Togglelinc Communication Issues

[mdyod]

hello all,

 

I have system using a lot of insteon devices in my optometric office that i use a KPL to control various lighting scenes (consisting of togglelincs (non dimming) / I/O Lincs / Appliance lincs) in 4 separate exam rooms...

 

I suspect that i have a noise and/or signal issue - everything works fairly well in the mornings - but during mid afternoon two of the exam rooms' togglelincs (that control the overhead lights) begin to function intermittently... Reciently, I suspected the coffee pot but after plugging it into a filter, the situation did not improve. Could it be the hot water heater?

 

Misc info....

-This issue occurs when using the admin console ( not just with the KPL)

-The togglelincs work manually using it's toggle switch

-I have a BUNCH of filters on every power supply/appliance/etc that i can think of.

-I have 3 access points - haven't moved them around yet

-It is a 3 phase electrical system ....

 

Questions...

-Any suggestions?

-Why are just the togglelincs giving me this problem? Would switchlincs be more reliable?

-I do not have a 2406H phase coupler installed - could this help? - how do you install for a 3 phase system? (would I need 2?)

 

THANKS

D

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello mydod,

 

The first recommendation is to figure out whether or not all problematic devices are on the same phase. If so, then - and in all likelihood - somehow in the afternoons the phase coupling does not work due to noise or occupancy. Do you have more patients in the afternoons? Any baby monitors? Any RF devices?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[Brian H]

The 2406H Passive Couplers may make things worse. In a three phase system the signals are not timed at the same zero crossing occurrence.

 

In a three phase system I believe the Access Points are the key factor in getting the signals back to correct timing for the zero crossing on their phase of the system.

[mdyod]

Hello mydod,

 

The first recommendation is to figure out whether or not all problematic devices are on the same phase. If so, then - and in all likelihood - somehow in the afternoons the phase coupling does not work due to noise or occupancy. Do you have more patients in the afternoons? Any baby monitors? Any RF devices?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Thanks for your reply

Yes - more patients/activity in the afternoon

no baby monitors or RF devices...

[mdyod]

The 2406H Passive Couplers may make things worse. In a three phase system the signals are not timed at the same zero crossing occurrence.

 

In a three phase system I believe the Access Points are the key factor in getting the signals back to correct timing for the zero crossing on their phase of the system.

 

I see - do i need more Access Points? any advice/strategy on relocating the ones that i have? Other things to consider with APs?

 

THANKS

[mdyod]

update - i'v tried relocating my 2 APs and it made things worse - i'm thinking i need more Access Points... _ how many more should I try?

[Brian H]

Up until January of 2012. Smartlabs never officially even supported three phase.

They said many users have had success with it but they didn't officially support it.

http://www.smarthome.com/pr12-02.html

 

So how many added Access Points would be needed could be difficult to say.

 

Do you have any other Dual Band devices?

 

Is your office using all three phases?

Sometimes power is feed into a building and individual offices use two of the three lines for 208 volt line to line and 120 line to neutral.

[mdyod]

- no other dual band devices

- Pretty sure all 3 phases are used

 

5000 sq ft - how many APs should i have?

 

THANKS

[ELA]

Hello Mdyod,

This is an interesting discussion/issue. I want to start by saying that I do not have any direct experience with Insteon and 3 phase power.

Hopefully there is someone who will reply that has direct experience in this area.

 

Like Brian pointed out Smartlabs did not seem to be convinced it was a good idea until recently?

 

I can tell you what I think based on some Insteon theory and a fair amount of experience with testing on single phase.

Here is a diagram to help the discussion:

 

It shows the 3 phase waveforms and when Insteon devices on each phase might transmit if they were commanded to. They want to communicate (via the powerline) around the zero cross of their associated waveform.

(Amplitudes are not to scale or accurate they are just to give an idea of concepts)

 

From this you can see devices on other phases will not be "listening" at the appropriate time since their zero cross point occurs at a different point in time.

I believe for that reason that 3 phase installs are reliant on RF coupling between phases as Brian mentioned. The Access points then take the received RF and rebroadcast that message on the powerline at the zero cross point for this other phase. Then all powerline based devices on this newly coupled phase are "in sync" with each other, but only within that phase.

 

You then have all the normal "noise and/or signal sucker issues" to consider on each phase. It sounds like you have attempted to address those.

