Powerline comm., no log entry

[TJF1960]

I noticed today all my lamplinc and appliancelinc LED's were flashing. They would double flash then wait about a second then double flash, then wait about a second then maybe a single flash then a double flash etc., no real pattern. I looked in the log but there was nothing logged other than normal turning devices on and off. I checked the event viewer and noted a number of logs which may seem to correspond to the flashing which are in Bold below. But there is flashing without any change to the event viewer too, so I am not sure if these events have anything to do with the flashing.

 

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:32 AM : CLI-WBug: Successfully Processed WBug Response

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:34 AM : [        Time] 09:18:33 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:49 AM : [        Time] 09:18:48 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:50 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:51 AM : [        Time] 09:18:51 0(0)

Tue 12/28/2010 09:18:52 AM : [iNST-SRX    ] 02 50 13.F1.E6 11.DD.F9 41 11 01    LTONRR (01)

 

I checked the LED on the PLM and it is not flashing with the lamp/appliancelincs, but it does flash with device activations. Also the LED's on the ISY are not flashing other than when a device is activated as well.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

Tim

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tim,

 

I think this might be related to noise on the powerline.

 

If PLM does not blink and ISY does not blink, then you would not see anything in the log and/or event viewer.

 

The entries you see are program evaluation events and unrelated.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[Brian H]

Does sound like noise.

My LEDs flash with noise.

Though I believe my later revision ApplianceLincs do not flash.

[TJF1960]

Turned out to be a EZEye connected to an EZIO6 Analog input apparently is going bad. As soon as I unplugged the EZIO the flashing went away. Plugged it back in and the flashing started up again. Once I disconnected the EZEye the flashing went away again. Replaced the EZEye and all is good again.

 

I should have opened my email sooner than later. My inbox was flooded with ISY emails created by a program to let me know the threshold changes of the EZEye. Unfortunately I didn’t open up my emails until I had replaced the EZEye.

 

I guess the rapid changes caused by the failing EZEye were too rapid for the ISY to log or to appear on the event log? In fact now that I think about I did look in the program summary tab looking for programs running and last run times to see if a program was causing or reacting to the powerline comm.., but found none.

 

Anyway it is fixed and I just wanted to wrap this thread up.

 

Thanks as always,

Tim

[Brian H]

Thank you for the update on what was causing the flood of Insteon signals on the power line.

[TJF1960]

Well, the next day the phantom blinking on all AL and LL returned. This time they were blinking at a rate of about 1 per second, continuously! Put the old EZEye back in and the problem cleared up. Later that day the phantom returned. The long and short of it: The EZIO6 is defective/intermittent. Even when I turned off the analog inputs via SHN utility suite the powerline transmission continued. Factory reset it and restored, same problem. Once it was removed from the system all was fine. I wired up the EZEyes to a EZIO2x4 and everything for over a day has been working great.

 

Tim

[Brian H]

Good detective work.

It sounds like it was the EZIO6 was starting to fail.

[LeeG]

TJF1960

 

Is the EZEye digital or analog output being used and on what EZIO6I Input. If using one of the analog Inputs and you set the Configuration Register to Enable Analog Inputs, what are the Analog Trip Point values for that specific Input. Could be an EZIO6I problem but it sounds more like the EZEye digital output is being used or the analog output is being used and the analog trip points are set too close together.

 

Lee

[TJF1960]

Hi Lee,

 

I agree, that is what it seemed like.

 

I was using the analog output of the EZEye’s connected to the analog 1 and 2 respectively of the EZIO6. Analog 1 trip point was 265/250 and 15/0 for analog 2. I did have some trouble in the beginning with closer set points as the ambient light levels would vary which would produce multiple night/day trips. Once I set them to the above figures I would only get 1 or 2 false trips on analog 2. I wired a 47k ohm resistor in series with the analog input with a 47mfd cap from ground to analog 1 input to help slow down the input. Worked great for 6 or 8 months then this problem started.

 

One of the last things I did with the EZIO6 was factory reset it then linked it back into the ISY. The problem started again. At that point I used SHN utility suite and turned off the analog inputs and wired them to ground. The problem continued. The interesting thing is these last couple of days there was no log of any of the communication from the EZIO in SHN utility or the ISY event viewer. So I don’t know if it was just sending out random noise or actual data.

 

These EZEye’s are now wired to a EZIO2x4 same configuration as before and is working flawlessly.

 

Thanks,

Tim

[LeeG]

This is more an FYI in case you ever go back and try the EZIO6I again. When you factory reset the EZIO6I and then linked it back to the ISY PLM, that would have lost the Group number assignments to the Inputs. Without that the EZIOxx device will send Broadcast messages which the ISY does not trace. The SHN Utility is not designed as a general Insteon message trace. Without the setup left over from some previous SHN Utility function in that session the Broadcast messages would not be traced there either. Just some possibilities if you every do go back. Once a factory reset is done the Group numbers have to be manually set to the Group number convention used by the ISY (different than the default used by the EZIOxx device) or the device deleted and added to the ISY so the ISY will set the Group numbers.

 

Once Inputs 5 & 6 were set back to the default digital mode, connecting the Inputs to GND should have locked those inputs to an ON state and stopped even the Broadcast messages. Could well be an issue with the EZIO6I but it is an odd symptom for both the digital and analog circuitry to fail.

 

If you ever do go back I would be glad to work with you to see if we can get the problem resolved.

[TJF1960]

Thanks LeeG for the FYI. It actually prompted me to work on the device a little more to figure out exactly why the 1 second transmissions were occurring and why 1 day it seemed the ezeye were causing the problem and the next day it wasn’t.

 

Turns out the broadcast messages must have been coming from input 4 and not the analog inputs as I previously thought. I wired the ezio back into position. It immediately started broadcasting once a second. I removed each input until it stopped broadcasting. It stopped at input 4. I connected everything but input 4 back up and no broadcasts. Hooked up input 4 and broadcasts started again. I unhooked input 4 wires and wired them to input 3. No broadcast. Hooked up the wires from input 3 originally to input 4 and it started broadcasting. Turns out that any of the inputs connected to input 4 cause it to broadcast.

 

I checked all the inputs with a dmm, all but input 4 measured the same (5mv or so). Input 4 measurement kept varying and when the LED would blink the dmm measured over 1 volt. On the bench I connected a dmm set to resistance and measured input 1. The minute the probes hit the input terminals the device broadcast once. Removed the probes and it broadcast once more. Reversed the probes and reconnected and did not get a broadcast (which makes sense). Same results on inputs 2 and 3. Input 4 would broadcast with the probes in either position (forward or reversed) and as long as the probes were connected to input 4 it resumed its broadcast every second. After removing the probes it would take 10 or so seconds for it to stop broadcasting.

 

I haven’t yet figured out why the other day I was able to unplug it from the utility closet and walk out to my workroom and plug it in and it continued to broadcast every second or so and not today but at least I can send it to SHN with an accurate description of the problem and have some faith that they will be able to reproduce it and fix it.

 

 

Thanks as always,

 

Tim

[LeeG]

TJF1960

 

Great Job! That is the best evaluation a device problem I have ever seen. Thanks for the effort and the feedback.

 

Lee