Do I need devices on both phases?

[stusviews]

Sorry I mean there's nothing Insteon on the breaker.  Almost the entire first floor is on it, so can't leave it off or no Kitchen, Power Room, or Living Room ceiling lights or outlets would work.

 

I haven't come across a house in more than two decades that has the Kitchen, Power Room? and both the Living Room lights plus outlets on the same single breaker.

 

Edit: maybe three decades

[ryanmead83]

No it's not all of them just most on the first floor in terms of lights and not appliances.  It's all the kitchen wall outlets the ones on the walls not the ones on the counters or switches they are separate.  Then all the wall outlets in the living room are on it except I think 1.  Then the living room ceiling light, basement stairs, powder room light and fan are all on it.  It's 8 wall outlets and 4 wall switches.

[stusviews]

It's been several decades since kitchen outlets were allowed to be on the same circuit as outlets in a different room. Having the living room and basement stair lighting on the same circuit as kitchen outlets is also unusual. How old is your home? Do you have any arc-fault breakers or GFCI outlets? Can you map out the other 19 (or more) circuits? What about the refrigerator and/or dishwasher? Do you have 220/240VAC devices such as a water heater or HVAC? What is the load rating of the panel (highest capacity yoked breakers)?

[ryanmead83]

My house I bought brand new, it's about 7 years old now.  The kitchen outlets on top of the counters are on a different one, it's just the 3 along the floor (one is on the 4 foot hall between the living room and kitchen, but is still in the kitchen, and then the other 2 are around the dining room table.  However on the floor plans that area they called some living area like family room, but couldn't imagine anyone wanting to have a family room there as it's not very big and is right in the kitchen pretty much.  I think I have one GFCI if that's the one with the test button on it, it's for the upstairs bathrooms.  Refrigerator and dishwasher are on their own separate ones, then just the normal washer, dryer, AC, furnace etc.  It's okay though, last night before bed I removed every bulb in the house (worst time to attempt that as it was totally dark), and the devices still wouldn't 4 tap test.  That was with no GU10 bulbs in any fixture, and even turned off the breakers for the basement to rule it out.  Like I said though I don't have a ton of Insteon devices (and have none right now as I've been removing them one at a time testing, and now just have 1 SwitchLinc left).  So thinking it is easier to stick to Z-Wave as only a couple Insteon devices are in areas that I don't have a Z-Wave device kicking around I can use or move there.

[ryanmead83]

Well eff me, I think I cracked this [censored] lol, and I think it's the GU10 bulbs I got off Amazon!  It's weird because it's so random, like on breaker 19 I have 3 of these Jacky LED dimmable bulbs I bought off Amazon that I thought were good as they actually dim.  They are on a normal switch non-automated.  Was playing earlier trying things and I removed the 3 but it didn't do anything.  Then I moved the PLM upstairs and tried linking some devices but no luck.  I went to the basement stairs and just turned that light off and instantly the devices linked.  I could turn them on off no problem!  So as a test I turned the stair light back on, tried to turn the light on, no response.  Flip the switch off, instantly light goes on.  Tried to add a LampLinc, same issue wouldn't link.  Flip the switch off, boom links!  Try to turn it on/off, works fine, turn the light on and it stops.  Turn the light off and immediately it catches up.  As another test I went downstairs and same thing left the light on, tried to turn a switch on with no luck, so then unscrewed 1 bulb, and light came right on.  Put it back in, no go.  Tried another bulb and put that one back in, but it would only work once in awhile.  

 

These are the ones right here: http://www.amazon.ca/10-Pack-Original-Bright-Epistar-Dimmable/dp/B00K4ZKXBM/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1442071846&sr=8-6&keywords=jacky+gu10

 

Edit: Thought I spoke too soon for a sec as I tested it again with the light on and it still works, but then I remembered I removed one of the GU10 bulbs and left 2 in.  As soon as I put that one back in same issue.  So not sure if it's one bad bulb, or just this brand in general, but hopefully I still have the box for them so I can send them back to Amazon.  Still within 30 days, might even just send them back in a normal box for all the frustration!

