Recent content by globramma

I understand what you mean. The LEDs run at a very low voltage, so you're saying it doesn't really matter if you shave off X% of 120 volts using a resistor. Even if the bulb only got 50 volts it would (if the driver circuitry accepted 50 volts) work fine because the driver is going to drop that...

Question about the ILR-10K resistor from PulseWorx --   In my setups, which use SAI 11-40 and 2-40 UPB dimmer switches, with 2 or 3 CREE A19-style soft-white LED bulbs per overhead fixture, I have no problems with flicker or with the bulbs shutting off completely. But the dimming bottoms out...

  Not sure you understood me correctly. I characterized INSTEON as a kludge because INSTEON's wire-line signalling strongly resembles X10, with X10's well-known flaws -- the "kludge" part coming when INSTEON had a separate RF layer added to it (while keeping the same X10-based wire-line methods)...

If anyone can speak authoritatively on the differences between Gen I and Gen II UPB, and the implementations (or lack thereof) in SA vs. Web Mountain hardware, I'd appreciate it. I'm confused now, & a little concerned that I've already started investing in the less expensive SAI switches.

  To clarify -- if I bought SAI UPB switches, I can send them in to Web Mountain for a firmware upgrade?  Is it just a firmware update or do they have to change circuit components or IC's? How much does the upgrade cost?

Thanks @tannebil and @batwater for reporting on your setups and experiences over long periods in some detail. I'm encouraged that I've chosen UPB, and SAI as a vendor, for my power-line control needs. More thoughts follow.     Like X10 before it, I agree that UPB (and many other proprietary...

  Well, with due respect it seems like the flakiness could be legitimately in your house wiring, not in the UPB devices. I only mention that to balance the supposition that the problem is UPB itself, or a particular vendor's hardware implementation. So that others who may consider it don't take...

    If the problems are reproducible & stable that is encouraging & probably points toward a problem with a specific wire path, i.e. maybe too many branches causing reflections, or a bad / old splice somewhere. Might be worth pulling the affected devices & putting them on a test bench w/ a short...

  My understanding is that INSTEON began as a powerline-only protocol, but it was so janky and unreliable they had to "tack on" RF functionality, turning it into a hybrid / frankenstein. From the current INSTEON white paper we can see that on the powerline side INSTEON resembles X10...

@DaAwesomeP, always appreciate having a perspective other than my own. I'm sure results do vary considerably depending on wiring configuration / quality / complexity, and # of UPB devices on the network. FWIW my setup so far consists of just 3 SAI (Simply Automated) 1-circuit dimmer switches...

UPB (universal powerline bus)  seems like a very robust & therefore useful protocol. I haven't used HAI/Omnilink but my understanding is that it is kind of a kludge by comparison. UPB devices are $$$ but having them work reliably is worth it. PLC (power line control) also seems very robust but...