Harold

I guess at some point they had to re-open the landfill to fill orders. Or maybe there is a lonely guy buried in a back room frantically fixing 2413's before the end of the fiscal year. Perhaps an effort to open up the 2413's and see if they have been repaired or have alternate innards. If a bunch are different/repaired, I think there may be some issues that need to be explained by SH. I do not think you can sell repaired equipment without notifying buyers that they are not getting original factory retail devices. There is also something odd about the range of build dates. It would be nice if SH did some explanations of what is going on.

The 2413S I got a couple of months back is a 2.4 with a code of 1817. Looking at the post above from LFMc, it would appear that the one I have was made in week 18 in 2017.

I thought I had submitted this piece. Found it odd, that I could not find it. Just tried to make a comment and realized I never submitted it. That was a while ago, and others have gone essentially the same way, but I will just put it on the thread now as long as I have written it, and it may be interesting to some. The idea of a Pi base computer network would seem to be very desirable. The Pi universe is more powerful, more updatable, inexpensive, and more likely to attract code and hardware enthusiasts than any similar system. There are other small computer devices and processors. But overall I would strongly favor the Pi universe. It is easy to stack simple and inexpensive function plug-ins. It should be easy and inexpensive to have custom plug-ins made. Useful ones may well be found online. If UD could port their code to a Pi (operable with a range of Pi's) , it could present a lower hardware cost for UD/SH. Potentially get more knowledgeable people to participate on the new platform relieving pressure on UD services, and under UD management, could provide a site with a variety of devices (with open source submissions) working on the Pi with UD code.This moves the UD code to be independent of devices served. And the Pi series, has pretty much all the storage and code space that you can use. Marketing could potentially sell a series of Pi based devices. I don't know the financial aspect of such a move, but as a sort of generally open source project, it could be very useful. And selling little Pi boxes and kits could be a revenue stream. A whole lot of potential buyers of the system are likely to buy a packaged box from UD just like the existing boxes. But there would also likely be a significant number of hobbyists to advance and maybe support the product. An actual functional, reliable power line interface would be really nice. Maybe a inexpensive Pi zero to scatter around the house for radios. Multiple radio plugins to cover all the desired radio (and powerline) protocols. Code in the Pi. Maybe a couple of device sizes to host the plugins for different user needs. Could be a device working across the range of the various marketed systems. Good way to allow a move from one invested system to another, while having support for both. My perspective. Right now, the revenue I see for UD is selling the interface hardware/software. Just as they do now, but versions of Pi in a box. It is a closed environment now: but everything else is free support. This, of course, absolutely requires keeping commercial selling systems. Manufacture it in China and you should have a decent mark-up. Of course there would still be the issue of various proprietary patents and interfaces. A universal solution may not be doable with other system vendors.

I read the material at SH. It appears to be a dumping effort. I tried some searches to see if there is a replacement product. I did not find any. Price difference is too big for them. UDI also discounted significantly. There might be a new generation of "stuff". I am betting that 2.5 will replace what is left over that eventually sells for $1.99. May be a new UD interface. I am still really annoyed that I got a V2.4 a number of months ago to replace a failed 2413S. This is the fourth one of these things that have broken and had to be replaced. I have not installed the new 2.4. I will take a shot and return the 2.4 when the 2.5 appears. I was seriously annoyed by getting a 2.4. We do not own them; we just rent them !!!

Just got mine. 2.4

Better, but not optimal. I really want a 5. I will know after the weekend. Hope springs eternal.

The person I talked at Insteon definitely said there were 2413 2.5 units. He said I could get 2.4 or 2.5. It would appear they exist but are busy blowing out old inventory.

There is a 2413S 2.5. But you can't specify a 2.5. You may get a 2.4 or a 2.5. They, of course, said that a .4 is just as good as a .5. I would not be surprised if I get a .4 delivered by the Easter Bunny. I just ordered one on the phone. There is a Presidents Day sale expiring today at SmartHome. The site they are using for the sale coupon is being blocked by several pieces of protective software in my PC and router. A discussion ensued. A helpful person manually credited me for the sale price.

