Random LED blinking and fluttering from Insteon Signals

[DAlter01]

I've got a head scrather.  In one section of my house a bunch of my LED lights will randomly blink off for a milisecond even when the Insteon dimmer's are at 100% power.  In that same section of the house, some of the LED's, when dimmed, will mildly flash/strobe to Insteon communication signals.  At first I attributed these dual issues to incomaptible LED's and have swapped out several different LED's without solving the issue.  Some LED's showed less symptoms, some more.  I then swapped the LED's with known good LED's from other parts of the house without solving the problem.  And, the "problem" LED's will work fine in other parts of the house.  I've checked the main electrical panels and all the neutral, ground, and line connections seem solid thinking it might be a loose neutral in the panel.  Though, maybe this is still the heart of the issue and maybe @Teken, @lilyoyo1or others who seem to be knowledgable in this area can comment.

My current theory is I have a rouge Insteon dimmer or KP that is sending out a more powerful or noisy Insteon signal then designed.  With over 150 devices and with the issue being somewhat random, solving for this theory is a slow process and has not paid off yet, though still incomplete.  Does the braintrust here have experience on what might be causing this issue?

[MrBill]

My bet is you have Flickering power from a loose connection.  Test with an Incandescent bulb.  If you see flickering, call your power utility, there's a loose connection most likely at the pole, or meter, but there's a small chance it could be the main breaker lugs (if so, that repair is not DIY unless you have the training and safety equipment).

[DAlter01]

A loose connection is possible.  It isn't the entire house affected so isn't in the main panel/meter.  The main panel feeds two sub panels which is where all the branch circuits originate from.  And, I don't think the issue is in the sub panel as I've confirmed all my lugs in the sub panel are good and tight.  The issue seems to exist in two or more branch circuits in one section of the house.  Though I haven't isolated it enough to confrim which branch circuits are affected.  That is probably the next best step.  Maybe I've got a poor connection(s) in a box and need to open up the wall wiring to make sure all my connections are sound once I isolate which branch circuits are affected.  

[MrBill]

16 minutes ago, DAlter01 said:

A loose connection is possible.  It isn't the entire house affected so isn't in the main panel/meter.  The main panel feeds two sub panels which is where all the branch circuits originate from.  And, I don't think the issue is in the sub panel as I've confirmed all my lugs in the sub panel are good and tight.  The issue seems to exist in two or more branch circuits in one section of the house.  Though I haven't isolated it enough to confrim which branch circuits are affected.  That is probably the next best step.  Maybe I've got a poor connection(s) in a box and need to open up the wall wiring to make sure all my connections are sound once I isolate which branch circuits are affected.  

It could be a branch circuit problem, or it could be a sub-panel problem.

Quote

It isn't the entire house affected so isn't in the main panel/meter

Remember the phase is split and there are two poles and neutral entering the house.  Those two poles are also feed from the main panel to the sub-panel.  If a sub-panel feeder is loose it may just be effecting that sub-panel.  So it could be just parts of the house.  You can usually test this theory without even taking the panel cover off.  Just apply a little pressure to the breaker so it wiggles ever so slightly and watch the lights as you're doing it, if either the connection to the bus or the wire is loose that wiggle will show up in flickering.

Another tool you can use is an infrared gun style thermometer to check for heat on the breaker lugs. 

If you find a loose connection and there has been signs of arcing over time, just tightening it up is not enough. Cut off a couple inches of wire and re-strip. Either clean the lug on the breaker up or replace the breaker.  Once you've had arcing is hard to get rid of the high resistance caused by the surface oxidation.

NOTE:  It's better to test with Incandescent bulbs than LED. the power supply or driver in an LED bulb may smooth out the power imperfections.

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by MrBill

[DAlter01]

 

1 minute ago, MrBill said:

It could be a branch circuit problem, or it could be a sub-panel problem.

Remember the phase is split and there are two poles and neutral entering the house.  Those two poles are also feed from the main panel to the sub-panel.  If a sub-panel feeder is loose it may just be effecting that sub-panel.   You can usually test this theory without even taking the panel cover off.  Just apply a little pressure to the breaker so it wiggles ever so slightly and watch the lights as you're doing it, if either the connection to the bus or the wire is loose that wiggle will show up in flickering.

