KPL odd behaviour after power failure

[andrew77]

Hi guys;

 

Had a power outage a few days ago. 

Everything seems to be good except one KPL

 

It remembers some programs, scenes, but not all.

 

It also has forgotten the button groupings but I might have fixed that.

 

I also cant seem to write to it.

 

 

I tried to Restore Device to no avail.

I tried to air gap as well.

Any ideas?

 

Drew

[Teken]

Hi guys;

 

Had a power outage a few days ago. 

Everything seems to be good except one KPL

 

It remembers some programs, scenes, but not all.

 

It also has forgotten the button groupings but I might have fixed that.

 

I also cant seem to write to it.

 

 

I tried to Restore Device to no avail.

I tried to air gap as well.

Any ideas?

 

Drew

 

I would hard reset the device then perform a restore device and report back success / failure.

[andrew77]

Hi Teken;

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

When you say hard reset do you mean to pull the air gap tab out for 10 seconds and then hold the tab in for 5 seconds until it flashes?

[Teken]

Hi Teken;

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

When you say hard reset do you mean to pull the air gap tab out for 10 seconds and then hold the tab in for 5 seconds until it flashes?

 

Yes . . .

[andrew77]

Hi Teken

 

So I hard reset the KPL.

When I try to restore is I get a comm failure

 

Not sure where to go now.

 

Drew

[Teken]

Remove the loads from the KPL and try again. Also your Insteon network is confirmed bridged / coupled per the 2413S PLM users guide right?

 

 

Ideals are peaceful - History is violent

[andrew77]

Sorry for being such a noob

 

When you say remove the loads, do you want me to physically disconnect the wires from the KPL or remove the links to the KPL in the ISY gui?

[Teken]

Hello Andrew,

 

No apologies needed we all had the same questions at some point in time. Please remove the bulbs (loads) from the fixture and see if you can select the restore device option.

 

If that doesn't work while the bulbs are out of the fixture delete the KPL and add it back into the ISY Series Controller. Keep in mind I am also assuming you have confirmed proper coupling / bridging of your Insteon network which is explained in the 2413S PLM users guide.

[andrew77]

Hi Teken

 

Your advice is working. Thank you

 

For some reason power outages are happening more this last few weeks

Driving me crazy.

 

Little things like I have to reset a scene that used to light an LED to signify a scene was on.

 

Just damage control now. Easier to deal with when you know how to fix it.

 

Drew

[Teken]

Hi Teken

 

Your advice is working. Thank you

 

For some reason power outages are happening more this last few weeks

Driving me crazy.

 

Little things like I have to reset a scene that used to light an LED to signify a scene was on.

 

Just damage control now. Easier to deal with when you know how to fix it.

 

Drew

 

For the benefit of others can you describe what you were seeing and what solution was used to correct the situation?

[andrew77]

Sure.

After repeated power failures my KPLs were not fully functioning.

Some scenes and programs were fine whereas others were not.

 

Trying to just Restore the device didn't work.

 

I took the load (removed the actual bulbs from the fixtures) out and deleted the KPL from the ISY GUI

Rediscovered the KPL

Reprogrammed all the scenes back into it.

 

Works great again.

 

Thank you again.

[Techman]

I've had similar problems with KPL's after a power failure. I did a factory reset on the KPL then a restore device which resolved the issues.

[stusviews]

It's not the outage that causes the problem, it's the surge thar occurs when power is restored, even more so if power goes out and back severl times. The best solution is a whole house surge supressor.

[Techman]

It's not the outage that causes the problem, it's the surge thar occurs when power is restored, even more so if power goes out and back severl times. The best solution is a whole house surge supressor.

 

Agreed, it's the power surge that corrupts the device's eprom

[Teken]

For the purpose edification: Members should realize surge events are not isolated or come only from the power line. The majority of micro surges come from with in the home and the most common appliances that cause them are:

 

- Furnace

- Air Conditioners

- Sump Pumps

- Fridge / Freezers

 

People should also realize there are six types of SPD / TVSS surge arresters available on the market and serve different purposes. For residential use only four of them are used or applied in the market.