My point was, the 2413 is a simple device. Should we expect it to last for more than a year or two. I would. I am at the point where I have to buy the same device for the fourth time. Roughly $320 total for the very same device. Absolutely required for the thousands of dollars spent buying the basic system devices. With no alternative to buy since they have stopped UD from making a similar device. And I would certainly believe that UD would make a much better product. Would we accept our televisions to need replacement every couple of years. A vastly more complex electronic device. Your car, your phone, your home heating system, your computer; and on and on. All vastly more complex than a trivial line interface that has spent years not getting seriously better quickly. It is just annoying. And think about how much money they have made by repeatedly selling the same device that has not been made reliable. It is inexcusable.

I looked at the specs for the 2413 today on the Insteon website. Both interface versions show as 1000+ for links. That + could be the "2000" not yet disclosed. I am going to call them and see if they have anything useful to say about V 2.5. The steady breathing you hear is me not holding my breath. Just out of curiosity, has anyone tried a class action suite against these guys. They have , for a long time, been selling a device well known to be unfit for purpose. This behavior is unacceptable. They have had long term knowledge of faulty design. The solution is readily understood and simple for the manufacturer to fix. They have not generally made the necessary changes in a timely manner and not made a recall to satisfy users of a defective product. The obvious and clearly observable defect is caused by the use of lower price components (generally capacitors) not meeting required specifications that are clearly obvious to an even moderately adept engineer. These electronics should not experience the limited lifetime. It is at odds with electronic device reliability. They are effectively stealing from the customers by requiring repeated purchases of faulty devices once a user is committed to the (small to quite large) proprietary product installation. Stopping the (I presume) agreement with UD to prevent the manufacture of a UD version of the device. Which would have most likely provided a superior device. Again, a specific ploy to consider only device income without consideration of people purchasing system devices to implement complex and extensive device home implementations. These people have spent significant money to be locked into a single device that is the only interface to their products, and regularly fails.

I would not mess with those other things. I suspect they are similar to what they did on the 2412. As long as the other processes get power, they should work the way they are supposed to. They don't care where they got it. In the 2412 they are both direct connections to the transformer.

You are right Brian. I was using a schematic for a 2412. I appear to have mislabeled it when I saved it some time ago. I agree that D7 has to be a Zener. The parts above T1 may be wrong. It looks like a snubber, but it can't snub without different wire destination. Without seeing where everything goes I don't know if using an external source will be useful. If J6 is 12 V, pretty much everything from the bridge rectifiers to the end of the drawing to the right could be bypassed. And that gets rid of most of the problematic caps. If that switcher is making 30V, it gets harder. The drivers for the line and radio interfaces may need that 30V.

I think that the posts above are not following my thoughts on the subject. Perhaps I was not clear. There are 2.5 sources of internal power in the unit. From the power line, a bridge rectifier generates 12 VDC. The 12 VDC then feeds a regulator that generates 5 VDC. These two voltages are used to pretty much provide everything on the board with power. Providing these two voltages from an external source rather than the internal components changes nothing. Assuming. of course, you cut the appropriate existing power traces. The zero crossing detector is a separate circuit fed from the 5V supply. The .5 source I noted above is a circuit that converts 12 VDC to 30 V to operate the interface of the line transmitter and receiver. This is a voltage converter driven by the chip controlling the unit. The 30V source is from a half wave rectifier and regulated by a Zener diode. So the chip is probably not doing anything important on this supply. There is one 470 uf 50V cap in the 30V circuit. If an external 5V and 12V feed is provided (disconnecting the on-board 5V and 12V) , only the components for the charge pump generating the 30V are left. I am not sure that these are among the capacitors that fail. It is simpler if this charge pump is left intact. I do not see any information on how the chip manages this voltage. It is the voltage used for driving the interface to the power line. But it is harder to get a 5V, 12V, 30v external power supply. So, replacing 5V and 12V internal supplies leave only a possible failure prone cap in the 30V circuits. I need to do a bit more work and go back to see if the 30V circuit cap is on the list of points of failure. But, overall, this would seriously simplify the repair process. Minimal dealing with tiny wires and plated through holes. The cost should be similar to buying (plus shipping) all the caps, but seriously reduce the aggravation of the soldering and handling of replacing a bunch of caps. I believe the schematic I am looking at does not completely match the current product; but it is probably close.

