Need help linking Insteon to Elk

[token]

I have been using an ELK with X10 devices for a year and all was well until lately.
The X10 was becoming less reliable so I decided to upgrade to Insteon and added a new M1XSP and Insteon starter kit.

The M1XSP seemed to enroll fine and I upgraded the firmware to the Insteon only.
I added the required entries for about 5 lights (A1 and up) and the entries for 255 and 256 per instructions.
I turned on #256 and proceeded to link some lamp and appliance modules.
The first light seemed to work exactly as described and I could control it from the panel.
All those after the first were not successful. They appeared to be linked in most cases as the lights on the module blinked and then stopped blinking after I pushed the set button a 2nd time. However, they would not respond to the elk control panel after I turned off #256.

I tried several times each time clearing the link info on the new M1XSP (which appeared to work fine).

Could the existing X10 devices and M1XSP setup be causing interference --I still have the original X10 controller still connected to the M1.

Could I have signal issues with the Insteon that would cause this?
I setup the RF modules per instructions.

Should I try Powerhome and try to import in ELK . .and can I do this with only the demo version?

I'm using firmware 4.3.12 for the control and 50.0.22 for the Insteon M1XSP.
Any help would be greatly appreciated :lol:

Thanks,
Token

 

[WayneW]

Could the existing X10 devices and M1XSP setup be causing interference --I still have the original X10 controller still connected to the M1.

I recall some issues while I was running both X-10 & Insteon, basically X-10 commands were echoing or getting repeated forever, based upon what I saw in my HomeSeer log. But I doubt this is what you are seeing, so far.

Could I have signal issues with the Insteon that would cause this?

Maybe. Either put all the devices close together (electrically speaking) or try using something like a KeypadLinc or ControLink at the same place as you have your 2414.

Should I try PowerHome and try to import in ELK . .and can I do this with only the demo version?

YES, IMHO PH is a "must have" if you are using Elk & Insteon. There is no way I want to do all that taping and linking manually. Yes, you can do it all with the demo and then decide for yourself how valuable it is.

Welcome to the Elk & Insteon club,and soon to the PH club. :lol:

 

[Mike]

A few things:

1. I found programming one light at a time (the link to the elk) and then confirming the blinks changed before closing that out and going to the next was the best way to do this (aside from using software). This way you can retry if it did not stick, but when doing it one at a time, most of my issues went away.
2. I have heard that insteon can degrade X10 reliability, not sure of the other way around, but see point 3.
3. A lot of people have reported issues (and I had the same thing) with small numbers of insteon devices. In my case at 16+ things were perfect, until then I had a variety of interesting issues. A few others have confirmed around this number their issues went away. Of course your mileage may vary and it may be related to a number of conditions, but something to be aware of.
4. Using powerhome would make it easier to link, but if your insteon network is not 'stable/strong' (not sure of the best word here) I'm guessing you could see some problems there. I suspect someone with more experience here can add comments to this effect. Still if you get #1 to work, linking them manually then that is probably a good sign. The next concern would be reliability with only a few devices (but again, everything may be perfect for you).

It would work with the demo of powerhome, but if you only have 5, you might want to see it working with a few first to prove out the insteon side, and once you have that add in the software (you need a serial linc and some configuration to get that going, so it is more a preference as it is easy to do the linking for a few initial units to prove it is working). At least that is what I would do to avoid complication (especially since many have some insteon issues with small numbers of units) and lets you be sure that it is Insteon and not the software.