Epson projector interfering with ISY?

[arzoo]

Hi,

I've got a strange problem - it seems that when my Epson projector is on, the ISY starts having communication problems. I use my Harmony One remote to control the lights in my basement home theater setup. During testing everything would work fine, but while watching TV or a movie, if I tried to turn on or off a light nothing would happen. The ISY event viewer would indicate the IR events were received but communication with whatever insteon light would fail. So I purchased and insteon filter and put the ISY on that - still no help. Finally I started turning on each device (receiver, dvr, dvd, projector) individually and identified the Epson projector as the problem. I tried plugging the projector into the filter but that did not help. I'm stumped! Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

[brad77]

I'm presuming that you are using a FilterLinc as your filter.

 

Is your ISY powered by your INSTEON PLM or are you using a separate wall wart? If it's the former, you are doing yourself quite a disservice plugging your PLM into a FilterLinc!

 

Presuming that your projector is plugged into the filtered outlet (not the pass through outlet) on your FilterLinc, there might be issues with attenuation that the FilterLinc isn't doing a good job stopping. I'm no electrician, but I have heard others on this forum talk about this. If I remember correctly, the FilterLinc is pretty good at filtering out noise, but is not so great when it comes to "signal sucking" devices/appliances.

 

Perhaps one of them can chime in here.

[arzoo]

The projector is plugged into the FilterLinc (bottom 'Filtered' socket) on an outlet that is about 15 feet (wire run) from the outlet with the ISY, PLM, and other equipment. All the racked equipment is plugged into an UPS (including the ISY) with the exception of the PLM which is directly into the wall outlet.

 

I should also mention that with all the theater equipment on except the projector, the ISY works flawlessly - so I'm 100% sure it's the projector.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi arzoo,

 

Quite strange indeed. Is it possible at all to move ISY to a different location just for testing? If you have 2413S and other dual band devices, the problem might NOT be on the powerline side but the RF side. Moving ISY away would help us figure out what the problem could be.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[arzoo]

Hi arzoo,

 

Quite strange indeed. Is it possible at all to move ISY to a different location just for testing? If you have 2413S and other dual band devices, the problem might NOT be on the powerline side but the RF side. Moving ISY away would help us figure out what the problem could be.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Currently all my switches are on the same phase and the PLM is the only RF device - so that rules out RF as the problem. Plus, I moved the ISY and PLM into another location (by the breaker box) and the problem went away. But I need to keep the ISY in the same closet as the other theater equipment because that's where the IR repeater is located. Its possible I could add a cat5 line from the closet to the breaker box area (about a 50' wire run) but I'm not sure if the ISY can be separated from the PLM by that length. I've read some other threads that indicate 50' is about the max. The only other option would be to run a new AC line from the breaker to the projector and hope that helps. Suggestions?

 

Thanks for helping out Mike.

[Sub-Routine]

Hi arzoo,

 

Since you know the PLM works in another location I would suggest using an extension cord from the PLM to another circuit while the ISY/PLM are in the closet.

 

Then you will know if a new circuit will solve the issue before you spend the time and money to run new wires.

 

Rand

[arzoo]

Hi arzoo,

 

Since you know the PLM works in another location I would suggest using an extension cord from the PLM to another circuit while the ISY/PLM are in the closet.

 

Then you will know if a new circuit will solve the issue before you spend the time and money to run new wires.

 

Rand

 

I confirmed that the ISY and PLM work fine in the equipment closet (with the projector on), when the PLM is plugged into the outlet by my breaker box via an extension cord.

[LeeG]

Have you thought about changing where the projector is plugged in rather than where the PLM is receiving power?

 

If the ISY/PLM is working for all things at its present plug location it may be more appropriate to move the projector plug point. Also plugging the projector into the FilterLinc bottom filtered outlet might resolve the problem.

 

Plugging the ISY into a FilterLinc is probably not going to resolve anything. It is the electrical interference an appliance puts on the powerline interfering with PLM powerline communication that a FilterLinc addresses and that is accomplished by plugging the offending application into the FilterLinc. Very unlikely the ISY itself is affected by powerline noise.

[arzoo]

Have you thought about changing where the projector is plugged in rather than where the PLM is receiving power?

 

If the ISY/PLM is working for all things at its present plug location it may be more appropriate to move the projector plug point. Also plugging the projector into the FilterLinc bottom filtered outlet might resolve the problem.

 

Plugging the ISY into a FilterLinc is probably not going to resolve anything. It is the electrical interference an appliance puts on the powerline interfering with PLM powerline communication that a FilterLinc addresses and that is accomplished by plugging the offending application into the FilterLinc. Very unlikely the ISY itself is affected by powerline noise.

 

The projector is mounted in the ceiling - so running a new AC line would have been just as much work as running a new cat5 line. And I assume that having the PLM plugged into the service outlet by the breaker box would be the best option. Also, I tried the FilterLinc on the projector outlet but that did not solve the problem.

 

So I spent about 3 hours running the cat5, and... no luck; the ISY does not see the PLM. So I guess my wire run is too long. This sucks.

[jaycanter]

I had to run mine from my panel back to my living room to use the infared, and my total run between the isy and the plm is 75 ft and has worked perfect since december. i would double check your connections. I had the same situation but i could not find the culprit causing my noise. but never thought about the projector cause it's on it's own circuit and was all ways off.

[arzoo]

I had to run mine from my panel back to my living room to use the infared, and my total run between the isy and the plm is 75 ft and has worked perfect since december. i would double check your connections. I had the same situation but i could not find the culprit causing my noise. but never thought about the projector cause it's on it's own circuit and was all ways off.

 

I checked all the connections by disconnecting the isy and plm, then switching the LAN over to the new line - network works fine, so my terminations are good.

 

My run between the isy and plm is not nearly 75 ft - 50 tops. I have a 2 ft network cable running from the isy to an ethernet jack in the wall. Back of jack is punched down to cat5 which then runs about 40 ft to the back of a network patch panel, and punched down there. From the patch panel I have another 2 ft cable into the plm.

 

The lights on the isy seem to indicate the plm is ok, but when I start up the admin console it says it's running in safe mode because there is no plm detected.

[jaycanter]

I knows they say that your not supposed. To go over 50ft on a run but I was running out of options I had to recheck and redo seeveral times cause I had stuff in the connections wrong. If I remember right I had to use a meter to check continuity across the cable to verify the right wires were on the right pins at each end sorry for the spelling I am on the road

[arzoo]

I'll double check all my connections tonight (using a network micro scanner) - but I'm pretty sure the cat5 jacks are all terminated correctly because the line worked fine for LAN data. If everything checks out, then I can only assume the PLM just does not work with the 40-50 ft line to the ISY.

 

So I was thinking, rather than run a new AC line to the projector, I could relocate both the ISY and the PLM to the location by my breaker box, and then repurpose the cat5 line to extend the IR emitter from the IR distribution block. But here again, I'm not sure if the signal loss over the line will prevent the IR from working. I've read elsewhere that 50ft should not be a problem for the IR emitter - but that's what I thought about the ISY/PLM and that hasn't worked

[arzoo]

Turns out two of my twisted pairs were terminated incorrectly, Doh! With that fixed the PLM works fine in it's new location.