[larryllix]

Well eff me, I think I cracked this [censored] lol, and I think it's the GU10 bulbs I got off Amazon!  It's weird because it's so random, like on breaker 19 I have 3 of these Jacky LED dimmable bulbs I bought off Amazon that I thought were good as they actually dim.  They are on a normal switch non-automated.  Was playing earlier trying things and I removed the 3 but it didn't do anything.  Then I moved the PLM upstairs and tried linking some devices but no luck.  I went to the basement stairs and just turned that light off and instantly the devices linked.  I could turn them on off no problem!  So as a test I turned the stair light back on, tried to turn the light on, no response.  Flip the switch off, instantly light goes on.  Tried to add a LampLinc, same issue wouldn't link.  Flip the switch off, boom links!  Try to turn it on/off, works fine, turn the light on and it stops.  Turn the light off and immediately it catches up.  As another test I went downstairs and same thing left the light on, tried to turn a switch on with no luck, so then unscrewed 1 bulb, and light came right on.  Put it back in, no go.  Tried another bulb and put that one back in, but it would only work once in awhile.  

 

These are the ones right here: http://www.amazon.ca/10-Pack-Original-Bright-Epistar-Dimmable/dp/B00K4ZKXBM/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1442071846&sr=8-6&keywords=jacky+gu10

 

Edit: Thought I spoke too soon for a sec as I tested it again with the light on and it still works, but then I remembered I removed one of the GU10 bulbs and left 2 in.  As soon as I put that one back in same issue.  So not sure if it's one bad bulb, or just this brand in general, but hopefully I still have the box for them so I can send them back to Amazon.  Still within 30 days, might even just send them back in a normal box for all the frustration!

This also could be the combination. If you have a bad transformer in the fixture and a poor bulb they may work by changing one or the other. I assume these are 12v as you never answered my original question regarding this.

 

If the bulbs are 120v and not 12v then yes, definitely poor bulbs creating RF or powerline noise. Strike while the iron is hot.

[Teken]

This is exactly why I asked about what type of load was in use. As noted in the past even known so called *Good Brands / Models* have been known to cause Insteon COM issues. As stated also many devices as they age will start to put out random noise either on the power line, RF, or the combination of the two.

 

For example I completed a five day install and the client purchased almost every known bulb listed as fine with Insteon. Low behold we found after a short period of break in. About 5-6 of the bulbs showed noise issues which was much apparent when the lights were dimmed to the extreme levels.

 

Some bulbs pulsed which I could hear as a slight buzz / hum. While others had the most faintest flicker that had to be captured by a camera. All told some of the bulbs only caused problems after extended use and I gather the PSU in these bulbs simply were not up to spec.

 

To be fair to Smartlabs they have never indicated their products support LED fixtures etc. This applies to any other HA format a person may consider whether it be Z-Wave / ZigBee.

 

The biggest problem I've seen in the race to the bottom for price is cheaper devices have a huge swing in start up (inrush) current. Because they spike so quickly these micro surges are a quick way to damage and reduce the working life of an Insteon product.

[ryanmead83]

I just don't know enough about it to answer what kind of load it is, they are just normal lights to me lol.  Insteon has their own LED bulb so they must have some familiarity with it, even Hue uses ZigBee and those are LED.  To be honest, it's 2015 so I don't buy the whole "we don't support LED bulbs officially" argument as even my parents who are 60 have switched all to LED years ago.  The heat that belts off a halogen or normal bulb alone is insane, it's such a huge waste of energy.  My Hue lights for example are on all night, same with outside lights, as the power usage is just so low that I can actually enjoy my lighting now vs always "Turn off the lights!!!!!"  I think it seems to be just the one bulb here though as I have these ones in the kitchen and they are all fine.  Probably will return them either way though just to be on the safe side.  To be honest almost all my bulbs in here are from Ikea and they work great, just can't dim.  Any lamps usually have Philips LED bulbs and they dim no problem, but they are full size.  Will swap them for halogen after and see if it still has an issue on the stairs, just have to get some as I threw them out when I changed them to these LEDs.

 

I noticed with those Jacky LED bulbs that when I had them in my front foyer, if I turned the light off they would flicker and not fully turn off.  Only happened on that fixture, but definitely seems like they aren't that great.

[ryanmead83]

Is there any way to test from the ISY how good a comm is?  When I used HomeSeer in the past you could do comm tests and it would show like "98 commands successful out of 99 sent" and show quality of messages.  When I was having issues with these lights, it would show 20% as signal quality.  Only issue is that you have to reset the PLM to swap between the ISY and HomeSeer so not really ideal to use it for testing.  Anything similar in the ISY that's not overly complicated and that will just give something general like quality that is easy to interpret?

[Teken]

Closet thing is the scene test but all that does is turn on those lights. If it comes on / off well you kinda know it works or has issues. Download the HL2 software as the round robin testing is very good to test coms.