Garage issues

[eas1205]

For over 4 years I've had 2 insteon garage door devices to open and close both of my garage doors with no issues. Suddenly neither IOLinc is responding and can't be detected by my ISY. I ran an extension chord from both the garage IO lincs to another outlet on different circuit and it detected it again and worked fine. Any reason why my 2 dedicated garage opener outlets in ceiling would suddenly stop working with the ISY? Have been driving myself nuts trying to figure this out. Any help is appreciated!

[diggler]

I am having the same issue. Its linked to my keypad which shows open and close by the d button being lit when open. I have not had a chance to play with it but some people said it can be noise.

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[MrBill]

10 minutes ago, eas1205 said:

For over 4 years I've had 2 insteon garage door devices to open and close both of my garage doors with no issues. Suddenly neither IOLinc is responding and can't be detected by my ISY. I ran an extension chord from both the garage IO lincs to another outlet on different circuit and it detected it again and worked fine. Any reason why my 2 dedicated garage opener outlets in ceiling would suddenly stop working with the ISY? Have been driving myself nuts trying to figure this out. Any help is appreciated!

What new thing have you plugged in recently?   It's likely something that generates noise.   If you can't think of anything unplug everything else on the circuit and try.  IOlincs are not dual band so the powerline must be clean.

[tmorse305]

Assuming by "worked fine" you mean the doors actually opened (just checking to make sure the circuit has power) then the most likely cause is interference.  Have you added anything new that plugs in?  UPS, new brand of LED light bulb, etc, a device with a 'fat' plug?

[kclenden]

43 minutes ago, eas1205 said:

For over 4 years I've had 2 insteon garage door devices to open and close both of my garage doors with no issues.

Do you have filters on your two garage door devices?  If not, it's possible that although things have worked for four years, the communication between the IOLincs and the PLM was marginal such that adding devices in other parts of the house eventually upped the noise level so that the marginal communication became no communication.  @larryllix has a post somewhere on the forum that talks about his experience with garage door openers and eventual communication loss.

[eas1205]

The only other thing on that circuit are some Christmas lights, but they are the same ones we use every year so I'm at a loss. Could new things I plug in on another circuit cause interference with my garage circuit?

[mwester]

1 hour ago, eas1205 said:

... Could new things I plug in on another circuit cause interference with my garage circuit?

Most certainly yes.

[larryllix]

A couple of Insteon FiterLincs would be the simplest and fastest way to eliminate noise from Chamberlain garage door openers for me. If it doesn't work then you have two FilterLincs for other and future trouble shooting.

They are easy. You just plug them in and plug the GDO into the filtered outlet on the end of the FilterLinc, and then the  IOLinc on top of the FilterLinc in the unfiltered receptacle.

[Brian H]

New devices may cause issues.

There is a tutorial on such things in the JV Digital Engineering troubleshooting area. A cell phone charger made lots of power line noise directly on the X10 frequency of 120KHz. That is not very far away from the Insteon 131.65KHz. Older Insteon modules like the 2450 I/OLinc are also X10 enabled.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Brian H

[eas1205]

7 hours ago, larryllix said:

A couple of Insteon FiterLincs would be the simplest and fastest way to eliminate noise from Chamberlain garage door openers for me. If it doesn't work then you have two FilterLincs for other and future trouble shooting.

They are easy. You just plug them in and plug the GDO into the filtered outlet on the end of the FilterLinc, and then the  IOLinc on top of the FilterLinc in the unfiltered receptacle.

Thanks I will give that a try. If it doesn't work I may just change over to zwave devices for my garage doors as I have already replaced most insteon switches through my house with zwave. 

[larryllix]

17 minutes ago, eas1205 said:

Thanks I will give that a try. If it doesn't work I may just change over to zwave devices for my garage doors as I have already replaced most insteon switches through my house with zwave. 

You could try just unplugging one and test the other also. If this has just started there may be ne that the power supply is breaking down. Mine older GDO always made some noise that I blamed on my inverters. When I installed my second GDO with the battery backup, my Insteon system stopped functioning throughout the house to about 25%, so it was easy to find. There have been many complaints here over the years about these Chamberlain GDOs.