I had an unsuccessful repair a while back. My thoughts have returned to the 2413 issue. A bit of looking around shows that an enclosed 5/12 VDC power supply with line cord can be found for under $10. That is around what I paid for parts in my repair effort. It there any reason not to simply cut the traces/wires from the internal power supply to the PLM active parts and attach the external supply? Simple and easy.

Unfortunately the procedure for resetting ID an psw also appears to delete the IP address the router expects. Now I have a bigger problem to get a new IP into the ISY.

Every time I turn around, it's something else. So I go to replace the first switch to buzz and not drive the load. It is a 2486S. I have a bunch of them. They don't make them anymore, but I have several spares from uncompleted expansion of the network. It appears that it is replaced by the 2487S which is dual band. Smarthome has removed the PDF manual. I found a wiki for it there, but if anyone know where a PDF manual for the device can be found. Searching was not productive. I would like a PDF so it is in a similar format to the 2483S which would make it easier to compare for differences. I know I am beating on a seriously sick horse; but. Every one of the devices that the PLM says it can't communicate with are the (2486S/WH6) KeypadLinc Relay v.33. Most of the rest of these devices are experiencing failures in scenes they belong in. Some buttons work; others not. Mostly it seems that they are behaving as if they were a single switch connected to the load. Today, I tried again to restore and refresh the devices at the heart of things. Sometimes when I tell UD to write to them, it seems to do that. But the task just ends with no errors or information. Just for jollies, I used UD to change the state of the light (same type device, not behaving properly). I clicked off; the light want off. I clicked on; light went on. Repeated as needed. This particular switch has decided it is not 8 button, but a two pole switch. It has no understanding of the B button. Combine that with what I said earlier that two of these will talk to each other, but the PLM had them marked as inaccessible. The only devices that seem to be working are ones that are either a single switch on the load and dimmers (only two in the system). I use very few dimming circuits. I have always had the lights is lights view. I also verified that the PLM and an access point are on different sides of the split phase power. I had two access points on the whole time in my office with the PLM. When I built the house, I had my office wired with alternate outlets being on a different "phase" for this sort of reason. There is something here that is not right. I have no clue what it is. But experimentation shows that the PLM's conclusion about communications is not a hardware fault in any of the devices I have tested (4). The devices can communicate with each other just fine. That does not make any sense to me (but in this area that is not all that hard). You guys that have been responding here - can you look at this post and put the thinking caps on. What is going on!! Please involve anyone you can think might be able to help. Michel's work with my machine did not appear to find any apparent problems.

Is it possible (though it would be deeply stupid) that my old devices are incompatible to the new PLM? My devices: (2486S/WH6) KeypadLinc Relay v.33 (2476S) SwitchLinc Relay W/ Sense v.37 (2486DWH8) KeypadLinc Dimmer 8 Button v.2D (2486S/WH6) KeypadLinc Relay v.36

