scansbar Posted October 12, 2013 Posted October 12, 2013 Hello, I have a problem with my UPS (APC 1500) causing problems with my insteon when attached though a filterlinc to my wall socket. It seems that max hops left fluctuates between 0 and 1....mostly one but in return I have a program that shuts the lights after a certain time and usually leaves one or two on. If I remove my UPS from the wall the max hops left is 2. I also plugged the UPS directly to the wall and the max hops is 0. I tried another filterlinc and it seems to help but doesn't remain at max hops 2 as unplugging the device. I'm out of ideas on what I can do aside from trying to daisy chain two filterlincs and then having the UPS attached but it doesn't sound nor look right. My setup is the computer and UPS are in a dedicated area so I can't exactly move the UPS to another socket. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. On a side not I have at least 9 dual band lights in the room, 2 dual band switches so I'm assuming they are repeating a signal but obviously not good enough. Thank you for your time in advance. I really and truly appreciate any help. Take care Mark
Brian H Posted October 12, 2013 Posted October 12, 2013 Do you see any signal difference. If the Filterlinc is installed with no load on the bottom filtered outlet? The front outlet is not filtered at all. I have seen reports that the Filterlinc does load down the power line signals by a small amount.
ELA Posted October 13, 2013 Posted October 13, 2013 Hello Scansbar, As Brian suggested, have you tried the filterlinc connected to the circuit ( with no load ), and UPS disconnected. This to see if the filterlinc alone is enough load to cause an issue? While the Filterlinc alone does absorb a small amount of signal, it alone should not cause issues unless the communications situation is already very marginal. Thus one would expect that if you connect the Filterlinc to the circuit, with the UPS disconnected, that it should not make the communications any worse. When doing communications reliability testing it is wise to run as many test samples as you can for each situation as conditions can very over time. You do not want to make decisions based on a very few samples only. RE: Your side note: " I have at least 9 dual band lights in the room, 2 dual band switches " . That represents a large Insteon load on the power line in that area. That makes me suspicious that you may always be a little marginal in that room, on the power line, to some devices, even without the UPS. Keep in mind that the power line may very likely be marginal with so many devices. You may be taking advantage of the dual band aspect of the mesh network and that may be resulting in a increased hop count. I would not be too worried about the hops remaining going from 2 to 1 for that reason. What matters in the end is when hops remaining go to zero and retries no longer help. In other words: With the filterlinc in place , isolating the UPS, do you still have lights failing to turn off?
scansbar Posted October 13, 2013 Author Posted October 13, 2013 "Do you see any signal difference. If the Filterlinc is installed with no load on the bottom filtered outlet? The front outlet is not filtered at all. I have seen reports that the Filterlinc does load down the power line signals by a small amount." Actually I do see a different when it's plugged in with no load....so that leads me to believe it is doing its job as its the same when I have the UPS plugged into it. Hmmm what to do.
scansbar Posted October 14, 2013 Author Posted October 14, 2013 As Brian suggested, have you tried the filterlinc connected to the circuit ( with no load ), and UPS disconnected. This to see if the filterlinc alone is enough load to cause an issue? ---Yes this added to the issue. UPS straight to load, hops left 0 UPS plugged into Filterlinc, hops left 1 UPS not plugged into Filterlinc, hops left 1 UPS nor Filterlinc plugged in, hops left 2 While the Filterlinc alone does absorb a small amount of signal, it alone should not cause issues unless the communications situation is already very marginal. Thus one would expect that if you connect the Filterlinc to the circuit, with the UPS disconnected, that it should not make the communications any worse. When doing communications reliability testing it is wise to run as many test samples as you can for each situation as conditions can very over time. You do not want to make decisions based on a very few samples only. RE: Your side note: " I have at least 9 dual band lights in the room, 2 dual band switches " . That represents a large Insteon load on the power line in that area. That makes me suspicious that you may always be a little marginal in that room, on the power line, to some devices, even without the UPS. I thought the more the merrier Keep in mind that the power line may very likely be marginal with so many devices. You may be taking advantage of the dual band aspect of the mesh network and that may be resulting in a increased hop count. I would not be too worried about the hops remaining going from 2 to 1 for that reason. What matters in the end is when hops remaining go to zero and retries no longer help. In other words: With the filterlinc in place , isolating the UPS, do you still have lights failing to turn off? Yes I sometimes have one or two lights that randomly don't turn off.