Another tool you can use is an infrared gun style thermometer to check for heat on the breaker lugs. 

If you find a loose connection and there has been signs of arcing over time, just tightening it up is not enough. Cut off a couple inches of wire and re-strip. Either clean the lug on the breaker up or replace the breaker.  Once you've had arcing is hard to get rid of the high resistance caused by the surface oxidation.

NOTE:  It's better to test with Incandescent bulbs than LED. the power supply or driver in an LED bulb may smooth out the power imperfections.

 

Spoken by a true professional.  This hobbiest appreciates the wise advise.  When I checked the lugs on the panels there were a few lugs that I considered loose and tightened them.  But, I didn't check for signs of arcing.  I'll check that and the other steps you articulated.  Thank you

[Brian H]

There have been user seeing flickering when Insteon commands are being sent. Even some dimmers that are plain mechanically dimmed types. Besides the Insteon modules loads flickering.

Some LED models have also been reported as flickering. There electronics maybe touchy to the commands. While others may not.

I imagine poor electrical connections could also play into this.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Brian H

[DAlter01]

1 minute ago, Brian H said:

There have been user seeing flickering when Insteon commands are being sent. Even some dimmers that are plain mechanically dimmed types. Besides the Insteon modules loads flickering.

There was a early run if the old 2476D dimmers. That flicked on Insteon communications on the power lines. That they changed a choke in the output circuit to help.

The poor connections could be the problem also.

@Brian HThese dimmers/KPs are from Jan/Feb 2021 so relatively new.  All of the lighting is behind an Insteon device so I can't easily see if other types of dimmers are being effected.  It is sounding more like a connection issue.  Thank you.

[Brian H]

If the connections all look good.

It still can be the LED bulbs. Even where located in the setup may effect them. As the Insteon power line signals are all not the same voltage depending on the homes wiring looses.

[DAlter01]

5 minutes ago, Brian H said:

If the connections all look good.

It still can be the LED bulbs. Even where located in the setup may effect them. As the Insteon power line signals are all not the same voltage depending on the homes wiring looses.

Yeah, that may make sense.  The area in question is LOADED with Insteon devices.  There are probably 35 Insteon devices within 25' when you factor in both stories.  The area where the LED bulbs test good is relatively isolated with a more modest density of Insteon devices.

The signal (both RF and powerline) will be much more robust in the problem zone.

Edited September 12, 2021 by DAlter01

[gzahar]

Do you have the same number of bulbs/switch on the good vs bad locations?

[DAlter01]

There are fewer switches in the "good" area.  However, I have parts of the house that has near the same density of switches and that area is not exhibiting the behavior.  The number of bulbs isn't likely related.  Some of affected lighting circuits are 2 bulbs, some are 8, but they act identically with the random milisecond blink and the flutering when dimmed to Insteon signals.  

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, DAlter01 said:

There are fewer switches in the "good" area.  However, I have parts of the house that has near the same density of switches and that area is not exhibiting the behavior.  The number of bulbs isn't likely related.  Some of affected lighting circuits are 2 bulbs, some are 8, but they act identically with the random milisecond blink and the flutering when dimmed to Insteon signals.  

I have expereience the flickering to data a few time in my Insteon life. I could never find any explanation or problems with link matching to ISY.

However the problem always cleared up after a factory reset and restore of the SwitchLinc.

[DAlter01]

1 hour ago, larryllix said:

I have expereience the flickering to data a few time in my Insteon life. I could never find any explanation or problems with link matching to ISY.

However the problem always cleared up after a factory reset and restore of the SwitchLinc.

Huh, I never would have thought to try that.  I'll give it a try tomorrow and report back.

Thank you

 

[lilyoyo1]

On 9/12/2021 at 9:41 AM, DAlter01 said:

I've got a head scrather.  In one section of my house a bunch of my LED lights will randomly blink off for a milisecond even when the Insteon dimmer's are at 100% power.  In that same section of the house, some of the LED's, when dimmed, will mildly flash/strobe to Insteon communication signals.  At first I attributed these dual issues to incomaptible LED's and have swapped out several different LED's without solving the issue.  Some LED's showed less symptoms, some more.  I then swapped the LED's with known good LED's from other parts of the house without solving the problem.  And, the "problem" LED's will work fine in other parts of the house.  I've checked the main electrical panels and all the neutral, ground, and line connections seem solid thinking it might be a loose neutral in the panel.  Though, maybe this is still the heart of the issue and maybe @Teken, @lilyoyo1or others who seem to be knowledgable in this area can comment.

