Don't understand Powerhome & powerlinc serial

[swanie2000]

Hello all,
I have just installed 45 insteon devices throughout my home. It is a mix of switchlinc V2 dimmers/relays/lamplincs V2 and appliancelincs V2. I have set up a few 3-way links for hallways, with the manual setup proceedure.
I have a new Powerlinc V2 Serial controller, #2414S. I have downloaded and installed the latest version of powerhome, with insteon support. I am more than willing to buy this software, if I can see it do something I like. At this point, seeing it do anything would be nice.
I cannot get anything to happen with this software. THere are plenty of modules in my house, and it will not see any of them.
Can someone point me in the right direction of how to get my serial controller to work with the powerhome software?
Also, my serial controller did not come with any software. The only software I have installed right now is the powerhome software. Am I missing something? :unsure:

Thanks!

Swanie

 

[WayneW]

Can someone point me in the right direction of how to get my serial controller to work with the powerhome software?

Did you follow the PowerHome setup instructions? Is PowerHome talking to your interface? Is SDM working?

 

[upstatemike]

Did you read the Insteon instructions located at Start/Programs/Powerhome/Insteon Instructions?

Have you gone to Explorer (within PowerHome) and added your Insteon devices either through auto discovery or by typing them in manually?

If yes, can you go to Device status and see them listed?

 

[Rupp]

Another quick test to see if the Insteon PLC is working is to try it with another piece of software. HomeSeer has a free 30 day trial and free Insteon plugin.
http://www.homeseer.com/downloads/index.htm

 

[dhoward]

Swanie,

The PowerLincs do not come with any software at the moment. If you've downloaded the trial of PowerHome, it comes with the SmartHome Device Manager.

Definately check out the phinsteon.rtf file. It's in the PowerHome directory and an icon is created as well in the PowerHome group under your Start button.

Like Mike said, you need to either type in your devices manually or set PowerHome to autodiscover them. Once your devices are in, PowerHome will spider the database links for you.

Once this is complete, you should be able to just open up the Device Status screen and be able to control your devices.

Let me know if you're still having any problems or questions and I'll be more than happy to help.

Dave.

 

[swanie2000]

Hello,
Thanks for all the hints. I have downloaded a copy of the PDF file with the instructions for insteon. I never looked past my desk top. I installed powerhome, and started up the program from my desktop. Never went into the main folder looking for insteon instructions.
Now that I have them, I will give it a try, and post back later if I still cannot figure it out. Thanks again for all your help.

Swanie

 

[johnnynine]

I was unable to get auto discovery to work from what appears to be too much line noise put out by my computer. So you might also want to look out for that.

 

[swanie2000]

I finally got some life out of powerhome, and I have auto detected 49 modules so far. I still have a few other things to set up, but right now I am waiting for powerhome to finish up detecting all the information in all my modules. I can see it pulsing the serial port led about once every 15 minutes. I assume it is still configuringing it's self. THanks again for pointing me in the right direction. After Powerhome get's done, I will poke around in the software a little, and try things out. :blink:

Swanie

 

[dhoward]

Swanie,

If you have any question or problems, don't hesitate to ask.

The default background operations are once every 15 seconds (I think you mistyped with minutes :blink.

If you've got 49 devices with an average 3 links per device, then it will probably take PowerHome about 50 minutes to spider all of your database links. After that, it will continue to probe for changes once every 15 seconds.

Dave.

 

[swanie2000]

Yea, I meant 15 seconds, not minutes. It got late last night, so I had to give up for the day. I will try messing with it some more tonight. I did notice that the status screen was a bit "iffy". It wasn't turning things on and off when I tried to in the status window and it showed lights on, when they were clearly off. I had problems with it connecting, and staying connected. Then suddenly, it just worked for a while. Long enough for me to add 1 link to all devices, "all off†That did work, but I am not sure if it was the right link I needed. Trial and error. Also, I noticed my pc speakers make a faint wine type sound while power home and DM are running. It seems to be more when DM is running. The sound goes away completely when you close out the program. Anyone else have this problem? It was so annoying that I had to mute my sound while working with power home.

Swanie

 

[dhoward]

Well thats certainly not good

Keep me posted on your testing of the Device Status screen. If PowerHome is always running, then the device status should be accurate (since PowerHome polls a device for it's status once every 15 seconds round robin). If PowerHome is shutdown and Insteon activity takes places, then PowerHome won't know about it until it's restarted and has a chance to query every device.

Another thing about the Device Status screen...Insteon does not default send a message when a device is switched locally. As long as the device "controls" at least one other device besides itself, you'll get a message and if PowerHome's database is up to date, then the status should be adjusted realtime. But if the device does not control any other device, when switched locally, no Insteon message will be generated. You can work around this by creating a link where the device is the controller and the PLC is the responder. PowerHome also provides a report to show you a list of devices that are not controllers so you can identify devices that you may want to create this link for.

Concerning "all off" links. If you'd like to have the PLC do an "all off" type of command, you just need to have a responder link in each device that you want to respond (the PLC as controller, the device as a responder). The actual group number does not matter. Then, to do an ALL OFF, just send a group off command from the PLC to group number 255. Group 255 is Insteon's "master" group number (this is how the all off in the ControLinc works).

HTH,

Dave.