Lights Flicker caused by Insteon Dimmer switches

[paulbates]

Insteon dimmers are Triac based and can have problems with certain types of lighting transformers. I put in 5 low voltage lighting transformers in 2007 and found somewhere in the docs that electronic transformers were required. The original inlinelincs dim those fine, I did have to put an XPNR on 2 of them because of the the noise they sent back down the line when dimmed.

Paul

[ELA]

Back door / Front door ?

 

[Krusty66]

Just to close out my saga (unsuccessfully, I'm afraid):

After thinking the FilterLincs would solve the problem, I spent a few days observing things for many, many hours.  It seems the problem is not only coming from devices inside the house, but its clearly also coming from outside the house (the power supply from the street).  Simple experiment to prove that:  turned off every breaker in the house except one.  That one is new construction where there is nothing on the circuit except two Insteon dimmer paddles and two banks of lights that they control.  Absolutely nothing else in play.  Sure enough, the flicker happens.  Sometimes pretty intense, other times not so much.  But its there and its way too frequent and annoying to live with.

This suggestion was made earlier:

"As an experiment you could try adding a temporary piece of NMD 14/2 cable onto the end of the circuit (hanging in the air or on the floor) to see if you can change the tuning of this circuit. Alternatively plug in a heavy load on a receptacle in the same circuit and see if you can change the whole dynamic."

Since it's not any particular circuit, I'm not sure there's anything left to try - other than another brand of dimmer.

[larryllix]

3 hours ago, Krusty66 said:

Just to close out my saga (unsuccessfully, I'm afraid):

After thinking the FilterLincs would solve the problem, I spent a few days observing things for many, many hours.  It seems the problem is not only coming from devices inside the house, but its clearly also coming from outside the house (the power supply from the street).  Simple experiment to prove that:  turned off every breaker in the house except one.  That one is new construction where there is nothing on the circuit except two Insteon dimmer paddles and two banks of lights that they control.  Absolutely nothing else in play.  Sure enough, the flicker happens.  Sometimes pretty intense, other times not so much.  But its there and its way too frequent and annoying to live with.

This suggestion was made earlier:

"As an experiment you could try adding a temporary piece of NMD 14/2 cable onto the end of the circuit (hanging in the air or on the floor) to see if you can change the tuning of this circuit. Alternatively plug in a heavy load on a receptacle in the same circuit and see if you can change the whole dynamic."

Since it's not any particular circuit, I'm not sure there's anything left to try - other than another brand of dimmer.

Have you checked the voltage balance between your phase legs of you service? This should be done with a heavy load on one phase only. In the utility we found bad neutral connections frequently and the bad thing is the ground carries the neutral current  sometimes quite well. Other times it allows the voltage to vary all over the place.
On top of that it can introduce nasty noises in the lines as arcing and induction from other house/businesses load also travel through the ground.

As a simplified test I would measure the voltage to neutral on one phase and then plug a 1200-1500 watt 120vac  heater on the other phase and see if the first voltage rises. Another slippery trick is to place a clamp-on ammeter around the copper pipe from the water heater / meter going out to the street. If you get more than a very slight current you likely have a bad neutral connection and that can make noise and may give you pokes in the tub.

Another indicator is some lights usually brighten or dim when other loads are turned on.

Edited May 15, 2018 by larryllix

[Krusty66]

One thing I can say with certainty is that every time the Air Conditioning kicks on, the lights in the entire house sag a little momentarily.  It's been doing that for the 17 years we've lived here.  I can try some of those other tests.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Krusty66

[larryllix]

3 hours ago, Krusty66 said:

One thing I can say with certainty is that every time the Air Conditioning kicks on, the lights in the entire house sag a little momentarily.  It's been doing that for the 17 years we've lived here.  I can try some of those other tests.

A/C is usually a 240 Vac load so the bad neutral connections doesn't apply for this research.

[Krusty66]

Since some time has passed and more testing has been done...I stuck an X10 filter on each blade at the box to combat the noise that was coming from outside the house.  It appears to be working as I haven't really noticed any flickering.  But tough to tell.  The outside noise seemed to happen mostly in the day time and the room where all these insteon switches are is still incomplete.  Until the room is finished and we spend time in it, I won't know for sure.  That all said, I'm not sure there's much of a solution other than what I've already done.

[paulbates]

There's this designed, for this purpose. I've had one on my panel from my X10 days. Its a little cleaner install

Paul

Edited July 7, 2018 by paulbates

[lithiumus]

On 5/7/2018 at 4:58 PM, Teken said:

^ Spot On . . .

Of the hundreds of installs that I have been involved in only a hand full required any filters. Those that did needed only a couple shared filters via power strip. As noted up top this is easy accomplished when a home is in the design and building stage.

- Dedicated outlet / circuit for known noise makers - signal suckers: Fridge, Freezer, Sump, HVAC, etc

- Dedicated outlet / circuit for the 2413S PLM

- Purchase and test all lighting loads; CFL, LED, Magnetic Ballest, Florescent with the Insteon hardware.

- Wiring noise makers / signal suckers on opposing electrical leg and closest to service feed.

- Install a hardwired phase coupler at the service panel.