scansbar Posted October 14, 2013 Author Posted October 14, 2013 Do you see any signal difference. If the Filterlinc is installed with no load on the bottom filtered outlet? The front outlet is not filtered at all.I have seen reports that the Filterlinc does load down the power line signals by a small amount. Actually I do see a different when it's plugged in with no load....so that leads me to believe it is doing its job as its the same when I have the UPS plugged into it. Hmmm what to do.
scansbar Posted October 14, 2013 Author Posted October 14, 2013 Hello Scansbar, As Brian suggested, have you tried the filterlinc connected to the circuit ( with no load ), and UPS disconnected. This to see if the filterlinc alone is enough load to cause an issue? While the Filterlinc alone does absorb a small amount of signal, it alone should not cause issues unless the communications situation is already very marginal. Thus one would expect that if you connect the Filterlinc to the circuit, with the UPS disconnected, that it should not make the communications any worse. When doing communications reliability testing it is wise to run as many test samples as you can for each situation as conditions can very over time. You do not want to make decisions based on a very few samples only. RE: Your side note: " I have at least 9 dual band lights in the room, 2 dual band switches " . That represents a large Insteon load on the power line in that area. That makes me suspicious that you may always be a little marginal in that room, on the power line, to some devices, even without the UPS. Keep in mind that the power line may very likely be marginal with so many devices. You may be taking advantage of the dual band aspect of the mesh network and that may be resulting in a increased hop count. I would not be too worried about the hops remaining going from 2 to 1 for that reason. What matters in the end is when hops remaining go to zero and retries no longer help. In other words: With the filterlinc in place , isolating the UPS, do you still have lights failing to turn off? The filterlinc added to the issue. UPS straight to load, hops left 0 UPS plugged into Filterlinc, hops left 1 UPS not plugged into Filterlinc, hops left 1 UPS nor Filterlinc plugged in, hops left 2 I thought the more devices the merrier Yes I sometimes have one or two lights that randomly don't turn off even when using the filterlinc.
LeeG Posted October 17, 2013 Posted October 17, 2013 If plugging in a single FilterLinc drops the Hops Left from 2 to 1 a significant drop in powerline signal when adding that one device is occurring. I am surprised by that unless there are already many loads on that powerline circuit besides the FilterLinc. What else in on that particular circuit?
scansbar Posted October 17, 2013 Author Posted October 17, 2013 If plugging in a single FilterLinc drops the Hops Left from 2 to 1 a significant drop in powerline signal when adding that one device is occurring. I am surprised by that unless there are already many loads on that powerline circuit besides the FilterLinc. What else in on that particular circuit? Hi, When I did the testing I removed every device from the wall sockets and just left the Filterlinc plugged in. Aside from that I have 9 Dual Band LED in the ceiling. Thank you again.
LeeG Posted October 17, 2013 Posted October 17, 2013 Are the nine LED bulbs on the same circuit the FilterLinc is plugged into?
scansbar Posted October 17, 2013 Author Posted October 17, 2013 Are the nine LED bulbs on the same circuit the FilterLinc is plugged into? When you mean circuit are you referring to the same 120V leg of my house? If so then yes. I made sure to have a couple of access points on both legs as well as devices. Thank you again.
LeeG Posted October 17, 2013 Posted October 17, 2013 I was asking if the Insteon LED bulbs are on the same breaker and what else may also be on that same breaker.
scansbar Posted October 19, 2013 Author Posted October 19, 2013 I was asking if the Insteon LED bulbs are on the same breaker and what else may also be on that same breaker. Ok I finally got around to it and it seems that there are no more devices other than what I mentioned on that circuit breaker as the breaker is only for one room. Thank you.
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