sanders2222 Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 Does anyone know if there is a limit to the length of CAT5e cable between the PLM and the ISY Port? I need my ISY located in my structural wiring cabinet next to my Media Center (for IR control). Unfortunately, there is not a 'clean' electrical outlet on the circuit feeding this cabinet. The PLM connection located here could not send X10 commands due to line noise. I have a clean outlet in another room next to a CAT5e port. I used that to locate my PLM and things seem to be working, including X10 devices. However, shortly after making these connections, I lost the ability to turn on some INSTEON lights. I found I could control the light with fast on, off, fast off, dim and brighten. But the ON function would not work for a particular light. I rebooted my ISY which seemed to clear up the problem. But if there is a limit to this cable length, I could be in for more problems.
Michel Kohanim Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 Hi sanders2222, Since we use CAT5 cable to connect ISY to the PLM, the maximum length (in optimum conditions) is about 147ft. This said, however, the safe answer is that of the standard which defines the maximum length to be 50ft. The symptoms you outlined have nothing to do with the distance between ISY and the PLM. I believe the problem you were experiencing was that, after reboot, ISY was not able to communicate with those device and thus the ON LEVEL was set to 0. In this case, then, only Fast On/Off, Off, Dim/Brighten would work but NOT On. May I humbly suggest querying those problematic devices again and if you get any device comm errors, then we have to figure out why the PLM - at its current location - cannot communicate with those devices. With kind regards, Michel Does anyone know if there is a limit to the length of CAT5e cable between the PLM and the ISY Port? I need my ISY located in my structural wiring cabinet next to my Media Center (for IR control). Unfortunately, there is not a 'clean' electrical outlet on the circuit feeding this cabinet. The PLM connection located here could not send X10 commands due to line noise. I have a clean outlet in another room next to a CAT5e port. I used that to locate my PLM and things seem to be working, including X10 devices. However, shortly after making these connections, I lost the ability to turn on some INSTEON lights. I found I could control the light with fast on, off, fast off, dim and brighten. But the ON function would not work for a particular light. I rebooted my ISY which seemed to clear up the problem. But if there is a limit to this cable length, I could be in for more problems.
sanders2222 Posted October 8, 2009 Author Posted October 8, 2009 Thanks for your response Michel. My distance from the PLM to ISY is less than 50 feet. A number of days ago I had moved the ISY and PLM from the closet (structural wiring panel location) to the ‘clean’ room. Things seemed to work properly and the X10 communication problems I had were fixed. Today I moved the ISY back to the closet, left the PLM where it was, and re-patched the connections. So the communication path from the PLM and light switch were unchanged. Following your suggestion, I ran a query on the INSTEON device from the HTML page control. After the query, the ON function no longer worked (from the HTML page). Also, the On-level and Ramp Rate values disappeared from the table. The Status field still displayed the correct status for the light. I checked other devices and they worked properly. Then I opened the Admin Console, and things seemed to reset themselves. I regained full control of the light and the Status, On-level and Ramp-Rate values are all reporting. Not sure that I have a problem or not. I just purchased my ISY last week.
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