One switch will not link, any suggestions?

[watson524]

Hi all,

Trying to solve a long standing issue with one ToggleLinc. I did a factory reset on it (pull out the button thing, press and hold until beep went off, got the 2 beeps when button released) and the ISY finds it but it won't "connect".

In the ISY admin console, I go to link management, then add the link using "start linking". I press and hold the button on the toggle link and it finds it right away but when I say "add devices found in links and remove existing links" and hit finish I get:

The following devices could not be added 24.32.61 (2466S) ToggleLinc Relay v.41 - cannot communicate with the device

Any ideas? My other toggle lincs all work ok and this is not a 3 way switch or anything crazy.

thanks!

[Michel Kohanim]

@watson524,

Could it be that the switch is defective?

With kind regards,

Michel

[watson524]

It wasn't when I used the hub but am seriously wondering the same thing and am about to order a new one. Weird that it clearly does see it and knows its address but that's as far as it gets.

[apostolakisl]

Do you have a bench test stand?  I suggest pulling the switch and putting it on the bench on a clean circuit breaker.  It is either a bad switch or a comm issue.  Putting it on the test stand usually helps with that.

This is my test stand 

 

 

[watson524]

Nope I don't.

[apostolakisl]

5 minutes ago, watson524 said:

Nope I don't.

Well I suggest you make one.  It is a good idea to test all your switches before you install them to save the effort of doing an uninstall if there is an issue.  It is also nice to have your computer right there on your test stand.  You can complete the ISY install nice and easy when the switch and computer are sitting right there in front of you on the bench.

[watson524]

EDIT - wait, didn't realize that was a youtube video, let me go review that.... reviewed and I still have the question. Can tell where your wires are going etc.

Can't really see where are your wires are going, can you dumb it down for a newbie?

[apostolakisl]

The light bulb has two wires

bulb-white

bulb-black

The switch has 4,

switch-white

switch-black

switch-red

switch-gnd

The power cord has 3

pc-white

pc-black

pc-gnd

 

First, off, I bought a bunch of alligator clips off of ebay for a couple bucks.  I had a wire from something or another that died and I always save the odds and ends of dead things.  The power wire had an on/off switch on it, which is a nice thing.  The piece of wood was a scrap off the floor of my workshop.  The bulb socket was from another box of random crap I have saved cause I'm just the kind of guy who does that (to my wife's great consternation).  In summary, the only thing I had to buy to do this were the alligator clips.  And now I have a bunch of extras for whatever else.

1) The wires all start on the bottom of the board and come up through small holes in the board.  The two bulb wires and 3 power cord wires all get alligator clips crimped on after going through their own holes.

2) The switch gets wedged into the hole I cut in the board and you bring the wires up through holes drilled for them.  Then, clip pc-white and bulb-white onto switch-white.  clip bulb-black onto switch-red.  clip pc-gnd to switch-gnd.  Clip pc-black to switch-black

3) Plug it in and flip on the wire-mounted on/off switch.  Insteon device should come to life.

You can do all this without the board, but it sure is a lot nicer to have everything stable.  The light bulb is optional since, for the most part, the load output from the switch is very rarely a problem.  But I did have one Insteon switch with a bad load output where everything else worked fine.

 

[watson524]

I happen to have some free time tonite and have plenty of scrap wood and old ceramic bulb fixtures up in the barn so I may just try this just using wire nuts instead of alligator clips if I can find an old 3 prong cord piece since I assume a 2 prong one won't work since if I recall, the switches MUST have a ground. What confused me was when you said a "clean circuit breaker". I was thinking you were going into the panel.

[apostolakisl]

17 minutes ago, watson524 said:

I happen to have some free time tonite and have plenty of scrap wood and old ceramic bulb fixtures up in the barn so I may just try this just using wire nuts instead of alligator clips if I can find an old 3 prong cord piece since I assume a 2 prong one won't work since if I recall, the switches MUST have a ground. What confused me was when you said a "clean circuit breaker". I was thinking you were going into the panel.

No, I mean plug it in on a circuit that doesn't have much else currently running on it.  This avoids the potential for "noise" on the powerline.

You don't have to have the ground for it to work, you are probably thinking of it requiring a neutral (which "dumb" switches do not need).  The ground wire is strictly a safety feature.  If there were a short that energized the housing of the switch you would get a shock if you touched it.  Or,  you might not get shocked (if you don't touch anything metal or if your body is insulated ie wearing rubber shoes and not touching anything else) but be unaware of the short without a ground wire in place.  It is also helpful to use a gfci circuit for testing.  Again, if there is any short causing loss of current to ground, you will get the gfci to pop.  This will only happen if a ground is connected or if something else (like your body) serves as a ground.  It is better to let a ground wire do the grounding and not your body.?

[watson524]

You're right, I was thinking of the neutral. If I can't find the plug end I zipped with the mower, I'll go with a 2 prong and just be careful. GFCI receptacles at the house have things in the circuit. Up the barn I should have them in the outlets or the panel (can't off hand remember) and nothing is ever running on it since I don't keep things plugged in except the lights that are hard wired back to the panel.

