DAlter01

I'm going fishing this weekend, any advice on best way to catch striped bass on Lake Mojave?

Just getting started.....

Maybe a solution has been found. As it turns out the majority of the affected lights are on a same circuit as one of the HVAC air handlers. It is a 2005 era house so not sure why that is the case. The air handler should have been on its own circuit. Manually turning on/off the air handler or HVAC doesn't replicate the issues except for the nominal split second dim that occurs when the air handler kicks on. But, that wasn't the problem I was having. I've corrected the wiring so that the affected lights are no longer on the air handler circuit and its been about 6 hours of operations without a repeititon of the problems. The lights on the "other" circuit that was also acting similarly was only one light fixture and that one was resolved with an LED replacement. I thought I had already swapped out all the LED bulbs to known good ones but I guess I had missed that one fixture. Why was the air handler (even when off) causing issues with the LED lighting and causing the LED's to strope in concert with the Insteon signal, I've got no idea. And, why was the air handler causing the LED lights to blink off for a milisecond, I don't know. If it wasn't the air handler, once I isolated the two breakers with the problem wiring I did R&R the wiring from the breaker and the neutral buss. They were tight and I didn't see any corrosion or evidence of arcing but maybe that manipulation of the wiring had an effect. Hopefully this is the end of the issue.

I've been thinking about drafting/packing for a while. I think that may be in the future. But, it will be second or third generation. That can't come until all the manually piloted vehicles are off the roadway.

They don't use just one point of reference for the location. In fact, I doubt they use the lines to any great degree. From what I understand the system is simultaneously tracking many fixed points to figure out where they are. If one is not there it doesn't stop working.

Today isn't tomorrow. And, today isn't 10 years from now by a LONG shot. We can say it isn't going to happen but it will happen very, very soon weather we like it or not. Just about everyone under 30 doesn't care a lick about cars, they just want transportation.

Yep, the GPS is there to give it a general area, but the mapping system with an internal database knowing where points of reference items are is what gets them to be super accurate. I'm not sure how accurate but I suspect an inch or less.

The self driving vehicle (GM) doesn't require a city, just a mapped road. Lots of the mapped roads are highways and freeways in rural areas. So, it may be near you already. The App service, that is the one that will come to cities first and then eventually rural areas.

It is an entirely hands free experience. They monitor your eyes to make sure you are awake and facing forward and you have your hands on the steering wheel occasionally but the car is doing all of the driving, lane changing, etc.

I don't think you read my entire quote about road mapping with point of reference overlays. Currently GM is using this tech on select (mapped) roadways and Ford will start any day. It works, I have one. They have about 200,000 miles opened up. tiny fraction, I know, but its coming to a city near you.

Yes it will. It will be here in less than 20 years. It is very close. And, there will become a societal push for it eventually, sad, but true. It doesn't need wires in the roads. It can be done with road mapping with GPS and point of reference overlays. It isn't there yet but is coming. Now, a snowy driveway that isn't mapped, that is another story. Snow/hail, heavy rain, etc. the cars just will not run. Those living in environments that have those conditions, maybe they have a hybrid vehicle. But, since those situations are a minority by a large margin, most transportion will be by a driverless UBER type car. That probably will not be in the 20 year mark except in dense urban areas but that is coming. You will use an app on your phone to summon the vehicle. It will come from a charging dock to wherever you are, pick you up, drop you off. If a long trip, you will change vehicles from one with a battery being at low charge for a vehicle with a full charge.

Ford brakes to be made to fit a Chevrolet is similar to having standardized internal electonric signal protocols. Coordination like that is never going to happen between companies looking to make the best product they can for the least amount of money. Spending time/money on something like that will provide a negative return to their bottom line. Unless mandated, it will not happen. The buyer pool looking for a feature like that is very tiny compared to their overall buyer pool. Therefore, they cannot justify the cost increase they would incur to make it happen.

You have convinced me. I'm doing it. Thank you for restating it. It finally sank in.

Yep, I think there are two fronts to puruse at present. One is to go through and airgap and factory reset devices to see if that eliminates the issue, and going through the panel to see if there has been any arcing on any of the line in or branch circuit lugs. Time, slippin, slippin into the future....... It's going to take a lot of time. Hopefully one of those two paths solves it. Thank you

I've started the airgap process but being that it has a randomness to it, the process has been tedious and I've made little progress. As suggested by @larryllixI think I'll also try factory resetting as I go through the air gap effort. I sure hope this doesn't involve new lines. We will see and once I figure out the solution I'll report back.

