Upb issues with OmniPro 2

Leonard

New Member
I have a new install (8 months ago)
That included in Omni Pro 2 panel and approximately 85 Leviton upb switches. Programming no problem at once or twice a week that turns off all the lights. Brand new house with arc fault breakers and LED lighting throughout.
Pulling out my hair
 
Do you have some automation in the Omni for the lights?  What is your Omni setup to do with the UPB switches?
 
Thank you and I am willing to try anything at this point. I have 6 other systems with the same equipment but no issues. Thinking it's an electrical issue in the house. Thx
 
UPB characteristics of every house are different. How far the house is from the transformer, what loads are plugged into the outlets, what are the noise sources, etc.?   If you have a repeater installed and its still not working, then its time to search for noise sources. Known ones are UPS power supplies, "inverter" microwave ovens, plasma TVs, and a few others.
 
I understand that all of the lights in your house are randomly going out.   Correct?
 
I assume that you have a scene for all lights out, and you should look for something in your program that might be triggering it.
 
HLC reserves scene 225-240 for whole house commands.   Your "all lights out" scene should be in this bank.
 
I have a lot of noise on my system but have never had a phantom link triggered by noise.   The noise usually just makes it so my commands don't reach the target.     That is why I would look for a trigger coming from your HAI panel.
 
Sorry I couldn't respond sooner but there appears to be restrictions on how many posts I can do in a day. I hope this goes away as I have watched this form for many years but never participated.
 
I too have some problems with my [UPB] / all 70 units HLC / Omni Pro II lighting control system.  It seems that after I disconnected OP II from all power to assure a storm electrical surge didn't hit the control board (the storm never materialized) I now notice the OP II doesn't know the status of the lights and tends to leave them on instead of turning them off.
 
Upstart showed all the units until today when several are registering absent, go figure.
 
I have two phases s & o,
 
I have a 400 amp service with a phase coupler in each of 3 breaker panels.
 
I do not have a Leviton 39A00-2 UPB Split-Phase Repeater but with Ano's recommendation I am ordering one today.
 
I have the PIM set on sensitive and noise is OK, ie. 0/0/0
 
Your thoughts please.
 
BTW,,,Does it make an difference if the dimmer is configured via Dlr PC Access or UPStart??
 
A repeater is always a good idea. You can replace your coupler, or leave it if you like.
 
If your only problem is that the panel is not seeing status, this can occur in one of two ways. For regular UPB (NOT HLC) than each switch can send a status when you change a switch, and the panel receives these.
 
HLC is different. When the panel programs the switch, it tells the switch to transmit a special link when the switch is changed state. When the panel receives this link, it determines which switch sent it, and then polls each switch in the room for its status. This can take a few seconds.  It does this because when you press a scene button on a room controller, all switches in the room can change, so the panel must poll all switches to get status.
 
So two things to check. When you switch a switch, the LED on the UPB interface connected to the panel should flash and buzz slightly. Then in a few seconds you should see the UPB interface flash a whole lot as it polls all the switches.  Also make sure the panel can control the switches.  If nothing, power cycling the panel (after removing the battery) and power cycling the UPB interface never hurts.
 
Thanks.... Ano you ARE a real GURU. 
 
So it sounds like I should change all my dimmers to UPB from HLC if I want the OP II panel to more rapidly turn on and off my lights, right??  However I read this as being the negatives:
  1. Status Tracking – The tracking of device status would no longer be automatic, although you could create programming logic to accomplish this task.
  2. LED Tracking – You would have to create programming or use Upstart to have LED activity follow/track lighting.
  3. OmniTouch Room Display – You would no longer have the rooms displayed on an OmniTouch.
  4. All On/Off – This feature is not supported in a UPB environment, although a combination of Upstart configuration and controller programming could create the same effect.
  5. The scene and house status switch are no longer functional like in the HLC environment and have to be programmed using UPStart or PC Access.
If I do this conversion to UPB do I need to reconfigure all the switches again, ie put them in set up and right click the switch in PC Access? 
 
Does it make any difference if the dimmer is configured via Dlr PC Access or UPStart??  Regardless of UPB or HLC??
 
So UPB "mode" or "HLC" mode are just two sides of the same thing. The panel turns switches on and off the same way with either. If you want a link to turn all your lights off, just add a link to each switch, call it "All Off" then set the light to go to 0% when it is received.  Turn the "All Off" link, and all your lights will go off.
 
