Power failures causing ISY issues for remote access

[Mustang65]

First off the house has a whole house surge suppressor at the service panel, which I installed a few years ago due to a lightning hit within 50' of the house, causing some nasty electrical issues. So, in the last 2 weeks, my home in Florida has encountered 3 power outages. After each outage and when the power was restored I had no ISY remote connection (I am in the North GA Mountains about 600 miles away). The SimplySafe alarm came up ok, the GEM/DataBox came up ok, the Arduino and Pi controllers came up ok, Dish Sat ok, SlingBox ok, the ecobee thermostat came up ok. It took about 24 hours for the ISY to come back on line (remote connection that is). The Arduino and Pi are on the same electrical circuit. The all have dedicated IP addresses.

Any idea as to why the ISY was not responding?

As I mentioned in the past, it is time for a "Battery Backup" circuit for all these items. I have all the parts just need to get it all together.

[paulbates]

Are you connecting through your router via port forwarding, or the ISY Portal? Though they're decreasing, we get brown outs / blackouts on our ~70 year old power grid in my neighborhood. Insteon devices occasionally don't like the brown outs. But after the cable modem and router come back (no battery backup)... the ISY comes back up within a few minutes and connects to the ISY Portal. I know because I use pushover and notifications about the restart come through.

A suggestion is to simulate it when you're back home by powering the ISY down and backup and then look at the log.

Paul

[Mustang65]

Thanks Paul,

My son went over and put a few more things on Insteon modules for me so that I can reboot them, providing ISY is up and running. I am connecting directly to my router/port forwarding. Hopefully, when I put the battery backup in, that should resolve the problem.

 

Thanks

[paulbates]

All this talk turned out to be foreshadowing... Guess who lost a whole power leg in this evenings storm...

[larryllix]

6 minutes ago, paulbates said:

All this talk turned out to be foreshadowing... Guess who lost a whole power leg in this evenings storm...

Only one leg? Main fuse?

[paulbates]

Most things working perfectly, some things not at all. The fridge seems to be thinking about it. Seems to have protection... it will run for a bit and then shut back off

It started with some flickering and wires sparking behind the neighbors in some overgrowth. Its kept raining but not windy like it was when the front blew through.

You got me on main fuse, not sure what that is.

Paul

[MWareman]

Could it be that the PLM has failed or is failing? How old is it?

 

One thing to do when putting an ISY a long way away: Use the OADR Firmware.

 

That way, it won’t go into safe mode if the PLM fails (which it will at some point).

 

 

[larryllix]

9 hours ago, paulbates said:

Most things working perfectly, some things not at all. The fridge seems to be thinking about it. Seems to have protection... it will run for a bit and then shut back off

It started with some flickering and wires sparking behind the neighbors in some overgrowth. Its kept raining but not windy like it was when the front blew through.

You got me on main fuse, not sure what that is.

Paul

hmmmmm.... ground and neutral in neighbourhood got separated maybe? Check voltage balance on your service and especially neutral to ground (find a water puddle,? not the wire close to your main disconnect) with an unbalanced load (make some neutral current) in your house.

[paulbates]

15 hours ago, larryllix said:

hmmmmm.... ground and neutral in neighbourhood got separated maybe? Check voltage balance on your service and especially neutral to ground (find a water puddle,? not the wire close to your main disconnect) with an unbalanced load (make some neutral current) in your house.

I found out dte, my powerline company, accepts FB messages around the clock. In a few minutes I reported the problem and which neighbors house the problem was behind.  They were there mid this morning and had it back on

[Mustang65]

On 8/18/2019 at 1:48 PM, Mustang65 said:

First off the house has a whole house surge suppressor at the service panel, which I installed a few years ago due to a lightning hit within 50' of the house, causing some nasty electrical issues. So, in the last 2 weeks, my home in Florida has encountered 3 power outages. After each outage and when the power was restored I had no ISY remote connection (I am in the North GA Mountains about 600 miles away). The SimplySafe alarm came up ok, the GEM/DataBox came up ok, the Arduino and Pi controllers came up ok, Dish Sat ok, SlingBox ok, the ecobee thermostat came up ok. It took about 24 hours for the ISY to come back on line (remote connection that is). The Arduino and Pi are on the same electrical circuit. The all have dedicated IP addresses.

Any idea as to why the ISY was not responding?

As I mentioned in the past, it is time for a "Battery Backup" circuit for all these items. I have all the parts just need to get it all together.

OK, here is an update for the above issue. My son went to my house and I had him check the UPS that provides power to the security cameras, and the Arduino that allows me to reset a few of my older security cameras. Well, the UPS shut down when the power was off for more than an hour and this unit needs to have its "RESET" button pressed to get the unit back on line. Really sucks. So then I had my son add a Insteon unit for the Security DVR  and the Arduino and plug them into the regular outlets behind the UPS. Everything came up working fine and still is working.

When I get back home in October, PRIORITY #1, I will be building my own designed UPS system (have all the parts) to the Security DVR/Cameras, ISY, GEM/DataBox, Internet Router (ISP), my Wi-Fi Home router (used as managed network), Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Still need to make it through the hurricane season yet.

 

[Mustang65]

On 8/18/2019 at 9:49 PM, paulbates said:

Most things working perfectly, some things not at all. The fridge seems to be thinking about it. Seems to have protection... it will run for a bit and then shut back off

It started with some flickering and wires sparking behind the neighbors in some overgrowth. Its kept raining but not windy like it was when the front blew through.

You got me on main fuse, not sure what that is.

Paul

Here in Florida,  we have a lot of major lightning hits on the transformers along the bike/walking trail behind my house (an abandoned RR easement for 39 miles), we sometimes end up running on one electrical leg after a hit. The electric company comes out and fixes the problem. I shut down the house electrical when this happens, as I do not want to chance any major issues like HVAC, fridge or electronics until it is fixed. Been lucky so far.