Main button on keypad dimmer not working,red LED flashing on 2477D

[RF_Burns]

Hi,

Not sure if I'm posting this to the right sub-form, but here goes.

Moved in to a new house this past summer and installed all new Insteon dimmers with a new ISY994. There is a three-way circuit controlling a ceiling light in the living room which I installed two 2334-222 keypad dimmers.  Ganged in the same box with one of the keypad dimmers is a 2477D which controlled the deck lights. Almost immediately after the installation, the keypad dimmers started acting up.  The ceiling light would randomly not come ON or go OFF or goto the Dim levels I had programmed into the buttons.  The light would also randomly flicker or change dim levels when neither switch was being touched.  The keypad dimmer that was actually supplying the power to the ceiling light would also randomly emit noises, almost like a peizo sounding unit inside it was going off.  I finally just pulled the Set switch out to disable it.

So Christmas day I finally have time to look at it.  I double checked all the wiring and the programming through the ISY.  I tried restoring the device, but that took several attempts before completed the restore without an error.  Now everything worked again but the Main button would not turn the dimmer ON but it would turn it off.  I finally rewired it so the opposite keypad dimmer was powering the light.  Everything seems to work now, but at one point during my troubleshooting, the 2477D flashed red and the fuzzing buzz noise came from one of the two ganged switches.

I programmed everything to the dim levels I wanted and all seemed good.

I also took some time to program a couple other keypad dimmers, one of which also shares a box with a 2477D controlling the kitchen light.  Next day while entertaining, the 2477D went crazy.  The kitchen light which has operated perfectly until now was randomly changing dim levels and the dimmer was buzzing and flashing a red light.  The living room light started the same random thing at completely different times.  Of course everyone started saying the house must be posessed.  The dining room light did the same thing, although not while everyone was in there eating.

There are no ISY programs for any of these switches, just keypads with dim levels,

Any idea whats happening here?  I've looked around and all I found was Red LED shows a Comm error. but why is there a Comm error when no commands are being transmitted.  The random dimming happens even when no buttons have been pressed to send a commnd to change a dim level.  The random dim level changing happens more often than the Buzz noise.

 

Any help is appreciated

 

thanks

 

Bruce

 

There is

 

[stusviews]

What is the load connected to the dimmers?

[RF_Burns]

two 60 watt incandescent lamps in both the livingroom and kitchen light fixtures.

[RF_Burns]

Just after I wrote the above reply, I walked into the kitchen and I could not turn ON the kitchen light using the 2477D which powers it.  I walked across the kitchen to keypad link which has control buttons on it for that light and was able to turn it ON.

Walked back to the 2477D to turn it OFF, the LEDs seemed to ramp down, but the light hung then went OFF without ramping down.

[Brian H]

Have you tried a power cycle reset?

By pulling the Air Gap Switch out for at least ten seconds. Then pushing it back to its normal position?

Just be careful. If you push the Air Gap Switch all the way in. It will be factory reset.

[Techman]

If all else fails you may want to try a factory reset on one of the devices to see if that eliminates the problem. Have you had any recent power surges or lightning, etc. ?

[RF_Burns]

Is there any difference between pulling the Air Gap and just turning off the breaker for a few seconds?

 

Seems to be any switch, 2477 or keypad dimmer,  being controlled by a keypad dimmer has issues. I have a number of 2477D's that are just locally controlled or though the ISY programs and they seem fine.

[Techman]

The air gap removes power from the switch, same as turning off the breaker. but does not reset the firmware of the device.

 

A factory reset rewrites the device firmware to factory defaults.

 

Are you sure the switches are correctly wired. Do you have a white neutral wire connected to each device?

[Brian H]

If you have no older Switchlinc Relay modules. This does not apply.

The original hardware Switchlinc relay models had no Air Gap Switch and if you tried to pull it out to cycle the power. You broke the Switchlinc Relay.

[RF_Burns]

We left the old ISY and Insteon devices at the old house and purchased all new devices and a new ISY994 for this house.

I have a couple of Switchlinc wall switch for the garage flourescent lamps, otherwise all are 2477D wall switch dimmers or 2334-222 keypad dimmers.

 

I'll do a refresh to all the units that are giving issues tonight. I still have some 2477 dimmers that are mostly controlled by ISY programs, these seem to be still working.

 

However any wallswitch dimmer or keypad dimmer with links to other keypads seem to have issues now.  Strange that the rocker switch on the 2477D connot control itself properly.

[RF_Burns]

I just thought of something..... when I firms installed this system into our new home, I used the Office computer in the basement to program the links and ISY.  When I started troubleshoot the issue with the keypad link, I started off using the Office computer, but soon tired of running up and down the stairs so I switched to one of my laptops.

 

So the question is, does the ISY console thing save the link connections locally on the computer, or is it read from all the devices every time I go on-line with the ISY?  Judging by the amount of time it takes to update the programming in a device, it must store this info on the computer, or maybe in the ISY?

 

If so, I've used my laptop to program the old ISY and Insteon system at the previous house and that may have fouled up all the programming in every switch I made changes to in the new house.

 

Can anyone enlighten me on this?

 

thanks and Happy New Year!

[LeeG]

The functional link information is stored in the Insteon devices and PLM.  A record of those links is stored in the ISY for Restore Device(s) and Restore Modem functions.  A Backup ISY file is stored on the device running the Admin Console.

 

The speed of updating a device depends on age of device.  Older devices are read/written one byte at a time.  Takes a minimum of 17 Insteon commands to write a new link record.   The newer I2CS devices that started rolling out in March 2012 use a single Insteon command to read/write a link record.  Speed of the ISY is not really a factor.

[Brian H]

OH yes. My old I1 and I2 modules take extremely long to do anything with compared to the I2CS ones

Having the Event Viewer in level 3 running. When doing something with a I1 or I2 shows lots of message. While I2CS frequently is one message.

[stusviews]

I believe i2 and i2CS are equally fast, but that i2CS has greater security. The slower protocol is i1.

[Brian H]

I2 and I2CS should be the same. My error was not indicating my early I2 modules are not 100% I2 compatible and the ISY994i automatically drops back to I1.

[RF_Burns]

Finally got everything working.  I did a reset on the the 2477D controlling the kitchen light, then a restore from the ISY console.  Everything seems to work so far including the living room and dining room lights (although I haven't had them ON except to test).  Maybe there was extra traffic caused by the kichen lights 2477D which affected the other lights?