So I found this thread as I am also having flickering issues and Teken, this list of suggestions is great.  I've been having both flickering issues as well as so larger scenes / programs that work about 60% of the time where some of the devices were not getting the commands, etc.  After taking the time to check it out...  I realized that my PLM was on the same circuit as my rack of Network and AV equipment all connected to my 2200VA UPS!  

While my PLM was plugged directly to an outlet, it was plugged in on the same outlet as my UPS.  I tried to move the PLM to the electrical panel but for some reason, the long CAT6 run from the equipment to the power panel was either too long or something is wrong.  Gig Ethernet works just fine so I moved the ISY and PLM to the power panel so it's on a dedicated short run leg right on the panel backboard...  why have the ISY on a UPS when all the lights will be dead anyway...

Question about phase couplers...  was looking at a Simply Automated ZPCI coupler.  I actually have 2nd panel on the 2nd floor, would I need 2 couplers or will one on the main panel be enough?

Will also look into purchasing a few Filterlincs to help isolate a few of my AV power bars.  Thanks for all the advice!

[kclenden]

1 hour ago, lithiumus said:

I tried to move the PLM to the electrical panel but for some reason, the long CAT6 run from the equipment to the power panel was either too long or something is wrong.  Gig Ethernet works just fine so I moved the ISY and PLM to the power panel so it's on a dedicated short run leg right on the panel backboard... 

If I understand what you're saying (i.e. ran a long cable between PLM and ISY) then you should know that the ISY does not communicate with the PLM via ethernet even though it uses what looks to be an ethernet cable.  I believe it uses serial communication.  The theoretical maximum serial cable length when communicating at 9600 baud would be able 50 feet, though YMMV.

[Brian H]

Yes it is serial. 19,200 Baud, 8 bit, No Parity, 1 Stop Bit.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Brian H

[lithiumus]

Thanks.  Definitely a cable length problem...  well over 50 feet so I moved the ISY right next to the power panel.  Now I'm seeing a new problem... none of my programs are working now that I've moved the ISY.  Weird.  I can still control the lights but the status' are spotty and my programs don't work at all.  Time to troubleshoot...

[lithiumus]

haha.  OK.  Troubleshooting done.  I had to do a PLM restore.  As part of the move and trying to get the PLM up I did a hard reset and forgot to do a PLM restore to bring back all the links.  NOW my programs are working fine!

Ordering a phase coupler and a few Filterlincs for my power bars...  Let's see if I can reduce the flickering now.

[larryllix]

4 hours ago, lithiumus said:

haha.  OK.  Troubleshooting done.  I had to do a PLM restore.  As part of the move and trying to get the PLM up I did a hard reset and forgot to do a PLM restore to bring back all the links.  NOW my programs are working fine!

Ordering a phase coupler and a few Filterlincs for my power bars...  Let's see if I can reduce the flickering now.

Got a spare PLM also? It may your turn!  

Edited November 20, 2018 by larryllix

[lithiumus]

So I've installed a phase coupler in my panel and I recall reading Stu saying to install it as close to the source as possible.  Does he mean to place it in position 1/3 at the top of the panel right below the main 200 amp breaker so that all the other legs are below or (after) the phase coupler?

[larryllix]

Position on the bus in the panel shouldn't make any difference.

Close to source means close to the PLM conductor wire to me. Keep it plugged close to the panel for best comms distribution throughout the house.

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[lithiumus]

11 hours ago, larryllix said:

Position on the bus in the panel shouldn't make any difference.

Close to source means close to the PLM conductor wire to me. Keep it plugged close to the panel for best comms distribution throughout the house.

Thanks.  It was on a dedicated 20A plug but it was shared with my UPS.  Now it's on a separate isolated 1 foot length leg to a plug mounted on the panel's backboard and the Phase coupler is one position above the PLM breaker.  

I've got a few Filterlincs but I'll need an X10 20A for the large UPS leg to keep it from absorbing signals.  Thanks for the help!

[larryllix]

I installed a new circuit just for my HA and the first box contains the phase bridge. Then there receptacles after it containing the PLM, ISY, and a dual band on/off module with a small emergency heater in the utility room all within a few conductor feet of my panel. My inverters are direct wired and cannot be filtered easily.

 

I have some slight but very occasional comm problems on the circuit on the main floor right above the inverters and main panel.

 

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[lithiumus]

Yeah I have some slight occasional comm problems usually with my night (almost all off) scene where some of the commands seem to get lost / not triggering some lights to go off.  Could just be too many commands so I put some pauses in which seem to help space it out.

Every switch in my house is either a dual band dimmer or dual band keypad.  I have about 60 or more switches and about 54 of them are all dual band.  I've got 5 dual band receptacles as well.  So I think I have enough on both phases but maybe the issue now is too much traffic or possibly some of it being absorbed.  Flicker is definitely a problem but not sure the filtering will help could just be the LED bulbs keypadlincs being more sensitive to insteon traffic.

[toddhutch]

By any chance do you have a mix of copper and aluminum wiring in the house?  Many cheap fixtures have braided aluminum wiring.  I have a cheap fixture that was blinking and doing all sorts of weird stuff with LED's finally I pulled it off, and sure enough it was copper and aluminum.  I could tighten the wiring nuts, and it would fit it.  If I was still using high wattage bulbs there I would have replaced the ceiling lamp.

-Todd