LEDs controlled by Leviton Decora Dimmer strobe (with insteon data)

[shpegel]

A unrepeatable (so far) event last night has left me baffled. Just before going to bed I used a Mini Keypad Remote to turn off a scene  called Outside Lights that has 3 Insteon dimmers. As  soon as I pressed the key, 5 Lithonia WF6 recessed LEDs controlled by a Leviton Dz6hd-1bz began to strobe off and on  as if annunciating the data. That is, they blinked in time to the data. I tried this 3 times and it happened all 3 times. These are members of a entirely separate scene called Kitchen Lights that has 3 Insteon dimmers and the Leviton dimmer which powers the WF6s.  There is also several under cabinet LED strips controlled by a Insteon switch in this same Kitchen Lights circuit. Only the Leviton controlled LEDs strobed. Next, I used Google Home to turn off the Outside Light scene and while I think I noted just vaguest bit of strobing in the Lithonia  WF6s, it was nothing like what had happened with the Mini Keypad Remote. I decided to bag it for the evening and deal with it in the morning.

Not sure why, but, so far, I can't repeat the same behavior today. It occurred to me that perhaps the Mini Keypad Remote battery was low and it might be "splattering" the RF frequencies but it did not do it again today. 

Not a clue as to what is really happening but glad it has stopped. 

 

 

[redridge]

First thing that comes to mind for me are the micro module dimmers.  If you are using those replace them somehow or go back to incandescent lighting for those loads.  I have one hallway circuit I have to get back to even after doing that.  It still blinks, but not so much with data traffic as when dimming from a linked keypad, which means I have to cut-in a box above a fixture shroud so I can replace the micro with an inline.  I think I purchased nearly 10 micros for my project and even a micro relay had a reception problem which was cured with an inline.

I do have a few micros that seem to be fine with magnetic inductive low volt MR16 recess cans, but I plan to replace them too at the first sign of trouble.

[simplextech]

37 minutes ago, shpegel said:

As  soon as I pressed the key, 5 Lithonia WF6 recessed LEDs controlled by a Leviton Dz6hd-1bz began to strobe off and on  as if annunciating the data.

That part baffles me.  Why would Z-Wave controlled lights be affected in any way from Insteon traffic?  The only thing common here is they are members of the Scene which is not a pure Insteon scene but a hybrid/virtual scene controlled by the ISY for the Z-Wave devices.  Have your raised this issue to UDI Support?

[mwester]

1 minute ago, simplextech said:

That part baffles me.  Why would Z-Wave controlled lights be affected in any way from Insteon traffic?  The only thing common here is they are members of the Scene which is not a pure Insteon scene but a hybrid/virtual scene controlled by the ISY for the Z-Wave devices.  Have your raised this issue to UDI Support?

I suspect what's happening is that the voltage changes at the zero-crossing point that make up the Insteon power-line signal are triggering the triacs in the dimmers.  Which doesn't explain why it happened then, and why it stopped, but it does explain why any dimmer, z-wave or other, might be susceptible to the Insteon traffic.

[simplextech]

8 minutes ago, mwester said:

I suspect what's happening is that the voltage changes at the zero-crossing point that make up the Insteon power-line signal are triggering the triacs in the dimmers.  Which doesn't explain why it happened then, and why it stopped, but it does explain why any dimmer, z-wave or other, might be susceptible to the Insteon traffic.

If it was consistent then absolutely.  That's the weird part.