 

- Type 1 Primary: This device is installed at the meter base where the POCO line enters. This protects every thing down stream.

 

- Type 2 Secondary: This device is installed at the electrical panel. This protects every thing down stream.

 

- Type 3 Secondary: These devices are considered point of use. They can be a power strip, surge outlet, UPS, etc

 

In all cases people should realize that all three types must be used to ensure the most protection and coverage. Type 1 & 2 SPD / TVSS normally have a higher *Let Through* which is based on the UL 1449 3rd Edition which is rated as 330, 400, 500 volts.

 

This means the two above devices are designed for very large surge / spike events. Anything below that threshold will not be filtered or stopped. This is why Type 3 secondary SPD / TVSS devices must be employed because they will either shunt to ground, fail, or absorb lower surge events.

 

In all cases you should fully understand and realize that besides a surge / spike event. More homes are damaged by lulls / sag (brown outs) than a surge event in North America.

 

No surge protector will help you in a voltage sag event, none.

 

This is why a UPS is employed for critical systems in the home, business, etc. Keep in mind a typical UPS device does not provide the next level of protection which is regulated power and frequency. The next level of protection is the use of isolation transformers which not only isolate your equipment from the POCO but provides true 1:1 120 VAC power.

 

Lastly, none of the above will do you any good if the homes electrical ground is not sound and presents a resistance of less than 25 ohms.

 

The most effective ground is the use of a Ufer grounding system which uses the entire basement slab as the means to create earth ground and dissipate voltage.  

 

At the end of the day a layered approach should be used and employed to ensure the most protection. Many people are not made of money so some of the devices listed above simply can not be purchased. In those cases basic things can be done which is to leave infrequent used devices unplugged.

 

Or turning off the breakers to isolated circuits in the home while away or during low use. There is a vast amount of information that could be written about this topic but I wanted to present just the most basics for those interested.

 

P.S.

 

It should be noted that some of the most damaging electrical surges / spikes come into the home via the telephone line, cable, SAT TV. When lightning strikes the EMF caused by such an event can *induce* enough voltage in the air to be transmitted into a homes wiring.

[apostolakisl]

Teken, nice post.  

 

However, it is pretty tough to put surge suppressor on every Insteon device.

 

Myself, I have the type 2 as you listed above, plus I have my main rack on its own local suppressor as well as a handful of other devices around the house.  

 

Do you have a full foundation grounding at your house?  I have read where very sensitive sites do that like radio stations (especially when connected directly to the broadcast tower) and other very high end commercial electronic installations.  Never heard of a private residence doing that.  My understanding is that the entire building gets a circumferential placement of ground rods every few feet all tied together and then to the building.

 

I just had a power flicker 2 days ago and it seemed to kill one of my kpls.  The thing was dead, wouldn't control the local load, pushing the buttons did not make them light up, and ISY couldn't talk to it.  It did have the light background glow so I knew it wasn't totally fried.  I tried power cycling with the reset tab a bunch of times and tried combining that with factory resets to no avail.  I uninstalled it and then bench tested it and after a couple more power cycles it came back to life.  Then I installed it back in its proper location and it wouldn't work again.  I benched it again and it came back to life.  Installed it again and then it did work.  Go figure.  I did a restore from ISY on it following and now it is behaving normally.  Not sure what the root of this issue is, but I'm guessing its days are numbered. 

[Teken]

Teken, nice post.  

 

However, it is pretty tough to put surge suppressor on every Insteon device.

 

Myself, I have the type 2 as you listed above, plus I have my main rack on its own local suppressor as well as a handful of other devices around the house.  

 

Do you have a full foundation grounding at your house?  I have read where very sensitive sites do that like radio stations (especially when connected directly to the broadcast tower) and other very high end commercial electronic installations.  Never heard of a private residence doing that.  My understanding is that the entire building gets a circumferential placement of ground rods every few feet all tied together and then to the building.