I have been trying to think about what is happening. And reading a whole bunch of presumably relevant threads. Below is what I have now considered significant events and behavior from day one. I am hoping that this will generate some ideas. I toss these out for considerations by you guys that actually understand these things. First - The old PLM failed. That started this whole thing. I had noticed some switches (none of those are the primary object of this discussion). It may have been the failing PLM doing strange things. Repair failed so new PLM attached to ISY and plugged in. If I understand correctly, this can cause the ISY to talk to incorrect addresses in the PLM and vice versa. Can we assume this took place? I have restored the PLM several times. I have restored all devices as a whole and individually. Except for wireless remote controls. I set these to "don't write" while doing restores. The remotes apparently still function as expected As do some of the other attached Insteon devices. I turned off the ISY and unplugged the PLM, and then repowered everything in the order specified for a new PLM. Probably too late. Four Insteon relay switches are flagged as not being able to communicate in the UD application. Now here is something I noticed when getting ready to replace one switch. There is a set of three switches in a group. They each control a set of three three lighting circuit from their 8 button front panels. One of these started this exercise. It is the power source for the range hood lights. The lights were for a long time CFL, but several months ago I put in Cree LED bulbs. One day the lights would not light and the switch made a loud buzzing noise whenever it was turned on. I removed the two LED bulbs and put in an incandescent bulb. Same results. No light, loud buzzing in the control. My initial thought was that I had a triac based dimmer in there; but it is a relay and should not have cared about the load. This switch is one that UD says is not communicating. The other two switches are odd. One of them simply reverted to believing it was only a single pole switch. The top and bottom two buttons still control the directly attached load. The third switch still operates as an 8 button and controls ceiling lights. It is also a device showing as not communicating with the ISY. The interesting part here, is that the range hood control switch can still control the ceiling lights via that third switch. If the ceiling lights are controlled from the third switch (it is powering the ceiling lights) the lights are controlled AND the correct button in the range hood controller is activated and deactivated. These two switches not talking to the ISY, seem to be perfectly happy talking to each other. Something is not right, but I am no longer convinced it is an actual failed switch. I also looked at yet another switch that buzzes if I press the button for the device it will in the future control. Nothing currently connected. I buzzes when I do that. Other buttons work fine. That constitutes everything I can think of about the ongoing effort. In one place so the chain of events is clearer.

Thanks. I did try restore several times. When I get back to it I will run a log. Like I said, I have a real feeling that I have multiple failed devices. Probably caused by a power outage a while back.

Just a minor update if anyone was following this. Still not working correctly. Initial problem; I had the wrong cable connected to the PLM. Duhh. But I had re positioned/rewired everything in the room. So it was not that stupid. There are still problems. I have several devices that just will not talk to the PLM. I hate the idea, but I may have at least 4 bad devices. That seems excessive. Michel spent quite a bit of time with me (I had already correct the cable thing). He went through a bunch of things. Took over my PC. Can't fool me; he has done this before. I frequently could not follow what he was doing because his fingers are that fast. Not to mention him reall really understanding things. Impressive. I have not been back to this because other crises have intruded. Broken dishwasher, and I applied a "harmless" program to stop MS from trying to install win 10 without me agreeing. Worked on my machine; really hosed my wife's machine. Not on my computer as much since I am sleeping in the garage.

That seems like what I should do. Nothing that I could try in that link did anything useful. Done.

I tried Telnet yesterday. No joy. Jerlands - I think you are confusing the green lights on the Ethernet port I mentioned with the front panel lights. I have rebooted many times. Two lights are on. Power and Rx. Should have included that info. I will look at the link.

I am still getting nowhere. The ISY is a 994i/IR-PRO. Serial 0013xxx. I tried resetting the user/password to default three times. admin/admin still did not work. I had several admin console icons on the desktop and start menu. Managed to get rid of them and went to your announcement of version 4.2.22 (what I had loaded, I believe). Opened console from that post in case I had mismatched versions. A comment for UD - it would be nice if these things could generate more meaningful messages. And if a release level issue is causing a problem, the console would notify the user that that was a problem. I have cleared cache repeatedly after each attempt. I tried setting new name/password but that never worked. The only thing I can use in the console when it loads is the configuration page. I have filled all the info out several times. No results. The next time it is empty again. I have tried to tell the little link finder application what the IP address of my ISY is. It always says it did not find the ISY at startup, and when I input the IP it always returns a message that it is an invalid URL. It has been doing that for a very long time. The ISY is set with a static IP address. This still seems to be working. My router sees it as does arp. Unless someone has some magic for me to use, I could possibly do a bare metal reset. But I am really not happy with that solution as the next step. The ISY just does not seem to be willing to talk to my PC. I have tried different cables and switch ports, I don't have a spare power supply to test that. The 2 green lights on the ISY are on on. Only the one on the right is blinking. Seems to be trying to do something; but not successful. The switch has one light blinking, the other not on. I believe the right light on the switch is just displaying LAN speed of the connection. The ISY appears to be 100 mb.

Thank you.

I have had to replace the PLC. It has been a long time since it was working and I have forgotten how to access the console. I can not find a record of the information (once resolved, I will make a better file containing this information). Could someone please explain how to access the admin and other functions without knowing the existing ID/password?