Everything has quit working

[treighmy]

We have been having some storms lately and everything has quit working. I have 6 0r 8 ToggleLink Dimmers, a RemoteLink Controller, and a bunch of X10 stuff. The LED's on the ToggleLings are off and if I push the button the LED comes on but the switch still doesn't work. Help!

[MikeB]

I would try rebooting all your devices (possibly just flip the circuit breakers if it's easier). If they still do not work locally they may have been damaged by a power surge.

[treighmy]

Are these things known to be susceptible to power hits?

[MikeB]

I've seen it posted before with Insteon and other lighting controls, but very rarely.

 

Consider a wholehouse surge protector installed at the panel in the future - they are well worth the relatively low cost, in my opinion.

[Sub-Routine]

If the power is cycled very quickly (especially multiple times) sometimes the devices can lock up. Normally they reboot without a problem.

 

You may need to reset and restore the devices if they became scrambled.

 

Rand

[markens]

If the power is cycled very quickly (especially multiple times) sometimes the devices can lock up. Normally they reboot without a problem.

There was a quick power cycle here this morning. Everything came back fine on its own except the motion detector. Investigation showed the access point LED on bright and not responding to RF. Unplug/replug reset it fine and motion commands resumed.

 

Related to power cycling: One thing I previously discovered is that my old Linksys WRT54G router did not seem to remember DHCP leases over a power outage. So after a power glitch, it would often reissue an IP address to a client (such as the ISY) before the previously issued lease had expired. The previous lease owner (typically a laptop or other computer on UPS) was still legitimately using it, resulting in duplicate IP usage on my network. I solved this by upgrading the router firmware and specifying static DHCP addresses for ISY, tivo, etc.

 

--Mark