Huh, I never would have thought to try that. I'll give it a try tomorrow and report back. Thank you

There are fewer switches in the "good" area. However, I have parts of the house that has near the same density of switches and that area is not exhibiting the behavior. The number of bulbs isn't likely related. Some of affected lighting circuits are 2 bulbs, some are 8, but they act identically with the random milisecond blink and the flutering when dimmed to Insteon signals.

Yeah, that may make sense. The area in question is LOADED with Insteon devices. There are probably 35 Insteon devices within 25' when you factor in both stories. The area where the LED bulbs test good is relatively isolated with a more modest density of Insteon devices. The signal (both RF and powerline) will be much more robust in the problem zone.

@Brian HThese dimmers/KPs are from Jan/Feb 2021 so relatively new. All of the lighting is behind an Insteon device so I can't easily see if other types of dimmers are being effected. It is sounding more like a connection issue. Thank you.

Spoken by a true professional. This hobbiest appreciates the wise advise. When I checked the lugs on the panels there were a few lugs that I considered loose and tightened them. But, I didn't check for signs of arcing. I'll check that and the other steps you articulated. Thank you

A loose connection is possible. It isn't the entire house affected so isn't in the main panel/meter. The main panel feeds two sub panels which is where all the branch circuits originate from. And, I don't think the issue is in the sub panel as I've confirmed all my lugs in the sub panel are good and tight. The issue seems to exist in two or more branch circuits in one section of the house. Though I haven't isolated it enough to confrim which branch circuits are affected. That is probably the next best step. Maybe I've got a poor connection(s) in a box and need to open up the wall wiring to make sure all my connections are sound once I isolate which branch circuits are affected.

I've got a head scrather. In one section of my house a bunch of my LED lights will randomly blink off for a milisecond even when the Insteon dimmer's are at 100% power. In that same section of the house, some of the LED's, when dimmed, will mildly flash/strobe to Insteon communication signals. At first I attributed these dual issues to incomaptible LED's and have swapped out several different LED's without solving the issue. Some LED's showed less symptoms, some more. I then swapped the LED's with known good LED's from other parts of the house without solving the problem. And, the "problem" LED's will work fine in other parts of the house. I've checked the main electrical panels and all the neutral, ground, and line connections seem solid thinking it might be a loose neutral in the panel. Though, maybe this is still the heart of the issue and maybe @Teken, @lilyoyo1or others who seem to be knowledgable in this area can comment. My current theory is I have a rouge Insteon dimmer or KP that is sending out a more powerful or noisy Insteon signal then designed. With over 150 devices and with the issue being somewhat random, solving for this theory is a slow process and has not paid off yet, though still incomplete. Does the braintrust here have experience on what might be causing this issue?

The marketplace is maturing and the product lines are narrowing down to those products that have proven to be profitable with the elimination of those products that have proven to not be profitable. At least they tried these low volume products to see if they could make them profitably. I commend them for stepping up and trying it. I think the marketplace has voted with their dollars showing that not enough people needed the niche items. I have a number of them in my house too and would hate to give up the unique use I've gained by having it. But, of the devices I have, those niche items are less than 2% of the total devices. If your place is similar, I think you can see why a product that sells so little to even power users will likely not be a profitable product.

And, in your view what company has this magic elixer of being able to be the "winner"? And, what is winning anyway. The company is trying to make a profit which is likely their definition of success. While they could end up "winning" which I guess means being the dominant devices in the industry, that isn't necessarily profitable and therefore not necessarily the objective. There are companies that look to be No 1 in an industry by volume and take losses along the way thinking they will eventually leverage that position to make larger profits later. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't. There is a junkyard full of failed companies that thought volume was the secret to success but the business model failed for hundreds of different reasons. There are also companies that look to be No 1 by offering a superior product/service but the product just costs too much and never gains enough volume and the company eventually fails, again for any number of reasons. This happens a lot too. Lastly, is there a limit where there can be only one "winner" in the space? If winning is being hugely profitable, then, no, there isn't. The Smartlabs/Nokia partnership has the necessary ingrediants to be a winner if we are defining that as being hugely profitable. Will they pick the right path to make that happen, maybe, maybe not, we may or may not ever know. Will it be a product that us, on this forum, will want to use for integration? Maybe, maybe not, but that isn't the only path to "winning" being hugely profitable.

Confirmed