Early Revision 2456S3 Pulsing On and Off Fixed

[Brian H]

I have had two Revision 1.3, 2456S3 Appliancelincs start pulsing On/Off at a one second cycle.

They are both original ones I got in 2006. So I am not faulting them for a short life.
Date Code: 0628

It was a bad C2 {Green Nover 470uf/35VDC} capacitor, in both of them. The one yesterday had a swollen top.
After changing the C2 in each one. They again where operational.
I would say the old 2856S3B Icon On-Off module would also be the same. As it has the same PCB in it.

Few points:
I would look at D3 the 30 volt Zener diode just to the right of C2. That is the other known problem component.
Both the ones I reworked where OK but the bottom side of the PCB was darkened under D3. Yes it gets quite warm.

C2 gets warm in normal operation. My thoughts are fairly high ripple current. It is a half wave power supply.

I used a quality Panasonic FC cap as a replacement. 470uf/35VDC. If I chose again I may have went with a 50VDC.
As D3 in mine was on the high side tolerance and there was about 33VDC on C2.

Use extreme care if you decide to do power on voltage measurements.
The +30 Volts supply, D3 +side, C2 +side and the +5 volts of the logic supply. Is directly connected to the AC Hot Line Pin.
All regulation and current limiting are on the Neutral side of the power input.
 

[Brian H]

One thing I forgot. They where still in use from 2006. So other components maybe close to failing.

[Teken]

Brian,

 

As always your insight and wealth of knowledge on the rework is greatly appreciated. I am wondering if this issue you had with your Appliance Lincs are similar or related to what I am seeing here.

 

I picked up several dozen used APL on line a number of years ago.

 

When I upgraded the ISY several cycles ago I noticed that some of the APL's would show a red exclamation mark? Doing a query on the device would restore the device back on the UI. Selecting the On / Off sometimes had mixed results where the units would indeed turn On / Off.

 

Afterwards the UI would show a red exclamation mark??

 

This problem is repeatable on several of the units but none of them do the On / Off you have indicated above. I have plugged in about 45 of these APL's into the same outlet so its not a noise issue or location.

 

I have not added any of these devices back into my Insteon network as I am under construction at the moment.

[Brian H]

Even new. My 2456S3 hardware 1.3, FW v.28. Would occasionally just get strange.

I can go weeks with the 3:00AM Query having no issues. Then a random few just failed the test.

 

I am not sure but I think there maybe a bug in the v.28 firmware.

I know I could render them inoperable when using an X10 scene and sending an exact set of commands. Change the order of the commands and it didn't happen. Only was if an X10 Scene was in it. Just a Primary X10 Address didn't seem to trigger the odd behavior.

 

http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/2534-obsure-bugquirk-disables-all-my-modules/

 

My failure was a cycling the load On and Off at a one second cycle. The first one I didn't catch when it started. I estimate my LED bulb and the relay in the Appliancelinc. Cycled about 1800 times. An unstable power supply could cause other issues I may have not seen.