Issues with PLM?

[stusviews]

If the noise is on the power line the best and maybe the only solution is to filter the offending device.

[WolfgangStiller]

If the noise is on the power line the best and maybe the only solution is to filter the offending device

 

I am not certain it's noise but the main offending device seems be the OutBack power system (I am guessing this based on the timing of the failures and the fact that moving the PLM off of an Outback dedicated circuit was the first thing I did that helped improve the issue) .  I am not aware of any way to filter the Outback itself since it is the only source of power of some select circuits and feeds power into the main panel when we're generating solar power (the entire house gets it's power from the Outback and we're typically feeding a kw or two back into the grid).

 

Currently, I have gone from about 50% failure to maybe 5 to 10 percent failure times yesterday. I  I made some more adjustments this morning to where I have the PLM and hopefully am doing better than that. I'll have to see what happens next.  (I hate working with intermittent problems.)

[Brian H]

Could be the Outback has a filter on its output. To keep any of its electronics noises from getting back on its output.

Many filters not designed for Insteon or X10 power line signals. Will absorb them as noise.

[WolfgangStiller]

I thought I had things working and the issue may not be the Outback power system. I had moved the PLM to a different room and for 48 hours everything worked perfectly. I ran a program to turn on and off a light every 10 minutes and to send me an email of the status to confirm it worked. For 48 hours, this worked fine. Then last night for an hour and twenty minutes (after dark, this time....so maybe I was wrong about the Outback being the cause), the PLM would show connected to the ISY but it could not return the link table if requested nor could I send any  request through the PLM (my RF miniremote could still trigger any light directly so the world of RF was fine). If I did the four tap on the PLM to send the RF signal, it would click like it was doing this but no signal came out (this would normally work fine). This is the exact set of symptoms that I had all along on all prior failures. A level 3 event log would show the requests going out but no response at all to anything to any device (as before).,  Based on prior comments, I am thinking the PLM is getting swamped with some kind of signal and this is causing even the RF functionality to fail.  I did the usual attempts to unplug both PLM and ISY (wait, and then restart PLM, wait and then the ISY) twice during the failure period with no positive results.   I did notice one thing, when things started working (on their own with no intervention form me), I saw in the level 3 event log, a dozen X10 house code J events.  I wonder of the source of the problem is something coming from outside my house--maybe either actual X10 traffic or something that looks like X10.   I am not sure what I can do about that.  

 

I do have a new PLM on its way (back ordered) to see if part of the problem might be a marginal PLM but I am at a loss as to what I can do to improve the situation. I was so hopeful after things ran smoothly for two days.

[WolfgangStiller]

I am starting to get things dialed in a bit more and will report a summary when I'm done so others can benefit from my efforts.  I did some more tests and went back to my original outlets where there were issues during hours that Outback system was generating solar power and indeed there are issues with the PLM. So for other uses of solar power here's the summary of my experience with that part of the situation:

 

1) The PLM will NOT work reliably (it basically won't respond to the ISY at all during most of the power generation period) on circuits close to the Outback (note in my situation the entire house gets power but some circuits are dedicated and fed 24x7 from the inverters. Not everybody has the dedicated circuits.).

 

2) The 2413s PLM will not work on these circuits but the other insteon devices have no problem on those cirucuits so I could place my other responders there with no obvious issues.

 

3) By finding an appropriate outlet to base the PLM on (and using the long network cable for the ISY), I am seeing zero failures during daylight hours (except for the dusk X10 issue) after five days of non-stop (every 10 minute) testing.

 

I am still seeing issues between 7:15 and 8:30 with a storm of X10 signals. I looked at the log and these look like valid signals so I'm guessing I am getting thise from one of my neighbors and since this is just around dusk, I am thinking some nighttime program is running. I think I can work around this programmatically on the ISY so I can probably live with that unless the issue escalates. Still collecting events on this and still waiting for my new PLM to see if there's any difference with the new unit. It's now due to arrive on Tuesday. 

[Brian H]

Was the X10 command a "J Status Request" by chance?

[WolfgangStiller]

Was the X10 command a "J Status Request" by chance?

There's a variety but the most common (when I see a flood) are J10 status requests......

 

I see that all ones can be a J status request so perhaps a lot of (or all?) of the X10 signals I am seeing represent noise. Interesting that I see the big spurts in apparent X10 traffic close to dusk. Today, it's a dark and gloomy day and I am seeing a lot of X10 spurts during the daylight hours when ordinarily, I'd see nothing. The X10 signals I do see are mostly house code J with some H, L, and M as the next most common but the storms seem to be 98% J.  The fact I am seeing this during dusk-like lighting makes me wonder if it's real X10 traffic triggered by some light sensitive sensors but the all ones points in the other direction.

 

All that said, I have no clue as to what to do other than make my ISY programs be able to be able to retry later when I think it's really important (such as turning a light an/off at night and the morning) so occasional down periods can be handled.  I have turned off or unplugged possible noise-producing electronics when this happens and it seems to have no effect.   (The Outback system is pretty tricky to get out of the loop so I haven't done that.)