[apostolakisl]

The GFCI will pop if there is a low current short to ground, down to as little as 5 milliamps.  A full-out short will pop any type of circuit breaker.

[watson524]

Bench test was ok tho not a "good" test since I was at the barn not down with the ISY. Got a new switch, same behavior. Local use it fine. In the console, auto linking where I press and hold button, it finds it right away and shows proper address but won't link. In manual linking from console, give it address, it finds it, says it's a ToggleLinc 2466SW and then says "cannot determine device link table address".

This is bizarre. I haven't had any other issues anywhere in the house with a mix of x10 and insteon devices but does that error give any insight?

[lilyoyo1]

Factory reset the device. I would also try installing it in a place that works fine, link it there and then move it to the final location

[watson524]

4 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Factory reset the device. I would also try installing it in a place that works fine, link it there and then move it to the final location

This is fresh out of the box but I'll give it a whirl anyway and then take your suggestion of putting it up in my office where one there works fine and see what happens. Thanks for that tip! (It's days like this where I miss Stu)

[lilyoyo1]

Factory fresh doesn't matter. The could be leftover stuff from testing at the factory or simply corrupted memory. Most people on here automatically factory reset their devices prior to installing. 

[apostolakisl]

If after a factory reset, and still it doesn't work, then it is probably a bad switch.  To definitely rule out bad com as the reason, hook another device into your test stand and see if it has any issues.  Or, plug a lamplinc into the same outlet and test it.  

My bet, it starts working after the factory reset.  Second bet is it is a bad device.  I kind of doubt it is bad com since the ISY finds it just fine.

[watson524]

10 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Factory reset the device. I would also try installing it in a place that works fine, link it there and then move it to the final location

lilyoyo1 wins!! Or so I thought. This is really starting to annoy me. We took it up to my office where we have a known good/linked switch, took that out, after a few attempts, got the new switch linked. Left it up in there vs taking everything apart. Brought the switch that's worked fine for years down to the living room (problem area), and put it in. Renamed it to living room so I didn't have two "offices", was able to control locally and through admin console and agave for about 5 minutes. Then it started not responding on the first send and then not at all. Now, after a factory reset, it won't link again. Something suggests to me that it's an issue with something around it in the electrical area. Both my office and the living room are a 2 gang box both with a light switch and a ceiling fan switch. Works fine in the office, no good in the living room. Not sure what to make of this at this point.

I did a reset again downstairs here in the living room, went to link management, put it in linking mode after the popup, it found it right away, identified it as a toggle linc relay and then came back with "cannot determine insteon engine" (which I did see once when we tried to link it upstairs in my office before it worked.

We took it out again and I hooked it up to a cord where I capped the red, left the ground out of the way and put the black and white to a lampcord that I cut the end off. Then we plugged that in to an outlet right below the offending light switch area. Couldn't see it. Moved the plug to around the corner of the same wall, it found it but comes back with "cannot determine device link table address" (mind you I had a plug in appliance that just tonite I had in that outlet and it found and added it just fine).

So then we factory reset it again and put it in an outlet across the living room (different breaker - I'm getting smarter in my troubleshooting) and it works perfectly as expected. Then took it back and put it in the outlet right under the box where I want to install it and it wasn't reliable.... so we tried every other outlet on that breaker, same crappy behavior. THEN we looked in the panel. A few years ago we had a whole house generator put in and the electrician put in a bigger main panel (we had a subpanel from when we had a manual transfer switch and portable generator so that stayed). In the main panel, this 15a breaker that controls the switches/outlets we're having issues with is labeled "middle wall/foyer/hot tub relay". Why the heck you'd put that relay on with that when there's plenty of other breakers is beyond me. In order to have our hottub be able to be on the generator and get priority for a heat cycle if need be, they have a "contactor" and a "relay" box mounted on the wall. Am I right to assume that a relay cannot be good for interference on this breaker and we should just move that relay down to its own breaker? Again, I have zero idea why they'd put a hot tub relay on this when there's plenty of space unless someone tells me I should sum up the amps of all the breakers in that panel and maybe it was too much but I always thought doubling up on things was NOT a good idea.

 

[apostolakisl]

This goes back to what I was saying about a "clean" breaker.

I can say that I'm not quite sure what you have there with regard to this hot tub relay.  I'm guessing it is powered from that circuit breaker and if that circuit loses power, the relay flips which lets the hot tub pull power from a different source (the generator).  I wouldn't right off expect a relay to be "noisy", but if there isn't anything else that looks suspicious, then it is worth investigating.  The simple test would be to simply unhook the relay from that circuit and do some testing.

If I understand correctly, the only power this is pulling is the relay coil.  That would be measured in milliamps.  It would be meaningless in your power calculations.  The actual hot tub is being powered from some other circuit?

[Brian H]

If the relay interface actually has electronics in it. It is possible it is making power line noise.

Another possibility is it has internal filters to keep internal electronics noise from getting back on to the power lines.  Some manufacturers just hang an across AC power line rated capacitor across the AC input. It will keep internal noise off the power lines but also absorbs X10 and Insteon power line signals as noise.

