DaveBH Posted December 25, 2018 Posted December 25, 2018 For the last two weeks, I have been having full system failures on my ISY/PLM combo. I don't have a huge system, but I do have a few mini controllers that are not on the ISY, they connect RF to the devices, and they work fine no matter what. I notice there is an issue when my timers stop working, and my 8-button keypad that controls a fanlinc stops working. The first time it happened, I power-cycled everything, and it fixed nothing. Then I restored the PLM, and that sort of worked, but many devices did not work properly: if I just hit the on button in the ISY console, they did not turn on, but if I used fast on, they worked. However, that time, I noticed if I queried the flaky device it started working again. Everything was OK for a day or two. The second time, everything just came back on its own. Today, it failed again - I have an all-off scene that I fire with an Amazon Echo, and I fired it on leaving. It worked. When I got home, the devices that were on my sunset timer were on, but I had no control any other way - we are talking about a two-hour window. This time I just reset the PLM, restored it, and nothing. I figured it was toast, but on a hunch, power-cycled the ISY, and as it fired up, things started coming on and off, and everything was working after that. Thinking is, I was convinced it was the PLM, enough to buy a new one. But now I'm having doubts. Neither unit is more than a year old, and the PLM is hardware version 2.4. The fact that resetting the ISY has me concerned that it's really the culprit. Thoughts? Coincidence that resetting the ISY did it maybe? Does this seem like a PLM or an ISY problem to people?
paulbates Posted December 25, 2018 Posted December 25, 2018 Restoring the plm or device and having them temporarily work again is the symptom of a dying PLM. It typically dies over a period of a days or a week or two. Its hard to expect consistent behavior when its in that state... potentially re-starting the ISY and it initializing the PLM got it going again. Paul
mwester Posted December 25, 2018 Posted December 25, 2018 One could be optimistic, and hope that it's just a case of really bad awful electrical noise, which has been reported to cause PLMs to lock up and behave erratically in some cases... but realistically, I'm with @paulbates -- time to break out the soldering iron and repair that PLM. (BTW, with regard to the variability of the PLM lifetime -- that's to be expected given the nature of the problem. Basically, they chose to use the wrong type of capacitors in the switching power supply portion, and when a part is operated in a manner that is vastly outside of its design parameters the classic "bathtub" curve for the failure rate over time doesn't necessarily apply anymore. And with regard to the new version, reports are that they just increased the value of the capacitor rather than using a capacitor of the correct type... and while that increase in capacitance may "plaster over" the issues, it's hardly a solution. So, a huge "FAIL" for Insteon in every way with regard to that PLM... and this is one of the reasons I am convinced that Smarthome is a dying company, being milked for whatever the current owner can wring out of it before it folds altogether. But that last bit is just an opinion, and there are others here who disagree vehemently...)
paulbates Posted December 25, 2018 Posted December 25, 2018 I'm really eager for V2.5 to be released. Brian H documented some of the improvements in the post below. However I contacted SH a month ago and the 2.5 version 2413S board has not been commissioned yet. I think it has a lot to do with power line noise. I've had a surge protector on my panel as long as I've had insteon and gotten over 4 years out of my PLMs. I'm certainly not justifying it, its not good that a key component has this design flaw. As an example, I had several of the X10 TW523/PCS05 powerline interfaces in my X10 days. I was able to uninstall them and sell them after many years of use on my powerline... never had one go bad. Paul
lilyoyo1 Posted December 25, 2018 Posted December 25, 2018 With you having the same exact issue with multiple plms, I suspect that it isn't the plm but something else.
DaveBH Posted December 25, 2018 Author Posted December 25, 2018 5 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said: With you having the same exact issue with multiple plms, I suspect that it isn't the plm but something else. No, it's the same PLM. I purchased a new one, but it hasn't arrived yet so it's not installed.
lilyoyo1 Posted December 25, 2018 Posted December 25, 2018 1 hour ago, DaveBH said: No, it's the same PLM. I purchased a new one, but it hasn't arrived yet so it's not installed. Ok. I misunderstood. When you previously reset your plm, did you have the ISY unplugged before plugging the plm back in?
DaveBH Posted December 30, 2018 Author Posted December 30, 2018 I tried it before and after because I wasn’t sure of the proper order. Neither worked, but about an hour later everything started responding all at once and it’s been fine for a week now. I also have a third party controller, and I’m wondering now if it was flooding my PLM to the point of shutting it down. I updated an unrelated driver on it right about the time the ISY/PLM started talking to each other again. I’m baffled as to what really caused the problem, but it’s fine now.
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