by one CPU clock cycle, at these lower clock rates, may result in the bits being out of sync by more than multiple RF wavelengths. I haven't done the actual signal wavelength delay math, yet, so don't get too excited if I'm too far off. IOW: Mess network units that don't use collision detection avoidance at the carrier level of the protocol may not play nicely with each other and the more you have may make the occasional failure MORE common. Designing units to talk simultaneously may not always work well. Six or eight, well placed, repeating units and the rest receive only may just function more reliably. In short: you may have too many dual band units at play and I would be willing to do my part to help you out in that endeavour. I can PM you my shipping address for some possible relief from your situation.

Bingo! I thought it was one link labelled "Details Summary". Turns out it is two links "Details" and "Summary" Thanks!

I can get to the file list page with the lists of documents. I get no warnings or input requests and the list has no hyperlinks for the document text lines, just plain text. FCC > FCC E-filing > EAS > List Exhibits Page FCC Site Map

No Kidding! I thought Yahoo was bad for spam when it was the "Big" search engine, but now Google prides themselves as being snooping Gods that can pry into any aspect of your life and collect data on you from birth. Very good point.

Very nice! Thanks! Is there some special permission required to see the documents? I cannot get access to them, only a listing showing their existence.

I would love the see the printed circuit card for these things. Years ago it was reported a circuit board would be designed and built. Then a after refining, a tech would cut out components until the device stopped working. Putting that component back in the tech would continue until no more parts could be cut out and it would still function. Who know what process they used for this design. Sensitive logic inputs typically "pull themselves up". Good engineering practice ties them to the plus power line or better yet through a higher value resistor. If that part is removed the prt functions the same except that the logic signal input usually functions the same. being connected to a foil line on the circuit board it becomes a small antenna and picks up stray emf/rf noise nearby creating guess what? Logic changes or even worse internal transistor insulation breakdown that acts ups in too many ways to mention. Now this device transmits RF so we do have an environment. Strange while I was typing this I realised analogous situation: I picked up a Mr. Christmas Light sequencer last year for $20. This fall, full of piss and vinegar, I hook the thing up only to find out after it worked fine for about two hours, I have to cycle the power off and on about 10-20 times to make the thing start up to play its tunes. hmmmmm... guess what? After a night's worth of tracing circuit board foils, I find an empty spot where they forgot to install the capacitor that acts as a cold boot reset circuit to the CPU chip. I grab some old capacitor I found and solder it in. Works like a charm, everytime. Not a trace of previous solder there. Now I reassembled the thing. When I put the circuit board back into the case the capacitor I installed stops the circuit card from sliding down into it's plastic slot mount in the case. These jerks did exactly what I stated above and cut out the prototype's capacitor and it worked just fine (they didn't forget) on that unit, so the, (probably Chinese) kids manufacture 1,000,000 of them without the capacitor. Then it hits the retail stores for about $159 and users return them. I pick the thing up at WallyMart for $20 wondering why. Most users would have just thrown them out for the $20, a year later, and without a receipt. http://www.mrchristmas.com/THE-LIGHTS-A ... P1839.aspx My suspicions intensify with this SmartHome item. Too bad.

Thank you, Thank you! Q: I see a pulldown list with existing devices already being used elsewhere. I would assume I would have to have an installed substitute unit listed as a spare to swap? IOW: What would happen if I picked an already in service unit? EDIT: Brian already answered that one.

"KeyPadLinc" I am in the same boat as you and find so much jargon using acronymns in this field and most of them are common in other fields and mean other things. Really hard to get up to speed. On that note: Where is this "replace device" menu you mention, andI keep reading about? I have looked high and low and cannot find anything that would have saved me a half dozen hours a of reinstalling things.

I was thinking about getting one of the 2441ZTH remote/wireless units just to have a temperature sensor. Other than the usual Insteon lack of actual information (to even find out if it sends analogue data) I did notice this in the troubleshooting chart section of the User's manual. ---------- Problem: When an AC adapter is used, the temperature and humidity settings are changing rapidly. -------- Probable cause: Noise from the AC adapter is affecting the Wireless Thermostat’s electronics. ---------- Fix: Be sure that your AC adapter is outputting between 5 to 7.5 volts. Change to a better quality AC adapter. ----------- Now this unit is an independent, normally 3V battery operated unit and yet they have problems with AC ripple demanding you run a 5-7.5V walwart with it? This has to tell us something about the sensitivity of the electronics to power supply noise. This is assuming the basic power supply is a similar design as the 2441TH unit. I suspect it would be.

I wonder if donut-style ferrite beads would help that by just running the lines all through a unit. It could eliminate any common-mode spikes and noise.

Mine is still in the package yet. It will be making an entrance soon.

It would appear, by definition, RF communications are synchronised, slowed down, and dependant on powerline zero-crossings as evidenced by this from the document:

And that must be based on a 60Hz assumption for the same reason no dates were on coins marked BC. Also based timing from the previous zero crossing it would put the signal right in the middle of the garbage from a modified sinewave zero noise and/or keep confusing the frequency with front end and back end zero-crossing timings. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of modules?

OK, I would have thought that the " Smoke / CO / Clear. It does however show OFF for Low Battery, Malfunction, Test, and Unknown Message" points KHouse mentioned would be considered status points. My terminology in this field is not up to par and it sometimes conflicts with my other fields of involvement. Either way they are not responsive to ISY end polls/queries, if I read you correctly.