[watson524]

On 9/29/2018 at 12:25 AM, apostolakisl said:

This goes back to what I was saying about a "clean" breaker.

I can say that I'm not quite sure what you have there with regard to this hot tub relay.  I'm guessing it is powered from that circuit breaker and if that circuit loses power, the relay flips which lets the hot tub pull power from a different source (the generator).  I wouldn't right off expect a relay to be "noisy", but if there isn't anything else that looks suspicious, then it is worth investigating.  The simple test would be to simply unhook the relay from that circuit and do some testing.

If I understand correctly, the only power this is pulling is the relay coil.  That would be measured in milliamps.  It would be meaningless in your power calculations.  The actual hot tub is being powered from some other circuit?

So we have the power on the hot tub coming from the panel on a separate double pole 60a breaker that goes to an outside disconnect box and then over to the hot tub. This 15a breaker that has the outlets/light switches that are an issue goes to a relay and then from that to a contactor (that constantly has a low buzz and always has). For the most recent test, we took the wire off the breaker to the relay (the the contactor goes silent). The 60a double pole goes to the contactor. If that all makes sense.

On 9/29/2018 at 6:20 AM, Brian H said:

If the relay interface actually has electronics in it. It is possible it is making power line noise.

Another possibility is it has internal filters to keep internal electronics noise from getting back on to the power lines.  Some manufacturers just hang an across AC power line rated capacitor across the AC input. It will keep internal noise off the power lines but also absorbs X10 and Insteon power line signals as noise.

After taking the relay/contactor out of the mix, we can find the switch right away in its right location but.... I'm picking add devices found in links and remove existing links. It finds it instantly as soon as it goes into linking mode but when I hit finish it fails saying "cannot determine device link table address"

So then we took our test switch on the lamp plug. Did a factory reset and tried IT (which had been working fine) on a known ok outlet (2 actually) not on that circuit and now ITS giving the same error.

What the heck does this "cannot determine device link table address" mean? Clearly it's communicating with these switches because it seems them right away and knows what types they are.

[mwester]

Insteon messages are variable length - and power-line noise is often predictable, occurring at or around the same place near the zero-crossing point in the AC waveform.  The practical result is that often very short messages like "Hey I need to be linked!" and "Turn ON" or "Turn OFF" work just fine (they get through before the noise pulse/signal appears), but longer messages, or messages that require a "conversation" often fail.

The point being that power-line noise and signal problems often result in exactly the symptom you observe, where the PLM sees the device to link it, but the ISY cannot get enough information from the device to know what it is.  The next level of problem is where you get those both to work, and the device will signal "ON" or "OFF" just fine, but now you can't read or update the link database on the device.  Welcome to Insteon's special corner of hell -- power-line protocols just don't work anymore with modern switching power-supplies and modern lighting.

Try a filterLinc.  Or a dozen.  (I have them littering the walls of my home, just so I can get basic Insteon stuff to work anymore...)

[watson524]

6 hours ago, mwester said:

Insteon messages are variable length - and power-line noise is often predictable, occurring at or around the same place near the zero-crossing point in the AC waveform.  The practical result is that often very short messages like "Hey I need to be linked!" and "Turn ON" or "Turn OFF" work just fine (they get through before the noise pulse/signal appears), but longer messages, or messages that require a "conversation" often fail.

The point being that power-line noise and signal problems often result in exactly the symptom you observe, where the PLM sees the device to link it, but the ISY cannot get enough information from the device to know what it is.  The next level of problem is where you get those both to work, and the device will signal "ON" or "OFF" just fine, but now you can't read or update the link database on the device.  Welcome to Insteon's special corner of hell -- power-line protocols just don't work anymore with modern switching power-supplies and modern lighting.

Try a filterLinc.  Or a dozen.  (I have them littering the walls of my home, just so I can get basic Insteon stuff to work anymore...)

Where would the filterlinc go? They're only plug in units right? So does it just go in any of the receptacles on that breaker? It's very odd to me that since I took the relay/contactor out of the mix, this circuit is still having this issue. It's not like anything else is on it and other locations are fine.

[dbuss]

@watson524Are there any other devices plugged into outlets on this circuit? If there are, you might try unplugging those devices one at a time to see if they could be the source of the powerline noise.

[watson524]

9 minutes ago, dbuss said:

@watson524Are there any other devices plugged into outlets on this circuit? If there are, you might try unplugging those devices one at a time to see if they could be the source of the powerline noise.

@dbuss I'm glad you asked. I didn't realize the outlet that I have a power strip plugged into and my laptop charger into that for when I'm sitting on the couch vs in my office with the docking station was actually in an outlet on this breaker. Went and unplugged that and guess what, it works perfectly!! So it sounds like I do need to get a filter linc to put on that outlet.

I also went and put the relay wire for the hot tub back in on that same breaker exactly where it was and now I have no power to the darn hot tub. No idea what in the heck is with that as it's the same way it was set up before this started. Checked the outside disconnect for the hot tub and that's fine so..... I swear if it's not one thing it's another.