Steve
Senior Member
Well, today was a very interesting and frustrating day. Wife wakes me up this morning to tell me the lights on the switches are out and the lights don't work - and adds that she checked the breakers and they were fine. Little did I know that I was going to find that 10 of my current 15 UPB devices were stone cold DEAD.
I did some investigation and concluded that there was no power outage. Also, the switches were on circuits from both phases and scattered all around the panel. Also, nothing else in the house was affected - tv's, stereo, pc's, electronics fans and appliances - everything in the house was fine except these 10 switches. And they were not just 'stuck' as power resets even for extended periods did not restore life.
The only conclusion I can come up with is some sort of surge but it is curious that absolutely nothing else in the house was affected (including the 5 remaining UPB devices). The inlines and outlets fared better than the switches. I thought time of failure was between 11PM and 6AM but later found out from my son who was playing playstation with a friend sleeping over that he saw the LED on the light in his room go out around 11:15PM. He said it was not raining and didn't 'hear' any storm. The TV and playstation did not skip a beat. So while it really does not sound like a surge or brownout, what else would take out 10 switches all over the panel? Could this be a new type of powerline warfare? Could this have been a targeted attack on my switches - a UPB trojan horse?
Only thing I know for sure is that is is VERY frustrating. Even though Martin confirmed they would be replaced at no charge (some of them were only weeks old), it is still alot of work to replace them. Most of them are in multigang boxes and neutrals and grounds are buried, necessitating moving several other switches.
And what better a day - then a holiday weekend and supposed to take the family to a ballgame. I actually do have 10 additional switches waiting here for my sisters install, so I replaced 2 critical ones already. Its bad enough losing power in hurricanes, I don't need to drag out the flashlights because my switches failed and I have no means of lighting. What if I did not happen to have other ones on hand - it would be at least 2 days to get replacements, plus almost a day of labor. This really makes me think about this whole scenario.
So I replaced 2 already, both of which were no fun. As much as I like the SAI removable faceplates, they can be a real pain too - especially the older (pre Rev D) plates. The only bright side to this whole story is Upstart! All I needed to do is pop the switch in setup mode, right click my switch and choose Replace. The switch is instantly regrogrammed with the programmed settings. If it were not for that I would have started cursing in additional languages besides English.
I can say one thing for sure after this experience. If I ever wind up building a house again there is not a single doubt in my mind it will have a hardwired lighting system like Centralite where the switches are nothing but low voltage triggers, regardless of the cost. I can only imagine if I had 100 devices like Upstatemike and lost 2/3's of them! I would have invented new curse words!
I guess I am lucky and grateful that there are places like Automated Outlet around that will work with SAI to honor the warranty and replace the devices. If not, it would have been a $600 event and most likely would put me out of HA for a while. The ironic part is that I was preparing to put in a whole house surge arrestor, but after reading about the problems with wired ones and needing VERY short wires (which there is no way I can do), I have to get a breaker mounted one for SquareD. I was about to order this and rearrange the panel to accomodate it. Its ironic and really makes me wonder if that were in if things would be any different. But since I'm going with the UPB trojan theory, I'm not convinced it would have made a difference.
Hopefully in the next day or two I'll be back in business. I may have been knocked down, but I'm not out - my momma didn't raise no quitter...
I did some investigation and concluded that there was no power outage. Also, the switches were on circuits from both phases and scattered all around the panel. Also, nothing else in the house was affected - tv's, stereo, pc's, electronics fans and appliances - everything in the house was fine except these 10 switches. And they were not just 'stuck' as power resets even for extended periods did not restore life.
The only conclusion I can come up with is some sort of surge but it is curious that absolutely nothing else in the house was affected (including the 5 remaining UPB devices). The inlines and outlets fared better than the switches. I thought time of failure was between 11PM and 6AM but later found out from my son who was playing playstation with a friend sleeping over that he saw the LED on the light in his room go out around 11:15PM. He said it was not raining and didn't 'hear' any storm. The TV and playstation did not skip a beat. So while it really does not sound like a surge or brownout, what else would take out 10 switches all over the panel? Could this be a new type of powerline warfare? Could this have been a targeted attack on my switches - a UPB trojan horse?
Only thing I know for sure is that is is VERY frustrating. Even though Martin confirmed they would be replaced at no charge (some of them were only weeks old), it is still alot of work to replace them. Most of them are in multigang boxes and neutrals and grounds are buried, necessitating moving several other switches.
And what better a day - then a holiday weekend and supposed to take the family to a ballgame. I actually do have 10 additional switches waiting here for my sisters install, so I replaced 2 critical ones already. Its bad enough losing power in hurricanes, I don't need to drag out the flashlights because my switches failed and I have no means of lighting. What if I did not happen to have other ones on hand - it would be at least 2 days to get replacements, plus almost a day of labor. This really makes me think about this whole scenario.
So I replaced 2 already, both of which were no fun. As much as I like the SAI removable faceplates, they can be a real pain too - especially the older (pre Rev D) plates. The only bright side to this whole story is Upstart! All I needed to do is pop the switch in setup mode, right click my switch and choose Replace. The switch is instantly regrogrammed with the programmed settings. If it were not for that I would have started cursing in additional languages besides English.
I can say one thing for sure after this experience. If I ever wind up building a house again there is not a single doubt in my mind it will have a hardwired lighting system like Centralite where the switches are nothing but low voltage triggers, regardless of the cost. I can only imagine if I had 100 devices like Upstatemike and lost 2/3's of them! I would have invented new curse words!
I guess I am lucky and grateful that there are places like Automated Outlet around that will work with SAI to honor the warranty and replace the devices. If not, it would have been a $600 event and most likely would put me out of HA for a while. The ironic part is that I was preparing to put in a whole house surge arrestor, but after reading about the problems with wired ones and needing VERY short wires (which there is no way I can do), I have to get a breaker mounted one for SquareD. I was about to order this and rearrange the panel to accomodate it. Its ironic and really makes me wonder if that were in if things would be any different. But since I'm going with the UPB trojan theory, I'm not convinced it would have made a difference.
Hopefully in the next day or two I'll be back in business. I may have been knocked down, but I'm not out - my momma didn't raise no quitter...
