SynchroLinc Dissapointment.

[Illusion]

I had hoped that the reviving of Insteon and newer ISY firmware would allow me to add these synchrolincs I bought to my system, but alas still no joy. In the below pic, I have 3 Synchrolincs, all show as the same version, but only the one with the hardware sticker of V1.1 will add to the ISY correctly. The other two with hardware stickers of V1.15 are weird.

 

V1.1 adds and functions fine:

But V1.15 does not update status unless I query it and the link table is wrong after adding:

And with the other V1.15 I decided to have the ISY restore the link table and I get:

 

I detailed all this back in May here:

I am keeping these things in the hopes that one day I will be able to add them to my ISY and use them to monitor that power states of devices around my home.

[lilyoyo1]

Insteon being in our out of business shouldn't have anything to do with the syncrolincs. I know they used to work flawlessly with the isy (I used to have them). Either there's a bug preventing them from working, some type of interference (they're powerline only), or whoever sold them sold you bad product. 

 

[Illusion]

Oh no, the Synchrolincs work just fine if I link them with devices outside the ISY. It is only the ISY that has an issue with them. And they always respond correctly if I do a query.

My bad link table is just like other users bad link table here:

I doubt the ones that you had and worked flawlessly had a V1.15 sticker on them. I suspect they were just like the 6 of them I have that work great, all with V1.1 stickers on them.

The out of business comment is related to my belief that something significant changed between v1.1 and v1.15 and UD was not able to get that info with the fall of Smarthome. Now that they are sorta revived, I was hoping that someone would update whatever needs to be changed to allow the v1.15 units to work with the ISY.

[lilyoyo1]

29 minutes ago, Illusion said:

Oh no, the Synchrolincs work just fine if I link them with devices outside the ISY. It is only the ISY that has an issue with them. And they always respond correctly if I do a query.

My bad link table is just like other users bad link table here:

I doubt the ones that you had and worked flawlessly had a V1.15 sticker on them. I suspect they were just like the 6 of them I have that work great, all with V1.1 stickers on them.

The out of business comment is related to my belief that something significant changed between v1.1 and v1.15 and UD was not able to get that info with the fall of Smarthome. Now that they are sorta revived, I was hoping that someone would update whatever needs to be changed to allow the v1.15 units to work with the ISY.

Mine came from different generations but since it's been years, I couldn't say exactly what the revs were. 

[Techman]

I have a SynchrolLinc, Hardware 1.15, firmware v.30 that's on my ISY994 running firmware 5.3.4 with no issues.

 

[Illusion]

@Techman Thanks so much! I find it super weird that they work for me with manual linking to other devices, but have messed up link tables if the ISY touches them. But if yours work, it must be a me problem. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I guess I will leave this as one of those super weird home automation gremlins. I have been working on this since May of this year with the same poor results no matter what I do.

[Illusion]

Hey @Techman,

I should leave it alone, but it is tough for me... Was that V1.15 added to the system on a much earlier ISY firmware? I was on 5.3.4 when I began trying to make this work.

If it has been in your system from much older firmware, do you by chance have another synchrolinc v1.15 laying around that you could try to add using the current 5.3.4?

[Techman]

The one I have installed was done many years ago with an older ISY firmware. I do have a spare, but it's buried in a box and hard to get to. If you're still having issues I could try to dig out in a day or two.

The SynchroLinc is a single band device, so you might try putting it closer to the PLM when you attempt to link it. Be sure to do a factory reset on it first.

If you have Zwave, the Aeotec SmartSwitch 7 will accomplish the same and more as the SynchroLinc.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Techman

[Brian H]

When first powered up. The manual indicates it goes into a calibration routine. Not too sure if that has any early linking attempts.  Mine is in the box unused but did a test with it.

Good point on the power line only communications. My V1.1 firmware V.30 in the expanded Event Viewer also shows " Not sure if it is an I2 device" so it reverted to I1. That is a lot of peeks and pokes on the power lines. So close to the PLM may help. This was in a test with 5.0.16C in the ISY994i

Your V1.15 test in your original post shows it doesn't have any links in it.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Brian H

[Illusion]

Thanks for the attempt at help guys! I thought the i1 comms was a good path to try. So I forced the ISY to i1 comms only and added a factory reset v1.15 to my system. That went extremely poorly with very long writes and an ever more terrible looking link table as a result. I deleted, factory reset, and tried using automatic and device reported. Back to the original bad link tables. Factory reset v1.15 and restore device yields same bad link table and no live status updates.  

Poor comms are not an issue in my system. I am a power line home automation guy from back in the X10 days, and I learned (was forced to learn) how to have a clean strong power line environment. (capacitive couplers- filter links on every noise make, line sucker - and lots of dual band Insteon devices on both legs.)

@Techman Thanks for the zwave device suggestion. That alone will make me get zwave when my last functional synchrolinc fails! And yeah, in a few days, if you could try adding that spare I would appreciate it. I would not advise touching the one that is working in the system just in case I am not crazy.

