Some troubleshooting tips from Steve at Smarthome.

[SteveL]

I wanted to post some of the things I do when I go out to install or troubleshoot an INSTEON job.

 

The first thing I always have with me are extra access points. One thing I have found in some houses are loose connections. These loose connections can be problematic to powerline signal. I bought a brand new house 4 years ago and I found three locations where the electrical connection was so bad that it made it very hard to pass the powerline signal evenly through the house. I added more access points buy plugging them in one at a time and then seeing if the message got to my problem areas better. If not I would unplug it and try it somewhere else. After finding three areas where it helped with all of my problems I went back to those receptacles I had plugged access points and looked at the wiring on those branch circuits and I found my poor connections and fixed them.

 

Access points will also flash when they see INSTEON traffic, so they are a great tool to see if you can see an INSTEON message. What I do is to put the ISY or Houselinc 2 into a mode where it will continually send traffic for awhile. In the ISY you can crawl a device and then go around the house with an access point at least one outlet in every room and look for the flashing traffic. When you start this process it is always best to have at least two already plugged in on each phase. I also like to have one plugged into the PLM. If you find an area where you do not see any signal then go to the last place where you did see signal and leave it plugged in and take another one and see if the location where you did not get signal has now improved. I realize that most people do not have 5 access points laying around but I have worked on some houses that worked fine without any, and others the required more that two. The amount of devices that you have in the house is important also. If you have a 10,000 sqft house with two switches at opposite ends you may have a signal issue. The more devices you have the better the system becomes.

 

If you plug an access point in and there is not INSTEON traffic being sent over the powerline and you see a very fast strobe of the led on the PLM than there is some noise around the 130 Khz range. What I do is to take an extension cord and plug it in to the outlet there the PLM is and then plug the PLM into the other end of the extension cord.

Now I go outside to the panel and turn off breakers one at a time until I fine the breaker that stops the strobe on the PLM led. The breaker that turns off the extension cord does not count. If you find a breaker that stops the led flutter than look at the things that are not on in the house and one of these is probably the culprit. At this point you can put a filter on it.

 

Some things that can be a problem in a house with a small amount of devices are Zeon under cabinet lights, equipment rack power conditioner power bars, I have seen 8’ florescent fixtures with 8’ bulbs and electronic ballasts that were a problem. In the dozens of INSTEON installs I have done I have only put in five filters total in all of the houses. In some cases it is only one thing that will create a big signal problem and in most cases I do not see any signal issue.

 

One other thing I do is to take a keypad around the house and use it to see if I can link to various devices. Let me elaborate: Let’s say you were having a hard time linking a device to your PLM and you took a keypad that was wired into a cord so you could plug it in various places. I would start at the PLM and see if it had the same problem linking from that location then I would move around the house to other outlets trying to link to the problem area the PLM had. If I found a location where problem areas now linked then I would put an access point in that area and one at the PLM. Now try to link and I bet it works. This will also help for group linking as well.

 

Hope some of this help any of you with signal issues.

 

SteveL

[NewTech]

Steve,

 

First of all, thanks for this valuable information. I do have one question though... When you say plug an access point into the PLM are you saying to plug the access point into the feed through outlet of the PLM? If this is true wouldn't plugging in the access point to an outlet on the same circuit (like around the corner in my case) provide the same desired effect?

 

We live in a fairly small condo (about 1,200 square feet) and I seem to be having issues with devices not turning on/off with the ISY. Last night I moved BOTH access points and verified they are on different phases. They are now both pretty close to the circuit breaker box and this did seem to improve the issues I am having. I'm just curious what plugging the access point directly into the PLM will do for me.

[SteveL]

NewTech

 

Sorry it took a while to get back to this. I will respond to your questions below

 

First of all, thanks for this valuable information. I do have one question though... When you say plug an access point into the PLM are you saying to plug the access point into the feed through outlet of the PLM? If this is true wouldn't plugging in the access point to an outlet on the same circuit (like around the corner in my case) provide the same desired effect?

 

 

I say that because alot of times people have there PLM plugged into the same outlet as their computer. The noise that comes of devices in an area like an office usually does not travel far so putting it right at the PLM will allow it to jump to the other access points and around any potential noise that may be present. Can it work as well on an outlet one room away, yes in most cases but i was giving my best case set up example.

 

 

We live in a fairly small condo (about 1,200 square feet) and I seem to be having issues with devices not turning on/off with the ISY. Last night I moved BOTH access points and verified they are on different phases. They are now both pretty close to the circuit breaker box and this did seem to improve the issues I am having. I'm just curious what plugging the access point directly into the PLM will do for me.

 

 

It allows the signal to go power line and RF from the exact same point. The PLM is the most important point from the controllers standpoint and i do not make the access point at the PLM as one of my bridging access points but rather a third access point that will talk to both phases at the same time from the PLM.

 

 

Steve L

[Michaelv]

Hi Steve,

 

I am currently troubleshooting some communication issues and I find your post quite helpful. Could you explain how to get the ISY to send continual traffic? What do you mean by "crawl" a device. If I did a "Query All devices", would that serve as Insteon Traffic needed to troubleshoot? I have over 150 devices so it would take a while to query them all.

 

 

Access points will also flash when they see INSTEON traffic, so they are a great tool to see if you can see an INSTEON message. What I do is to put the ISY or Houselinc 2 into a mode where it will continually send traffic for awhile. In the ISY you can crawl a device and then go around the house with an access point at least one outlet in every room and look for the flashing traffic.

[Sub-Routine]

Hi Steve,

 

I am currently troubleshooting some communication issues and I find your post quite helpful. Could you explain how to get the ISY to send continual traffic? What do you mean by "crawl" a device. If I did a "Query All devices", would that serve as Insteon Traffic needed to troubleshoot? I have over 150 devices so it would take a while to query them all.

 

Hi Michael,

 

I think what Steve means by "crawl" is to read a device database: Show_Links_Table_Database. Select a device with many links, a KPL for example. Of course a long Query would work as well.

 

Hopefully changing the APs around or adding one will solve your problems.

 

Good luck, keep us posted.

Rand