Powerlinc Serial and Powerhome

[Mike]

Digger, one thing I will add is that your symptoms sound a lot like mine. I thought the Elk and the controller were on a dead circuit and started blaming the power conditioners/UPS's, etc.

The issues seemed to go away after I got to a certain number of switches (although to your point you should not need 20 for this to work).


Dave > Thank you. I'm not sure what was going on Saturday night, but it seems to be ok now whatever it was. The messages in the SDM were completely different on Sunday as opposed to what I saw on Saturday. Only thing I can think of was I was trying different serial ports towards the end of the night, maybe I did not run the tests properly after changing it late in the evening (and there is some issue with the other serial port).

 

[Digger]

Dave,

Experimenting more with this Powerhome is not seeing the PLC like I thought it was. Because of that Powerhome is not seeing the link information.

I THINK..... that there is a conflict with my keyboard and the PLC since when I boot my computer it states that the keyboard driver has an error and must close.

Both the PLC and the keyboard are using a USB connection.

 

[WayneW]

Digger, does SDM communicate with your 2414? If SDM isn't communicating, then PH is just a victim. Do you see anything like Mike reported?

SDMM=active, 1.01.79.226,8/6/2006 8:49:40 PM, responded,xx.xx.xx,2.12

 

[Digger]

Wayne,

you are correct it is SDM not communicating with the PLC. I still think there is an IRQ conflict or something but I am no expert on this.

 

[Mike]

I was guessing on something like this and swapped serial ports. It must have been late (the beers had nothing to do with it!) and I did not test it properly after doing that, which must have been why it worked on Sunday.

If you have more than one serial port, you may wish to try the alternate.

 

[WayneW]

There are some known issues with the 2414U and DirectX, but I didn't think that would affect a keyboard.

 

[Digger]

The keyboard works fine and is on Location 0 according to the Device manager. But I cant see the PLC in Device manager.

Time to bang my head on the wall for a few minutes (before the kids go to bed)

 

[Madcodger]

Does this problem seem to be worse with keypadlincs as opposed to other types of Insteon devices? I had a perfectly stable Insteon system consisting of about 26 devices connected to Homeseer, when I decided to add about 11 more. After hearing so many good things about Powerhome, I downloaded the trial version, installed the Insteon patch and the new SDM, and proceeded to install my new switches. In the process, I even added two more RF lincs "just to be sure" things would work well.

Things were going beautifully until I started fiddling with the keypadlincs. I'm having problems with EACH of the four I've installed, in three separate rooms and on three separate circuits!

HS won't recognize them about 80% of the time I try to tap add them, and when it does, it won't work with them. Powerhome recognizes them more often when I go into autodiscovery mode, but it misses links, stays on "flagged create" or checking for a full day, and generally proves to be unreliable. And all this after having a perfectly good system until I added those @!$#^$!#^ keypadlincs!

I don't want to hijack this thread, but it sounds like a closely related problem. Any ideas?

 

[Digger]

I have no keypad lincs....... just headaches at the moment.

 

[Mike]

Dave,

Experimenting more with this Powerhome is not seeing the PLC like I thought it was. Because of that Powerhome is not seeing the link information.

I THINK..... that there is a conflict with my keyboard and the PLC since when I boot my computer it states that the keyboard driver has an error and must close.

Both the PLC and the keyboard are using a USB connection.

Can you use a USB to PS2 adapter to sidestep and thest that theory? The little purple adapter (or green one if you got one with a mouse). This might help you isolate it if that is indeed the conflict.

 

[Digger]

no idea where that is...... have to look.

Good Idea though

 

[WayneW]

I haven't seen any communication issues with the KPLs. I have 5 or 6 of them installed already.

 

[Mike]

I went back to playing with powerhome again. I created groups that linked the different switches together and set the desired level to 100 and the ramp rate to 31. When I went and tried it, they still went on to the previous levels.

Does this take some time to update?

I'm using this in a situation where I have three light switches in the kitchen that cover lights across the kitchen area. It is because of an extension and then the way the electrical was done, but Insteon allowed me to link all the lights in the room together. I'm trying to set the start level across all the lights so it ramps slowly and only goes roughly half way.

Am I doing something wrong or perhaps missing something?

 

[upstatemike]

First you need to manually set the local control for each switch the way you want. The local settings cannot be set from software (protocol issue?)

Then use PowerHome to link each switch to the other two setting the ramp rate and on level where you want them. Sounds like you want a ramp rate around 27?

When you press any switch that light will come on according to the local control settings for that switch and the other two will come on as set in PowerHome.

Yes the links created by PowerHome will take a few minutes to get set up.

 

[Mike]

Thanks. I will try that. I realized this morning that the 31 was what I saw in there, and now realize that is probably the max or close to it. Some time has passed so perhaps it will be working when I get home.

I will check it tonight.

For linking two way status, you set a group with the controller as the main and then put every insteon device in it, right (or is this just for when adding it to the elk)?