Event viewer of last attempted add attached if anyone is curious. This would have been an attempt at adding a factroy reset v1.15 with the ISY back in automatic comms selection using the 'start linking' and button press on the Synchrolinc method.

adding synchrolinc.txt

[Brian H]

The text you posted.

Looks like it still was using I2 communications.

[Techman]

@Illusion

I was looking at your device link table for the 1.15 SynchroLinc and noticed that one has 3 lines of links.

Mine only has 2 lines, the last line being all 0.  I think that there's some data still embedded in your device(s) that didn't clear when you reset it. I would try several factory resets.

I've attached the user manual in case you don't have one

2423A5 SynchroLinc Manual.pdf

[Illusion]

@Techman Factory reset is working. If I check the link table after a factory reset it shows the expected table. And again, directly linking this device to a lamplinc or something will reliably turn that device on and off in response to load changes at the output of the v1.15 synchrolinc.

That 3 line link table is the result of a restore device.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Illusion

[Illusion]

Upgraded to 5.5.4. Added in the Synchrolinc. All still same failures.

@Techman Would still love it if you dig a v1.15 out and try to add it some day...

[Bumbershoot]

1 hour ago, Illusion said:

Upgraded to 5.5.4. Added in the Synchrolinc. All still same failures.

I just noticed this thread.  I have a Synchrolinc working just fine in 5.5.4, for what it's worth.  Mine has been in use for several years, so it was installed on an ISY994i.

[Techman]

1 hour ago, Illusion said:

Upgraded to 5.5.4. Added in the Synchrolinc. All still same failures.

@Techman Would still love it if you dig a v1.15 out and try to add it some day...

I'll try to get to my box of "stuff" in the next few days.

With the one I have installed I had to add a dual band plug in module close to it in order for it to work. If you have an extra plug-in module laying around, you might try plugging it into the same socket at the Synchrolinc you're trying to install.

[Techman]

@Illusion

Just pulled my spare SynchroLinc out of storage. I was able to link to the ISY994, running 5.3.4 firmware, without a problem.

2423A5

V1.15

Date code: 1129

Have you tried adding a dual band plug in module in the same socket as your SynchroLinc. That would help in the event you have noise on your power line.

If you have Z-wave, the Aeotec Smartswitch 7 is a good replacement option for the SynchrLinc.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Techman

[Illusion]

Thank you so much @Techman

No, I have not tried adding a dual band plug in same socket. I can link and control any device, including v1.1 synchrolincs in the test outlet (right next to my PLM). I will try that next, but I cannot see that making a difference. I think I will probably get a zwave option going in the futrue.

I really appreciate you doing that test for me. And just to confirm, after you added it, you looked at the link table and all entries were "identical" on a compare test?

[matapan]

Read your post and tried to think out of the box here. 

Any possibility of taking one of the modules and giving it to another user for adding it to their system? That might confirm if the device is bad or if you have comm errors.

[Techman]

2 hours ago, Illusion said:

Thank you so much @Techman

No, I have not tried adding a dual band plug in same socket. I can link and control any device, including v1.1 synchrolincs in the test outlet (right next to my PLM). I will try that next, but I cannot see that making a difference. I think I will probably get a zwave option going in the future.

I really appreciate you doing that test for me. And just to confirm, after you added it, you looked at the link table and all entries were "identical" on a compare test?

I didn't look at the link tables after adding it, but it appeared to work as it should. I have since removed it and put it back in storage so I'm unable to run any more tests. 

[Illusion]

Thanks everyone. After another day of testing I am giving up on this one. I have tried everything I can think of. I even put the synchrolinc behind Insteon filters and plugged a dual band module in with it so it had to use the other devices repeated comms. Still a bad link table. And it still can manually link to and control any device I want. I am at a total loss as to how these two modules fail in this way.

Thanks for all the suggestions and ideas.

[Geddy]

@Illusion Have you attempted to contact Insteon to see if their support has any tips/tricks not mentioned here or thought of? 

https://www.insteon.com/support

 

I guess it could be that they're just old and have failed, but only partially. 

[MrBill]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:18 AM, Geddy said:

I guess it could be that they're just old and have failed, but only partially. 

that was my guess.   I've got a sychrolinc I'll sell... almost new/never used.  Purchased to monitor sump pump after reading a thread about synchrolinc failures I implemented something else... Only played with sychrolinc for 20 minutes with a 100 watt lightbulb as the test load and then put it back in the box. @Illusion if your interested PM me.

Edited February 8, 2023 by MrBill

[Illusion]

@Geddy That is an interesting idea. I will do that now.

@MrBill Thanks for the offer. At this point it is more an exercise  in understanding than in needing the Synchrolinc. If I really needed one, I have 1 working backup and @Techman has a great Zwave solution that would get me to move to Zwave which could be fun.  If it is a v 1.15, I would seriously consider buying it if you could confirm it adds to and works on the current firmware. I am going to reach out to Insteon support and see what that reveals.

[MrBill]

@Illusion Sorry it sold already.  I looked for this post to edit it and apparently got distracted before I found it.  I was surprised at the interest... I took the first offer, but got a 2nd for actually more after it was already sold.