Edited December 31, 2020 by larryllix

[tome]

Not that this is your issue, but I just wanted to emphasize what tmorse305 said: "new brand of LED light bulb".

I have a long saga which I won't go into here but be aware that many LED light bulbs are incredibly noisy both in external radio frequency interference as well as power line induced noise.  I spent weeks debugging an odd problem with remote garage door openers (even replacing a garage door control module) that I eventually discovered, using a software defined radio turned into frequency analyzer, that new LED light bulbs I had installed were generating a huge amount of noise in exactly the frequency range of the remote openers.  In my case it was external RF, but I put a scope on the power line and it was there as well.  After testing a number of different brand bulbs I ended up using Cree bulbs sold at Home Depot (which were cheaper anyway) and replacing many expensive Sylvania and Philips bulbs I had in my house/garage.  That was about 4 years ago so perhaps those brands are better now, but I learned my lesson!  If I have Insteon or RF issues new light bulbs are the first place I look now.

[eas1205]

3 minutes ago, tome said:

Not that this is your issue, but I just wanted to emphasize what tmorse305 said: "new brand of LED light bulb".

I have a long saga which I won't go into here but be aware that many LED light bulbs are incredibly noisy both in external radio frequency interference as well as power line induced noise.  I spent weeks debugging an odd problem with remote garage door openers (even replacing a garage door control module) that I eventually discovered, using a software defined radio turned into frequency analyzer, that new LED light bulbs I had installed were generating a huge amount of noise in exactly the frequency range of the remote openers.  In my case it was external RF, but I put a scope on the power line and it was there as well.  After testing a number of different brand bulbs I ended up using Cree bulbs sold at Home Depot (which were cheaper anyway) and replacing many expensive Sylvania and Philips bulbs I had in my house/garage.  That was about 4 years ago so perhaps those brands are better now, but I learned my lesson!  If I have Insteon or RF issues new light bulbs are the first place I look now.

You know that is actually a very good point. After reading your post I realized that I replaced a ton of bulbs about 1 week ago which is around when the issue started. I will try to remove the bulbs and see what happens. Thanks!

[larryllix]

7 hours ago, tome said:

Not that this is your issue, but I just wanted to emphasize what tmorse305 said: "new brand of LED light bulb".

I have a long saga which I won't go into here but be aware that many LED light bulbs are incredibly noisy both in external radio frequency interference as well as power line induced noise.  I spent weeks debugging an odd problem with remote garage door openers (even replacing a garage door control module) that I eventually discovered, using a software defined radio turned into frequency analyzer, that new LED light bulbs I had installed were generating a huge amount of noise in exactly the frequency range of the remote openers.  In my case it was external RF, but I put a scope on the power line and it was there as well.  After testing a number of different brand bulbs I ended up using Cree bulbs sold at Home Depot (which were cheaper anyway) and replacing many expensive Sylvania and Philips bulbs I had in my house/garage.  That was about 4 years ago so perhaps those brands are better now, but I learned my lesson!  If I have Insteon or RF issues new light bulbs are the first place I look now.

On my older GDO I found with certain CFL bulbs I could open the garage door by remote but not close it further than a few feet outside the door. Yup...the CFL bulb blinded the rf so badly I couldn't get any range when the bulb was on, after opening the door.

Despite the warning not to install LED bulbs they solved the problem anyway. I always buy dimmable bulbs for their better power supply filtering.

[palayman]

13 hours ago, larryllix said:

On my older GDO I found with certain CFL bulbs I could open the garage door by remote but not close it further than a few feet outside the door.

Same thing happened to me when I replaced a couple of halogen floodlights with LED's that had large electronic ballasts.

[carealtor]

22 hours ago, tome said:

be aware that many LED light bulbs are incredibly noisy both in external radio frequency interference as well as power line induced noise.

That just sent a chill down my spine.  Guess what project I've been working on of late.