Now to understand the rest, you have to understand how UPB works.  When you physically turn a switch on or off, then switch CAN report this to the panel so it knows if they are on or off. That isn't a problem. But a switch can also be set up to listen to up to 16 links.  If you have a link called "party" for example, and that link turns a light to 70%, say, when you send it, and the light goes to 70%, the panel has no idea, because switches DON'T send status when set by links. WHY? Well a link could change all the lights in your house, like "All Off" and it would just be too much powerline traffic if EVERY switch reported back.
 
So in UPB mode, by default, the status of lights changed by LINK is NOT updated in the panel. Ones you manually change DO get updated.
 
HLC was designed for installer to simplfy installation and give you a nice automated house with not much work.  It works with ROOM CONTROLLERs in each room. Each room controller has all off, all on, and four settable scenes. You can program switches with just the panel (UPStart isn't needed.)  The panel tracks the status of all lights when you change scenes, it sets the LEDs correctly. And each room can have up to 7 lights, but no more.
 
I use HLC and it makes a nice system. People use the ROOM CONTROLLERs to control all the lights in a room. And 4 scenes is plenty per room. You can add a HOUSE CONTROLLERs anywhere, and they have one button per room that lights when any light in the room is on. You can also control all lights in any room, all off or all on.
 
Do these numbers make sense.?
House code = A
 
I think that is if you use X-10. Doesn't apply to UPB.

UPB Network = 6
 
Can be anything, just make sure all switches are set to this also.

UPB Status Time = 4
UPB Transmit count = 3
 
Sounds find. You shouldn't need to touch those.

So if you are in HLC mode, I would keep it. If you follow the rules, everything just works. Use UPB mode if you have lots of time and you want special customization with LOTS of work. Yes you have to set the LEDs in code, you have to poll the switches turned on by links, but All ON or All OFF can be done at any time with either. Just different ways.
 
Thank you again Ano.....I am sticking with the HLC I started with and currently have. However as I said before something has crept into my system and despite my powering down & up the panels I have over 10 dimmers (all 70 are HAI) which I cannot now communicate with because of signal & or noise as identified with Upstart. I put them in setup mode but neither the Omni nor Upstart can see and configure them. These nonconfigurable dimmers are all working manually and are scattered around my 70 plus dimmer house.

How do I assure that a dimmer is set to the UPB network no. 6?
Do you have any special technique for finding lighting system noise?
Any other ideas on what the culprit could be?
 
So first question, are the non-operative devices near each other? Are they all on the same phase of the powerline, most likely "O" in UPStart? 
 
So UPB can get noise, but that isn't likely a problem. A bigger problem is devices that "filter" out UPB signals, because technically UPB is NOISE on the powerline.
 
There is a third potential problem, signal from one phase to the other. You are at the mercy of the power company for this.  Remove the coupler, add the split-phase repeater and your problem likely will be solved but its still good to track it down if you can. 
 
So signal sucker devices can be a UPS, plasma TV, microwave oven, certain types of lighting, or another device.
 
Have you added any devices lately?  New TV or computer? 
 
So next I would fire up UPStart and do some testing. Are all the "not seen" devices on the same phase? My guess is yes. Even if UPStart can't see the switch NOW, hopefully you stored the last network snapshot. 
So look at what UPStart is telling you. Look at the signal level RECEIVED at each device. Anything that separates these non-working switches from the other?
 
Next you can do some breaker switching, but thats a lot of work so try everything else first.
 
Ano your help is immensely appreciated....Thank you many times over. 
 
The previously inoperative dimmers were not next to each other & nor were they on the same phase instead about 1/3 on O and 2/3 on S.  I had recently added 3 at&t wifi extenders and when disabling them found no improvement.
 
Yesterday I installed the repeater you recommended in my middle panel and immediately the light units which were not available in Upstart are now working after verification. 
 
However when I do a repeater communication check with each of the units I get a fairly large number of them 25% which show failing in one fashion or another.
 
Should I be turning off the 3 phase couplers located one in each of my breaker panel boxes?
 
My motion sensor activated system seems to be working well and with faster response times which have always been way too slow to come on when walking into a room. 
 
Back
Top