 

 

When I designed my home I requested the use of a Ufer grounding system. This uses the entire concrete basement slab which in my case is tied to (50) 100 foot deep piles driven into the ground as the Earth ground. From there the electrical panel is coupled to this Ufer grounding system and to the water pipe.

 

I agree unless people have considered this sort of scenario this isn't something a person can protect Insteon devices from. 

 

- There are several camps that have different thoughts about how something should be Earthed grounded. All of these smart people at times don't agree to how the best method should be employed. People should not confuse the following things in this specific reply with: Chassis / equipment ground, ground from an outlet vs Earth ground.

 

In the big picture ultimately everything is grounded to the Earth via MEGB. Its how the entire system is configured to reach Earth ground that causes problems down the road when environmental's change or happen.

 

Many people much smarter than me depending upon (application) soil type, ground conditions, etc. Either recommend multiple ground rods spaced XX feet and tied to one another.

 

This is done solely to lower the over all resistance due to poor site conditions. Keep in mind I am not talking about actual multi grounds not tied to the MEGB. The problem with this sort (independent ground) practice is that it leaves the building open to multi path ground loops.

 

In commercial buildings multi grounding is seen, either due to the above or because of technical requirements for equipment.

 

It should be noted this opens the site to common mode noise. If the equipment ground is at a different potential then the multi ground point this can energize equipment. 

 

The goal of any grounding system (not with standing NEC / CEC which concerns themselves with fault tolerances) is to reduce the voltage potential from being different. In that vain that difference should be shunted to Earth ground and dissipated to the soil etc.

 

At the end people are trying to limit the rise in voltage potential and the imbalance of such.

 

The NEC / CEC is focused on fault tolerances of life and safety. It does not address surge / spike events even though it over laps in the same region. If it was, all homes would be designed with the same Earthing as you see in a cell tower.

 

Each year hundreds of cell towers are struck by direct lightning and never fail. This is because of effective and purposely thought out Earth grounding systems.

 

There are not many homes in the world designed from the on set to take a direct hit from a lighting storm. I know its fanciful for people to state the use of Faraday cages etc. But I've never seen a home designed or built to such real specifications.

 

The closet thing you can hope for is a lightning rod in hopes the lightning should strike it before the building structure. Should it strike the building or induce the voltage through the air.

 

It really comes down to the next thing I always say: Have the proper home insurance to protect you and the homes contents. 

[apostolakisl]

Holy crap, 100 foot pilings!  What kind of soil do you live in, or is that your house is a high rise?

 

I am well aware of multiple grounds being an issue.  A lot of naive people think that is a good thing and just drive in a grounding spike next to a sub panel and think they did a good thing, when in fact they may have just doomed their delicate electronics next time a lightening strike happens in the neighborhood.  The systems I have seen designed with multiple grounding rods put them close enough together so that it effectively turns into a single ground.  They are only like 2 feet apart or something like that depending on the details of the site.

 

My church hired a very expensive professional sound company to install our sound system and they ran a wire between 2 buildings to transfer sound from one to the other.  How they do that and call themselves pros I don't know.  Of course a lightening strike happened somewhere nearby and it fried a bunch of stuff at each end of that wire.  You could track the path from the one building to the other gong through pieces of equipment following the path of least resistant (which of course was not the dirt outside but rather our wires).  Anyway, I pulled that wire and put fiber in.

[Teken]

Holy crap, 100 foot pilings!  What kind of soil do you live in, or is that your house is a high rise?

 

I am well aware of multiple grounds being an issue.  A lot of naive people think that is a good thing and just drive in a grounding spike next to a sub panel and think they did a good thing, when in fact they may have just doomed their delicate electronics next time a lightening strike happens in the neighborhood.  The systems I have seen designed with multiple grounding rods put them close enough together so that it effectively turns into a single ground.  They are only like 2 feet apart or something like that depending on the details of the site.

