oberkc

Which is the reason that I suspect that the wiring is other than how described. An alternative possibility is that I misunderstand your description. i suspect LeeG has correctly identified the problem. The white wire is a return from the other three-way switch and is not a neutral. This makes me suspect that the WB and gray supply the entry hall light fixtures. To be more certain (at least in my mind) would require a volt meter and opening of the fixture boxes to confirm routing of wires. On your three way switch, is there a black screw (indicates common). Which wire is connected to that? Are you stating that the neutral wire is connected to the single pole switch somehow? In addition to the blue and purple wire?

I agree with LeeG. I suspect some of the wires are other than you describe. Otherwise, blue wire (line) would go to insteon black, purple (load) would go to insteon red, white/gray bundle (neutral) would go to insteon white and all would work.

For what it is worth, I suspect you do have a loop. In your conditions, you have a condiotion for staircase status. In your then and else statements, you fade down the stairase lights. This forces a re-evaluation of your program.

I have not been bollowing too close, but I recal. That you manually added the newly reconfigured. Is this correct. i have never understanded the advantage of doing it this way, and have read of ocaasional problems. If you are out of ideas, I suggest removing the device, performing a factory reset, and adding it back using the "start linking" button. perhaps things would work better.

First, it seems to me that this program should partly work. The fact that your lihgt does not come on is, in my estimation, not. Program problem. Having said this, I would use control rather than status. Can you control the front bedroom light from the isy? Does the monkey light status track accurately in the isy?

How did you enable the internet access? From the admin panel? I understand that this can not work at times. You may need to enter your router settings an manually configure port forwarding rules. The best luck I had was after taking the time to do this.

Forgive me if I am pointing out the obvious, but swapping face plates is not sufficient (or even necessary) to re-configure a six-button keypad to eight-button, or vice versa. More importanly, there is an electronic configuration process. This electronic process is (at least was when I performed it) defined in the keypad users manual. This process entailed pressing a bunch of buttons in a certain order, if I recall. I also believe that this MUST be done manually, since I do not think that this can be performed via the ISY. In summary, one must remove the keypad from the ISY. Electronically reconfigure the keypad (it seems to me a factory reset would be appropriate here). Change the face plate (optional). Add new device back into ISY.This worked beautifully for me when I did this a while back.

I use the eagle eye sensors. I understand that the primary address is used for motion "on" and "off" commands, the next higher address is used for dusk/dawn, and never the two shall mix. Nothing in my experience suggests otherwise. I can only assume that other brands and models are the same.

Yes. That is how I do it. I cannot say that I have specifically noticed this, but I have not looked very hard. Like you, I get intermittent response from X-10 motion sensors, but it is often battery issues. Also, my distance between sensor and reciever is pretty great. I have not tried the delay suggested by BrianH, but that may be useful.

Keep in mind, also, that the "else" clause will run when the keypadlinc button is pressed ON during the daylight period.

Is this a mechanical (non-insteon) dimmer? If so, there is little that can be done to have miswired this as a result of switch replacement in the bathroom. Given that it is ON, I suspect switch failure. Possibly. It is also possibly a communication issue caused by other factors. Insteon communications, in my experience, do not fail catastrophically. Sometimes, communication can be intermittent. Given your existence of surge suppressors, I would not take lack of evidence thus far as signs of robust communication. I would experiment around a bit, temporarily removing these devices to see if there is any improvement. I would also take advantage of the ISY scene test to see if this gives any indication of problems. It is also good that you have a variety of access points and dual band devices. Given the quantity you have, odds are that you have at least one on each leg of your electrical system. Still, if you have not done so, I would make sure this is the case by following the steps in the manual.

This is a pretty simple wiring problem, and it sounds as if you have it all correct. I am assuming that all connections are tight (not always as easy as it sounds), The only possibility that I can think of is the type of light that is in your bathroom. Is it something other than incandescent? Does it have any power supplie? I am still hoping for an answer to my question regarding access points or dual-band devices. Do you have the legs of your power system coupled? Where is your PLM installed and what other devices (UPS? Surge Suppressor, power supplies?) are on that circuit?

Yes, this is the way I see it. Agreed, this would not explain lack of control. Are you confident in the connection? What is the load on the insteon switch? Do you have access points or other dual band devices to couple the legs of your electrical system? From where are you trying to control the insteon switch?

Notice how the white wire attached to the switch has some tape around it? I believe that is intended to remark the white wire as hot (switched, in this case). Regarding the two black wires connected to the switch, one is a supply, the other is a continutation of the supply to another location. I would expect that if you connect the two black to your switch black, the remarked white to the switch red, and switch white to the white bundle, you should be ready to go.

That's what I would do.

Do you have a helper? Did you test this while moving the connection where the circuit branches out to see if there were any signs of dicontinuity? Otherwise, this looks good. Solder at that branch connection may still help, but there is nothing in that measurement which one could take as positive indication of a bad connection. Neutrals are all home-runs to the ground bar. Connections are tight. Wiring appears proper. No load on the switch. There is not much else under your control that it could be. Personally, I am running out of ideas here.