My current theory is I have a rouge Insteon dimmer or KP that is sending out a more powerful or noisy Insteon signal then designed.  With over 150 devices and with the issue being somewhat random, solving for this theory is a slow process and has not paid off yet, though still incomplete.  Does the braintrust here have experience on what might be causing this issue?

If this is across different switches and an issue that can be duplicated, I'd air gap each switch one at a time to see if it stops. Personally, my thinking is more in line with @MrBill I've seen similar situations in a few situations. The most recent ones required to power company to run new lines

[Techman]

Being that the problem is only affecting part of the house I would first eliminate the possibility of a bad switch, which could be injecting noise on the powerline, by air gapping the switches, a few at a time to see if the flickering stops. It could be a bad triac in one of the switches.

[DAlter01]

15 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

If this is across different switches and an issue that can be duplicated, I'd air gap each switch one at a time to see if it stops. Personally, my thinking is more in line with @MrBill I've seen similar situations in a few situations. The most recent ones required to power company to run new lines

I've started the airgap process but being that it has a randomness to it, the process has been tedious and I've made little progress.  As suggested by @larryllixI think I'll also try factory resetting as I go through the air gap effort.

I sure hope this doesn't involve new lines.  We will see and once I figure out the solution I'll report back.

Edited September 13, 2021 by DAlter01

[DAlter01]

8 minutes ago, Techman said:

Being that the problem is only affecting part of the house I would first eliminate the possibility of a bad switch, which could be injecting noise on the powerline, by air gapping the switches, a few at a time to see if the flickering stops. It could be a bad triac in one of the switches.

Yep, I think there are two fronts to puruse at present.  One is to go through and airgap and factory reset devices to see if that eliminates the issue, and going through the panel to see if there has been any arcing on any of the line in or branch circuit lugs.  Time, slippin, slippin into the future....... It's going to take a lot of time.  Hopefully one of those two paths solves it.

Thank you

[MrBill]

16 minutes ago, Techman said:

Being that the problem is only affecting part of the house

Sometimes people are amazed what winds up one one side of the electrical service vs the other side of the electrical service.

Personally if i was in @DAlter01's shoes I'd call in flickering lights to the power utility and let them check the upstream meter and pole connections.  Generally there is no charge from the utility (found out recently that some rural electrical co-ops sometimes do charge because homeowners own their service drop).  Flickering and partial outage calls are common, the call center employee won't doubt the issue.

[DAlter01]

24 minutes ago, MrBill said:

Sometimes people are amazed what winds up one one side of the electrical service vs the other side of the electrical service.

Personally if i was in @DAlter01's shoes I'd call in flickering lights to the power utility and let them check the upstream meter and pole connections.  Generally there is no charge from the utility (found out recently that some rural electrical co-ops sometimes do charge because homeowners own their service drop).  Flickering and partial outage calls are common, the call center employee won't doubt the issue.

You have convinced me.  I'm doing it.  Thank you for restating it.  It finally sank in.

[DAlter01]

Maybe a solution has been found.  As it turns out the majority of the affected lights are on a same circuit as one of the HVAC air handlers.  It is a 2005 era house so not sure why that is the case.  The air handler should have been on its own circuit.  Manually turning on/off the air handler or HVAC doesn't replicate the issues except for the nominal split second dim that occurs when the air handler kicks on.  But, that wasn't the problem I was having.

I've corrected the wiring so that the affected lights are no longer on the air handler circuit and its been about 6 hours of operations without a repeititon of the problems.  The lights on the "other" circuit that was also acting similarly was only one light fixture and that one was resolved with an LED replacement.  I thought I had already swapped out all the LED bulbs to known good ones but I guess I had missed that one fixture.    