 

My church hired a very expensive professional sound company to install our sound system and they ran a wire between 2 buildings to transfer sound from one to the other.  How they do that and call themselves pros I don't know.  Of course a lightening strike happened somewhere nearby and it fried a bunch of stuff at each end of that wire.  You could track the path from the one building to the other gong through pieces of equipment following the path of least resistant (which of course was not the dirt outside but rather our wires).  Anyway, I pulled that wire and put fiber in.

 

Truth be told I was extremely resistant in spending any money on piles. But, after talking to the builder and the development company they indicated our area was farm land that was made up of primarily silt and clay. There was no guarantee at what point the house would be sitting on 100% clay or silt.

 

Because many areas where I live has some type of rock aggregate. Yet (unlucky me) I had to buy a home situated in a area of what people consider (jokingly swamp land).

 

I didn't have any buy in to the whole silt / clay until I was on site with the foundation excavator. Sadly, after he scooped up at the 12 feet mark the foundation was filled with lots of silt.

 

This is where 20 test holes were drilled until they hit solid what ever . . . At that point these massive concrete piles were pounded into the ground one by one. The only saving grace was concrete was cheap way back then and so was labor!

 

$10K later I am a proud owner of 50 one hundred foot piles holding up my beautiful home . . .

 

Ha . . . 

[andrew77]

Hi guys;

 

I'm still having a few issues with programs.

 

It turns out the problems I originally started with were just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I've had this issue before and I'm thinking I have to restore the ISY or something like that.

(my issue is that was so long ago that this problem occurred I cant remember what to do to get my timers and programs back up and running)

 

Any help would be great.

 

Drew

[Teken]

Hey Drew,

 

If you have a recent back up you can simply do a restore from that file.

[andrew77]

…and if the dog may or may not have eaten the aforementioned backup…?

 

 

I remember doing some sort of device refresh or restore ISY and having it come back properly.

 

Something about the links table to the PLM or something?

(I'm hoping this jogs someones memory as I don't want to do the wrong thing and start again, if it must be so then I'm cool with that too.)

 

Drew

[Teken]

Hello Drew,

 

You are not going to do a PLM restore unless you replaced a PLM. Under File-> Restore ISY-> Select the dated back up you made and sit back and enjoy the ride.

[larryllix]

Just a note about electrical power outages.

 

Inductive loads can create spikes and surges when disconnected. Inductors like motors or other coils don't like electrical current changes. During a  sudden voltage disconnection they  tend to put out a lot of voltage attempting  to continue the current it had going. This inductive "kick"  can be up to about 15 times the supply voltage.

 

Having said that, when you turn off a switch to a motor that inductive voltage "kick"  is behind the open switch and does not get typically into other appliances. It may burn the switch contacts as the voltage jumps across the contacts for an instant.

 

However, when the voltage to a motor or inductive device is switched off outside of your house, this inductive "kick" that motors give is on the electrical lines inside your house and supplying everything connected.

 

Even worse, when your whole street or city goes out suddenly these inductive "kicks" from all your neighbours houses are also connected to your appliances.

 

The utilities do things to aggravate this phenomenon. They install power factor correction capacitors to correct voltage losses on long lines. Now when you switch these high voltage supply lines off the capacitors used for pf. correction and the inductances  in the transmission equipment lines, transformers, and loads can set up ferroresonance.

 

Ferroresonance  is when a tuned (capacitance and inductance) circuit  causes electrical  power to "echo" back and forth between the capacitors and the inductors. Think of a pool when you make a wave at one end and it hits the far end and comes back at you. Notice when the reflected wave hits the original one the peaks add together and become  higher?  You got it!  The same thing happens on electrical power lines with the voltages. This creates huge voltage surges and spikes.

 

When ferroresonance happens there is no limit to the voltage that can be produced under the right conditions.This  phenomenon causes huge headaches for the utilities when they have to do switching, especially on line sections without enough resistive load to dampen the ferroresonance  It can burn switches off the poles, where they are opened live.

[Teken]

CEMF (Counter Electro Magnetic Force)