Have you considered some of your test equipment that might be higher power and yet a signal sucker?

----------------------------------------

So in theory you need three access points that are all within RF range of each other. It would seem that you would want these first three in close proximity to each other and be sure they are all on different phases. This may require some difficult work as I am thinking the 4 tap test does not work on 3 phase very well. Maybe you know ? I do not and am speculating here.

 

Once you have established a good phase coupling you then need to address your togglelincs. Since they are RF only - one of those existing 3 APLs must be in-range of each togglelinc. At 5000ft it may be difficult to accomplish both a good integrity phase coupling and still be in RF range of each togglelinc.

 

I would expect that you would need more than the 3 you have.

 

If it were me I could focus first on 3 APLs near each other and close to the service cabinet for good phase coupling. I would then take a look at where your togglelincs are located. If one of the 3 main APLs is not within RF range ( say maybe 30 -50ft indoors, that is a total guess as all environments are different) I would add another APL within range of it. Do you know if your building uses metal studs?

 

From the sounds of it you will be very reliant on good RF comms and depending upon the structure this could require a few APLs.

 

I am doing a bit of speculation here as I said since I have never tested on 3 phase. Just some thoughts/suggestions based on theory.

 

Did you install this or did you have someone do it? Installing on 3 phase sounds very tricky without some more advanced diagnostic tools.

 

You asked about a water heater. 208V loads (using 2 of the three phases) can in theory unintentionally couple powerline signals between phases. From the diagram I provided you can see that this unintended coupling will put the signals outside of the zero cross communications band on the unintended phases.

 

Keep in mind with a system so reliant on RF something as simple as a person walking around can interrupt your RF links.

 

 

Best of luck

[mdyod]

Thanks for your input ELA - everything you stated makes sense.... very good points

 

in response to a few questions you raised ...

-There are a few metal studs in the building but most are wooden..

-Not sure about the 4 tap test - perhaps someone can chime in on this one..

-I bet even iPads usage is even effects communication...

 

Interestingly I relocated my APs today and things seemed to work better....

 

I have ordered 3 more APs which I hope will help make the RF reliability... I will report the results ASAP

 

Thanks again to everyone for your continued support!

[ELA]

Hello Mdyod,

I want to start by saying that I do not have any direct experience with Insteon and 3 phase power.

 

Here is a diagram to help the discussion:

 

It shows the 3 phase waveforms and when Insteon devices on each phase might transmit if they were commanded to. They want to communicate (via the powerline) around the zero cross of their associated waveform.

(Amplitudes are not to scale or accurate they are just to give an idea of concepts)

 

So in theory you need three access points that are all within RF range of each other. It would seem that you would want these first three in close proximity to each other and be sure they are all on different phases. This may require some difficult work as I am thinking the 4 tap test does not work on 3 phase very well. Maybe you know ? I do not and am speculating here.

 

 

Update to the above. I have been able to gain access to and set up a three phase test bed.

I have been able to confirm that the 4-Tap test does work on three phase! ( maybe some are well aware of this but there was no response so I wanted to find out).

I was speculating that there might be an issue if the 4-tap test was only looking for the same amplitude but an opposite polarity ( which would be fine for a single split-phase (180 degree home service). It appears that the 4-tap test must look for a voltage amplitude difference and thus it worked fine on the three phase service.

 

I was also able to confirm that there was no powerline-only communications between devices on each of the three phases when no RF was used. When I added an RF device to each phase I was able to successfully communicate between all combinations of devices between phases. ( 1 powerline only and 1 dual band device on each phase).

Of course in this arrangement you loose one hop in the translation, so the best communication is now "3:1" .... 3 hops max and 1 available, as opposed to the 3:2 expected on the normal single phase home installation.

 

Again I understand this may be well known to some actually using three phase but those participants seem to be few and far between and I have read older posts on the Smarthome forum claiming that Insteon does not work on three phase.

While I was able to get it to work in a test environment I am sure there are many challenges in the real world due to the complexities of a three phase arrangement.

[mdyod]

thanks ELA for the info - Yes, i was able to 4-tap on my system.

 

I have been able to pretty much resolve most of my issues by putting APs in each of the rooms with the togglelincs... I had to add one more physically between those rooms and the breaker panel, But now I would say that communication is in the upper 90% range...

 

Sorry that i havent posted an update sooner.

 

Thanks agina to everyone that helped