Why was the air handler (even when off) causing issues with the LED lighting and causing the LED's to strope in concert with the Insteon signal, I've got no idea.  And, why was the air handler causing the LED lights to blink off for a milisecond, I don't know.  If it wasn't the air handler, once I isolated the two breakers with the problem wiring I did R&R the wiring from the breaker and the neutral buss.  They were tight and I didn't see any corrosion or evidence of arcing but maybe that manipulation of the wiring had an effect.  

Hopefully this is the end of the issue.

[Brian H]

If the LED bulbs blinked off when it started. It is possible a heavy start up current dipped the line voltage momentarily. When it turned off. There may have been a momentary voltage spike on the line.

[DAlter01]

5 minutes ago, Brian H said:

If the LED bulbs blinked off when it started. It is possible a heavy start up current dipped the line voltage momentarily. When it turned off. There may have been a momentary voltage spike on the line.

Before correcting the wiring I put the HVAC thermostat into test mode.  It didn't do it's blink and flutter when I manually turned on/off the circulation fan nor did it blink and flutter when I turned on/off the HVAC compressor.  Both the HVAC and Ecobee thermostats have a lot of signals they are processing and generating at various times other than turning on the fan/compressor so maybe it is related to those other signals.  Those low voltage electronics would would have been behind the 24 transformer of the HVAC unit so should have shielded by that, I would think.  Maybe the transformer was failing or allowing the HVAC signals to back feed into that lighting circuit.  Normally lighting and the air handler are on different circuits so this isn't a typical situation encountered in most houses.  I wish I had insalled a filter link on the air handler and tested before correcting that wiring error to see if that would have solved the issue.   It would have been telling.   

 

 

[Teken]

Lots of good information from the members as always. Some things to consider if your home spans multi generations of Insteon or have lots of electronics in the home. In no order of relevance or priority:

Coupling / Bridging: Regardless of full dual band install this (beacon) test must be completed to identify bad zones. If your home continues to use single band it’s imperative this is done, in place, and working.

Hardware: There has been no less than seven revisions to the various light switches. All of the 1-4 generations exhibited pulsing, blinking, buzz, hiss, to LED ramping issues. These devices if present should be considered suspect and replaced.

EOP: If you have any Ethernet over power line especially 1-3 generations units these are Insteon noise makers.

Loads: As you already noted a bad LED design can display erratic blinking, strobing, to pulsing never mind not turning off. Every load should be tested for being a noise maker / signal sucker.

This is easily done using old school methods of a AM FM radio, fluorescent bulb, assuming you have no test gear.

Anything that causes the radio to receive noise is in the air and power line. You see the tube bulb *dance* and flicker to something running like a motor / pump / compressor etc. It’s on the line and in the air!

This is why every home should start by installing only proven neutral electronics and filter everything else possible.

TESTS: The ISY Series Controller if used correctly can offer insight by reviewing error logs, scene test. Newer switches have blink on error this should be used to help narrow down root cause.

Unplugging devices is the long way but sure way to identify noise makers vs signal suckers. Turning off breakers allows an entire branch circuit to be killed but also introduces problems of breaking coupling / bridging and giving you false positives!

Because things won’t turn on / off because devices are no longer connected!

Power: As others noted every device from the service panel must have solid wiring fully terminated. Do NOT simply turn the Marret / wire nut with your finger! Every wire must be terminated with linesman pliers. If you’re using clip & go connectors insure they are fully seated and clamped.

Every home has GFCI / AFCI at the breaker, outlet, point of use. Any of these devices which are from 2010 and below are suspect. If you’re rocking 1986 of the same throw them out.

Appliances: I know lots of folks who still like to rock those old school clocks and fridges because they have that 50’s vibe look. Many of these devices are Insteon killers as they use components and technology that are literally exploding inside.

Besides that any appliance that has a silly computer inside is a candidate to be a Insteon signal sucker as has been proven by the Samsh^t TV fridge / LCD Stove / Washer / Dryer / Dishwasher.

[Brian H]

If the manufacturer was not a penny pincer on the parts BOM.

Adding a common mode choke in the AC input to the electronics. Before the AC rated capacitor across the power lines to kill the internal electronic noise. They would be more power line communications friendly.