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Serial PLM discontinued according to smarthome

bcdavis75

By bcdavis75
in ISY994

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Kevin Connolly Experienced

Kevin Connolly

Posted
Posted

I didn't read all 5 pages of posts, so excuse the reask if the answer is already out there. 

To summarize what I've read: Smarthome is/has discontinued the 2413S PLM except for possibly some warranty replacements...and they are showing currently out of stock.

That being the case can someone summarize what the current and future workarounds are?...(Michel?) Posts sometimes get off topic and the proposed/suggested solutions get lost in the mix. I'm one of those guys that needs your basic "buy this and plug it in here" instructions....even if it's a software interface to Raspberry Pi to Outlet connector I can deal with that.

What makes me a tad nervous about this situation is having an entire home installation contingent on a single device that's discontinued without a backup plan. I don't know about you guys but I'm married and even the thought of my entire house being offline due to a part I can't get isn't a good one.

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larryllix Advanced

larryllix

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, Kevin Connolly said:

I didn't read all 5 pages of posts, so excuse the reask if the answer is already out there. 

To summarize what I've read: Smarthome is/has discontinued the 2413S PLM except for possibly some warranty replacements...and they are showing currently out of stock.

That being the case can someone summarize what the current and future workarounds are?...(Michel?) Posts sometimes get off topic and the proposed/suggested solutions get lost in the mix. I'm one of those guys that needs your basic "buy this and plug it in here" instructions....even if it's a software interface to Raspberry Pi to Outlet connector I can deal with that.

What makes me a tad nervous about this situation is having an entire home installation contingent on a single device that's discontinued without a backup plan. I don't know about you guys but I'm married and even the thought of my entire house being offline due to a part I can't get isn't a good one.

- hope SH makes a replacement serial PLM (appears not likely)
- get a USB PLM and swap the boards
- get replacement capacitors and repair your own damaged PLM / find a PLM repair shop
- get a polisy and use a USB PLM with it (future)
- dump Insteon products and go with ISY Zwave, WiFi, and other protocols
- dump ISY and go with another HA controller
- dump ISY and become semi-HA, remote controller user.

 

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MrBill Advanced

MrBill

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Kevin Connolly said:

To summarize what I've read: Smarthome is/has discontinued the 2413S PLM except for possibly some warranty replacements...and they are showing currently out of stock.

It's out of stock.  It hasn't been discontinued at this time.  Discontinued products like "Hidden Door Sensor" aren't listed on the website.  It's unknown when it will be back in stock due to the current worldwide semiconductor shortages.

 

1 hour ago, Kevin Connolly said:

That being the case can someone summarize what the current and future workarounds are?

  • Some people repair failed PLMs by replacing capacitors.
  • someone had success swapping parts from a USB model into the serial model.
  • there's another thread where a converter was created so that a USB model could be used.
  • ISY is in the process of moving to Polisy, when it does the USB PLM is an option.
1 hour ago, Kevin Connolly said:

without a backup plan.

Always make backups.  I've had a spare 2413s on the shelf since I started reading about failures years ago.

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lilyoyo1 Advanced

lilyoyo1

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Kevin Connolly said:

I didn't read all 5 pages of posts, so excuse the reask if the answer is already out there. 

To summarize what I've read: Smarthome is/has discontinued the 2413S PLM except for possibly some warranty replacements...and they are showing currently out of stock.

That being the case can someone summarize what the current and future workarounds are?...(Michel?) Posts sometimes get off topic and the proposed/suggested solutions get lost in the mix. I'm one of those guys that needs your basic "buy this and plug it in here" instructions....even if it's a software interface to Raspberry Pi to Outlet connector I can deal with that.

What makes me a tad nervous about this situation is having an entire home installation contingent on a single device that's discontinued without a backup plan. I don't know about you guys but I'm married and even the thought of my entire house being offline due to a part I can't get isn't a good one.

Insteon has not discontinued the PLM. It will be out of stock for some time due to the global chip shortage but they will start making them again. At this point, I do not have a time frame on when that will happen. 

They are working on a replacement PLM but that will not be available for quite some time. If i had to hazard a guess I'd say late 2022 to 2023. 

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larryllix Advanced

larryllix

Posted
Posted

If I had to hazard a guess I would say the serial PLM will never be manufactured again. Look at Insteon's track record and what the guessers are telling us, here.

By the time the serial PLM is ready to be manufactured again, there will not be any market left for them. We are constantly being told by the guessers that Insteon is trimming products from their lines that do not sell. Why use stock space fr years on products that do not sell?

HCL

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Kevin Connolly Experienced

Kevin Connolly

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, larryllix said:

- hope SH makes a replacement serial PLM (appears not likely)
- get a USB PLM and swap the boards
- get replacement capacitors and repair your own damaged PLM / find a PLM repair shop
- get a polisy and use a USB PLM with it (future)
- dump Insteon products and go with ISY Zwave, WiFi, and other protocols
- dump ISY and go with another HA controller
- dump ISY and become semi-HA, remote controller user.

