bad dimmer switch

[jgorm]

Add one more to my many failures. This switch is about 2 weeks old. I turned it on by the switch and it buzzed, turned on, and went to half dim. The green light at the bottom of the dimmer lights was double blinking and the switch is non responsive. About a minute later the switch beeps and the incandescent light starts blinking. Now the switch is non responsive still I still have 2 other broken switches to send back to smart home. I'm at about a 30% replacement rate since July.

[Generalf]

Hello jgorm,

 

I have experienced the the same or at least similar issue this week with one of my dimmers. The dimmer is about 3month old and is only dimming 120watt of regular bulbs.

We no reason it started to flickers when turnin ON, did nmot respond or did some really weird things. I have also noticed that the lowest led turned into RED which did not even know that this is possible.unfortunatel i havent found anything telling me what this red led (usually white) is about.

I restored the device several times but it did not help, made the factory reset and it looks its working know but I am a little frustated since I dont know what is wrong with the switch or my isy.

 

Another regular swichlinc is not reacting anymore as it is supposed to. mobilinc or the isy admin donsole is saying it is e.g. ON, it is actually OFF.

I noticed this odd behaviour after updateing my isy to 4.1.1 and later to 4.1.2.. but after downgrading to 4.0.5 it is still not like it was before.

I posted this issue and basically I got the feedback that the switch is probably bad which I kind of disagree. Why should a switch go bad after not even one year??

[Brian H]

Symptoms indicate both of you have SwitchLincs that have failed.

Maybe the power supply area. Multiple symptoms is commonly the power supply area.

 

Why in such a such a short time.

Hard to say.

I suspect a part in them is failing. Could be a bad run of parts. Engineer didn't leave a safety margin when designing them. Chinese manufacturer used counterfeit parts and they looked authentic.

 

I had a 2456S3 ApplianceLinc fail in seven months. Smarthome exchanged it with no problems and even paid shipping. My thoughts are they knew that production run had issues but would never admit it.

[jgorm]

Add one more to the list. This brings my total to 5 out of 13 switches that are all less than 6 months old. The most recent was only a few weeks old, probably only switched 5 times total. Same symptoms. Fails to respond to switch inputs, do a reset and it turns on, lights flicker, beep stays on, dimmer light indicator blinks, and then the light wont turn off. I'm starting to get worried that the warranty will expire and this failure rate of roughly 1 switch every other month will continue.

[oberkc]

I think you should consider the possibility that there is something about the condition of your power (surges, over-voltages, spikes, noise) that is causing these failures. While I am sure there are plenty around here that will complain about insteon "quality", 5/13 is absurd for the first six months. Something strange is going on somewhere.

 

Is it possible you have a wiring issue that is causing a gross distortion to your AC waveform?

[jgorm]

I guess anything is possible, but I have no issues with anything else. The house was built in 91 and has 200A service, totally full of breakers. Pretty much every room is on it's own circuit. I have a large computer network (actually 3 of them) and have no issues with any of that stuff.

[jgorm]

So my new 8 button switch is acting up now. I shot a video to show some of the weird issues. I'm questioning the integrity of the wiring. Is it possible that I have the load and hot reversed? Would the switch respond to signals if they were switched? Could ground issues cause problems? The flickering of the lights was weird because not all of them on the circuit flickered this time. I'm wondering if there is a frequency issue with the power.

[Brian H]

Did the new one ever work correctly?

If the Line and Load where reversed. It probably would not work. You can always disconnect the Load wire and cap it off temporarily and see if the switch still powers up.

You did have a real neutral power wire in the switch box?

The white wire you used was not screwed to one of the original switches terminals?

[jgorm]

I'm pretty sure it's wired correctly, but with multiple 3 and 4 way switches everywhere, it's possible that I messed up. I have wired 100s of things, subpanels, 220v shop wiring, etc. If there was a question I would check for the hot wire with a vom. The 8 button switch seemed to work just fine after I shot that video. The previous 8 button worked pretty good except that it would flash all the lights if you dimmed it. Not all the time, just every 10 min or so it would freak out and they would all blink full bright then off, then go back to the dimmed setting. Not pleasant when we were chilling on the patio at night.

[oberkc]

I vaguely recall once switching line and load. My recollection is that the switch can appear (leds on) but act very strangely. If you think this is a pssibility, best to confirm independently with a volt meter.

[shannong]

Ouch. That's a high failure rate, indeed. Sucks you're dealing with that. I just had my first failure last week on a KPL out of about 140 devices.

 

Since the failure rate is so high I would suspect something local contributing to the issue such as power surges/slumps or switching load/line. The surges could be dirty power to the house or possibility generated within. Any problematic high powered loads such as 220V motors, welder, etc that is in the home?

 

For dirty power to the home, you can install a whole-house surge suppressor at the panel which would also benefit your computers, TVs, etc. A quality suppressor runs about $250 w/o installation. While simple, 200A is a lot of juice to the point of lethal and might be worth the dollars to have it installed by a licensed electrician. It would be a good first step in troubleshooting and resolution without wasting dollars since it'll protect your other equipment.

 

Are you having odd behaviors and failures also on simple two-way (one switch) setups or only on 3-way (or more) installations?

 

Have you had successive failures at the same switch after replacing it?

[jgorm]

I've had failures on regular switches and previous 3 way switches. The 8 button was the first time there was a 2nd failure in the same location, but the switch beside it failed too. I had another switch fail last night. This was a non dimmer switch. Lasted about 2 months and I noticed it was stuck on last night and non responsive. I don't have any of my welders or big 220v tools hooked up yet. I'm still building my workshop. None of my other 100s of electronics are having any issues.