That is a different problem than originally described. Have you solved your first problem somehow? Did you attempt to address any of LeeGs questions? You have lots of scenes with unknown devices. It is possible that some of these scenes are affecting the conditions of some of the other programs. I see only two programs which shut off the coach lights: number 1) and 2). Do any of the scenes in programs 3), 4), or 5) include the coach lights? Since the coach lights turning off appear near immediately, I would be focusing on program #5.

+1! +1!

I believe that, until the most recent NEC update, this was EXACTLY how the code prescribed. Black is always supposed to the the switched return. White (reidentified) is the supply from the fixture. Latest NEC update now requires neutral in all switch locations so I assume the need to use white as a line is eliminated.

So each of three fixture boxes has two cables, each with two conductors plus ground. Each of the three are controlled separately, and by a single switch. Each switch has connected to is a black and white cable? Some of the white cables have tape around them. This is starting to sound a lot like a switch loop for each of the three fixtures. I believe is is common, even standard, to use white (remarked as black) for the line connection in a switch loop. Black is typically the return to the fixture. Agree? If you have a white wire with black tape around it connected to all three switches, then the other wires are the load. Yes. This would be connected to the red wire of the insteon switch. The problem will be finding a neutral from this circuit. If I understand correctly, you don't have one in this switch location. I have found it often extremely difficult to describe wiring in words. I am hoping you can draw something up and insert the image or attach a file showing your wiring.

Sometimes you have to get creative. I have not needed to do this often, but I have sometimes tied hot and neutral together (obviously, no power) at at one termination point (box or panel) and measured resistance between hot and neutral conductors at the other end. Other times, I might add a length of conductor between one location and another so that I could reach both ends with the probes. Yes! Nice. Yellow identifies the circuit(s) powering only insteon switches. No lights. No refrigerators. I would imagine that you could even power a whole house' worth of unloaded insteon switches from a single circuit breaker. Yellow, then, becomes partly a control circuit. Sometimes, even electricians have good ideas.

The only knowledge I have of this would be part of the keypad literature. I think it is typically +/-10%, but you can check. My suspicion is that if your issues are connector related, it would be more about transient and intermittent conditions rather than just pure peak voltages. My suspicion, further, is that the conditions at your house are simply revealing some weakness (rather, lack of robustness) in the keypad design. Others have pointed to posts about similar problems and persistent failures, but I suspect a vast majority experience very limited and random failures. I take this as an indication that some houses have minor wiring issues that don't bother most electrical devices, but could affect those electronic devices designed without a lot of margin. Perhaps smarthome devices are one of the latter (pure speculation based on your experience here). Depending on how much work you want to put into this, and how comfortable you are with electrical, one option is to measure resistance between the switch location hot, and the circuit breaker. If possible, measure this resistance while moving the branch connector. My experience is that this resistance will be well below 1 ohm. Heed LeeGs advice here with regards to being careful. I also don't know why your electrician used yellow, but I understand that this is code compliant. Most of us are used to black and red because of this being the common colors in sheathed electrical cable, but I don't believe yellow is a restricted color (like white or green). Red, blue, black, yellow, orange, and red are, I believe, ungrounded conductors by code. That is how I would do it, being sure to make sure everything is cleaned and flux is applied. One thing I have found about wire nuts is that they work best when the wirenut threads engage EVERY conductor. With 4+ conductors, this can sometimes be tricky.

I have been watching this thread with interest. Most of the ideas that I came up with were addressed by others. Based on how I understand your wiring, while unusual, I see nothing that jumps out at me as a problem that would induce failures. I have no personal experience or have seen anything in this forum and others that leads me to think your experience is common. While other have had device failures, the numbers of failures that you have and the fact that it appears centered around a single location makes me suspect that there is more going on here than bad luck. While I think LeeG is correct that bad connections generally won't INCREASE voltage, I cannot help but suspect that loose connections can cause arcing, reduced voltage, frequency issues, rapid power cycles, and other things that could contribute to electronic device failure. None of these things can be good. You mentioned that the hot (yellow!?) wires originate from a breaker, then branch out to multiple switch locations. How are these branch connections established? Wire nuts? I read that you have temporarily disconnected some of those as part of troubleshooting, but this certainly strikes me as an area that could induce arcing and power cycles. If it were me, this is where I would be focusing. I might even be inclined to break out the solder gun if I had any reason to suspect faulty connections. Otherwise, I see nothing electrically unusual that would explain your batch of failures.

I don't know if you are mistaken about the neutral "phase" thing. Phase suggests that there is an alternating voltage. On a neutral there none. Phase means nothing relative to neutrals, as you stated. However, this should not be taken that one does not have to take care with regards to which neutral one uses. For each circuit, there should be a hot and neutral. Loads put on a circuit's hot should also be on that same circuit's neutral. You should not use the hot from one circuit and a neutral from another. This has nothing to do with whether there is a neutral phase (or leg). It has everything to do with ensuring that current on the neutral does not exceed the capacity of the conductor. If one starts putting loads from multiple circuits on a single circuit's neutral, then one could (theoretically) have the current of 30 or 40 amps on a wire rated for 15 or 20. If you have separate/dedicated neutral wires for each switch (and outlet) location, all going straight to the neutral bar, then this would preclude overloading the neutral wire, so long as all the switches in a given box are powered by the hot from a single circuit breaker. If this is the case, I don't see the neutrals being a safety issue or a cause of your switch failures.

Not by my experience