 

Do you have the link to the converter thread? I'd like to have a look. I searched for it but I didn't see it

Back in the day when Polyglot came out some pure genius wrote a program for the RPi. The RPi has USB connectors. I'm sure it's a ton of work/trouble, and would involve modification to the ISY programming, but has anyone tinkered with the idea of using the ISY's ethernet to back channel the commands to an RPi and have the RPi forward thru the USB port?

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gdb New

gdb

Posted
Posted

As I found in the manufacturer component discontinuation notice linked above, hopefully Insteon placed an order for those power supply chips before the deadline in August of last year. If so, they may have just received them last month and can put the existing model back in production for at least as many units as they ordered chips for, unless another component was affected by the global chip shortage. If they missed that order deadline, (or maybe still have an inventory of the discontinued chip) then the chip shortage may be the whole reason for the delay. In any case, The discontinuation will force a redesign. As it is, i can’t order the replacement chip because it is discontinued.

Edit: on top of that component being discontinued, the serial interface chip on the daughter board is showing a factory lead time of 52 weeks in some places

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/MAX232EIDRG4?qs=iSMark9AYDW3p9P53M18cA%3D%3D

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  • 2 weeks later...
gzahar Advanced

gzahar

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Kevin Connolly said:

Excuse the rehash and I’m sure there’s a very good reason why not but…if you had a bad 2413S and bought a 2413U couldn’t you just swap out the main board versus replacing capacitors? Seems from what I’ve read that that’s the part that fails.

 

Per the post you replied to above:

- get a USB PLM and swap the boards

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Kevin Connolly Experienced

Kevin Connolly

Posted
Posted

Just wanted to make sure that it is a straight up swap and didn’t/doesn’t require any other procedures. 

I have the Pi version of the workaround installed as well….as options go. Just need to move my Pi setup closer to the ISY and PLM.

 Thanks for the quick reply.

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gdb New

gdb

Posted
Posted
Excuse the rehash and I’m sure there’s a very good reason why not but…if you had a bad 2413S and bought a 2413U couldn’t you just swap out the main board versus replacing capacitors? Seems from what I’ve read that that’s the part that fails.
 

That would work as long as whatever power event that damaged the main board didn’t also damage the daughter board.
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Kevin Connolly Experienced

Kevin Connolly

Posted
Posted

Excellent point!

The optimal work around solution for the time being than seems to be the raspberry pi bridge with either a usb rf stick or a usb plm.

Personally I think this “ chip shortage” is part real and part BS…like the gas shortages of the 70s…. but we have to play the cards being dealt.

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Brian H Advanced

Brian H

Posted
Posted

Since the ISY994i does not check what type PLM it is connected to it. A working 2413S Serial Board in a new 2413U USB PLM should work.

If you where using software that checked what it is connected to. It may cause an issue. As a 2413S serial daughter board in a 2413U USB PLM. Will report the USB PLMs Category and Subcategory ID.

I would not try a serial port daughter board from a 2412S PLM. The link memory is on the daughter board. Has a slower speed than the memory in a 2413. Could also be the original 417 link size or the >2000 size. That seems to miss things over about 800 links. On a ISY994i.

I did see Smarthome say they had some serial port failures on the daughter boards. The Revision 2.3 the serial interface chip was changed to one with a better ESD rating. V2.4 added some signal protection on the serial port. signals and the later chip.

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AAdsit Member

AAdsit

Posted
Posted

I built the Raspberry Pi interface from TTL (from the ISY) to USB (to PLM-U) according to the link below. It works, however, the Pi needs to boot first to establish the comms between the TTL levels and the USB protocol. I am currently building a delay device that will keep the ISY from booting until the Raspberry is fully running. For now, for a power loss, I just have to unplug the ISY and reconnect.

Picture shows my ISY with the Pi Zero "backpack."

I'll post my delay device soon (using a resistor, capacitor, and relay).

 

ISY-Pi.jpg

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AAdsit Member

AAdsit

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Kevin Connolly said:

Also could you share where you got your NOYITO TTL to RS232 Module TTL RS232 Mutual Conversion Module Serial Level Conversion to SP232 TTL Serial Port communicates with RS232 Level Device from.

Thanks

I got it on Amazon - appears to be unavailable.

It fit inside the backpack enclosure.

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Brian H Advanced

Brian H

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, Kevin Connolly said:

I'm reading up on the modems themselves. The attached is old enough to definitely be outdated but it does give a conceptual view of their basic design flow and function.

INSTEON_Modem_Developer's_Guide_20071012a.pdf 1.32 MB · 3 downloads

The schematics are for the older 2412S PLM. Though the basic information has not changed that much.

The memory on the daughter boards schematic is the slower speed memory and transformer type power supply.  In the 2413S it has a faster access memory chip and the F1 fuse is not installed or the newly designed one. The 2412S could also send unregulated 12 volt DC out on the serial cable. To power things like the ISY99i and ISY994i. 2413S has enough power supply issues to not have up to a 400mA output to an external device.

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