Periodically losing connection to garage door sensors...

[greazer]

I've been having trouble with two garage door sensor units (IOLinc's). For some reason, either one will somehow lose connection with the ISY (It appears in the admin console with a red !). When I query it manually it finds it again just fine. I have many other insteon devices throughout my house, light switches, motion sensors, door sensors and none of those ever just randomly lose connection like this. So I have two questions:

1) What might be causing this? Each IOLinc is plugged into an outlight immediately above the opener itself, so maybe when the door is in operation it messes with the insteon signals dramatically?

2) I wrote a program to query both sensor units every two minutes as an attempt to work around this problem. Is this a good idea? Is there any downside to running a program that continually queries a device?

Thanks!

[Techman]

1 hour ago, greazer said:

I've been having trouble with two garage door sensor units (IOLinc's). For some reason, either one will somehow lose connection with the ISY (It appears in the admin console with a red !). When I query it manually it finds it again just fine. I have many other insteon devices throughout my house, light switches, motion sensors, door sensors and none of those ever just randomly lose connection like this. So I have two questions:

1) What might be causing this? Each IOLinc is plugged into an outlight immediately above the opener itself, so maybe when the door is in operation it messes with the insteon signals dramatically?

2) I wrote a program to query both sensor units every two minutes as an attempt to work around this problem. Is this a good idea? Is there any downside to running a program that continually queries a device?

Thanks!

It could be one of several issues.

The garage door motor could be causing noise on the power line. Mine does and I had to use a Filterlinc on my garage opener.

If you're using CFL bulbs in the opener they can be problematic as they sometimes create noise on the power line.

Being that the IOlinc is a  power line only devices you might want to add a dual band device, if you don't already have one, near the IOlinc such as a range extender, an on/off module or a lamplinc 

 

 

 

[greazer]

Thanks Techman, I'll likely go the filter route. 

But just for future knowledge, are there any downsides to running a program over and over again to query a device? I mean it shouldn't be necessary, I understand, but can it cause a problem?

[paulbates]

I have 2 iolincs in my garage. About the same age, plugged in side by side, one for the garage door and one for a hydreon rain sensor. I had a similar problem with one of them, had to query etc.

They are not dual band, just powerline only. As techman indicated, I had an extra access point and plugged it in the garage circuit with line-of-site to some dualband switches in the house. According to manual, the iolinc remains an rev 1 protocol device, meaning that an older access point can solve this problem if you have one in a spares box. Or, plug a lamplinc, range extender etc in instead. I did that probably 4 years ago and that was the end of it

Paul

[greazer]

38 minutes ago, paulbates said:

I have 2 iolincs in my garage. About the same age, plugged in side by side, one for the garage door and one for a hydreon rain sensor. I had a similar problem with one of them, had to query etc.

They are not dual band, just powerline only. I had an extra access point and plugged it in the garage circuit with line-of-site to some dualband switches in the house. According to manual, the iolinc remains an rev 1 protocol device, meaning that an older access point can solve this problem if you have one in a spares box. Or, plug a lamplinc, range extender etc in instead. I did that probably 4 years ago and that was the end of it

Paul

Thanks, just plugged in a lamplinc. Hopefully that'll solve it for one of them.

[mwester]

48 minutes ago, greazer said:

...But just for future knowledge, are there any downsides to running a program over and over again to query a device? I mean it shouldn't be necessary, I understand, but can it cause a problem?

Time lag, excessive Insteon traffic, and general uncertainty (is the door open, or closed, or should you wait a few more minutes and check again -- and if you can't rely on it, why automate it in the first place???)

[Techman]

50 minutes ago, greazer said:

Thanks Techman, I'll likely go the filter route. 

But just for future knowledge, are there any downsides to running a program over and over again to query a device? I mean it shouldn't be necessary, I understand, but can it cause a problem?

The downside to running a continuous query is that it can slow down the ISY and may interfere with other programs, It's best to work on  improving the communications.

If you have an extra dual band device laying around try plugging into the front of the IOlinc to see if that eliminates your problem. 

[greazer]

It did seem that plugging in a lamplinc to one of the openers did help. However, it bothered me that I needed to rely on the wireless signal from one device that I had other uses for solved the problem. So I ended up getting a filterlinc for both openers. I plugged the filterlinc into the outlet, then piggy-backed the iolinc into that. I think that makes the most sense and it seems to have alleviated my problem. But let me know if there's something I'm missing. I really appreciate the activeness and helpfulness of this forum!

[paulbates]

Insteon devices can be sensitive to line noise. So even if the openers are creating noise only when they're in motion,  the effect of the noise might "confusing" the iolincs. 

Depending where your openers are wired electrically, you might get away with one filterlinc, plugging a small 1 to 2(or 3) power adapter from a hardware store into it, and plugging both openers into that. If the total draw of the openers (whatever the spec for one is * 2) is less than that amount supported by the filterlinc, you might get a filterlinc back in exchange for a $2 adapter. Again, depends if the they both plug in to the same outlet nearby each other.

[larryllix]

...and then there is those two new CFLs you installed in the opener. My remote would operate the door from 1000' down the street but I had to be in the driveway to close it.

[greazer]

On 4/12/2018 at 6:51 AM, paulbates said:

Insteon devices can be sensitive to line noise. So even if the openers are creating noise only when they're in motion,  the effect of the noise might "confusing" the iolincs. 

Depending where your openers are wired electrically, you might get away with one filterlinc, plugging a small 1 to 2(or 3) power adapter from a hardware store into it, and plugging both openers into that. If the total draw of the openers (whatever the spec for one is * 2) is less than that amount supported by the filterlinc, you might get a filterlinc back in exchange for a $2 adapter. Again, depends if the they both plug in to the same outlet nearby each other.

 I've resorted to having one filterlinc for each garage door and things have been fine. However, freeing up one to be used elsewhere  sounds like a great idea. 

[greazer]

On 4/12/2018 at 7:02 AM, larryllix said:

...and then there is those two new CFLs you installed in the opener. My remote would operate the door from 1000' down the street but I had to be in the driveway to close it.

I don't use CFL's. I hate them, actually. The light is ugly and they have consistently burnt out on my WAY sooner than they're supposedly rated. I do have two LED bulbs though.  Are those known to cause noise problems?

[mwester]

Oh yes, LED bulbs can indeed be noisy -- they have the same switching power supplies that other electronic devices have (and size of the device is NOT an indicator of the noise introduced, rather it's dependent on design, and usually correlates with quality...)

I use the Philips Warm Glow LED bulbs, they are pretty well behaved.  I've had mixed results with others.  They also fail in odd ways -- my Insteon switch for the outdoor lights on either side of the garage door suddenly wouldn't turn off anymore -- went deaf, but only when it was turned on -- turned out that one of the 25-w LED bulbs had failed in such a way that while it still delivered all the light that it should, when it was on it generated enough noise to render the switch controlling it completely unusable.  Switching to a better LED bulb fixed that.

[larryllix]

I have tried to keep to only dimmable LED bulbs as they should have better power supplies built into them.....hopefully...but as mwester posted above..YES.

Try swapping the bulbs back to incandescent and see what it does.

[Brian H]

Some dimmable LED bulbs. May have a AC rated capacitor directly across the AC input to suppress the internal electronics noise. Some add a small coil before the capacitor on the Line terminal. So they don't absorb power line signals like X10 or Insteon.

Since the I/O Linc is power line only. Some LED bulbs could also absorb power line signals.