UPB Light Went On By Itself - Why Is That?

[SteveInNorCal]

One of my Simply Automated lamp modules (UML-20-W, 400 Watt) turned on this morning by itself. It may have gone on when my morning Christmas lights scene activated. This is one of three SA Lamp Modules in the house; this one is used for a security light and the other two are used to control interior Christmas lights.
 
I double-checked my rules and that module is definitely NOT in any Christmas rule that activates morning or evening. It is controlled solely by a rule that turns it on for a specified amount of time when Elk M1G is Armed Away, time is after sundown and time is before 10 PM.
 
What would account for a lamp module seemingly turning itself on without a rule activating it? This is the only UPB device in my house where this has happened.
 
Has anybody else experienced this? My UPB system has been rock-solid except for this one glitch.

Steve

 

[pete_c]

Here recently added cob LED lights to a cabinet in the dining room connected to a UPB light module.  I have 3 multitoggle switches in the room.  I have not had any UPB lights go on by themselves via the OPII panel stuff.  I did review the configurations for the light switches via Upstart last week reading the configurations and stopping the Upstart program while it was loading.  I noticed a link on one switch that I had created (well and not using) for my mailbox.  I really never paid attention.
 
I did notice the link with the graphical Upstart link view.
 
I removed the link and locked up the newest version of Upstart.  Not sure if it was me though or the software.  The mailbox light link though is related to another link utilized for all of the outside lights on another multitoggle SA switch in the dining room..
 
Maybe use Upstart to check the light modules and links?  Just a guess. 

 

[JonW]

hat would account for a lamp module seemingly turning itself on without a rule activating it? This is the only UPB device in my house where this has happened.
 
Steve

 
Do you have local-sense enabled on the lamp module?  Sometimes that can be randomly triggered, especially with other devices on the circuit that sometimes create a current drop.

 

[ano]

UPB is 99.9% reliable, but unfortunately not 100% reliable, so on rare occasions, this can happen. How did it happen? The collision control for UPB is not as sophisticated as something like Ethernet, so errors, while rare, can happen. Likely two devices transmitted at the same time, so most of their messages aligned perfectly, but one or two bits were confused, which translated into the lights on the wrong device going on.  That is why you should not use UPB for life-or-death controls, like controlling mom's heart-lung machine, but in most cases UPB works pretty good.  You can help with this problem by turning OFF the switch transmission when a switch is toggled unless you really care about the status of that switch. If not, it just adds lots of traffic on the powerline.

 

[SteveInNorCal]

Do you have local-sense enabled on the lamp module?  Sometimes that can be randomly triggered, especially with other devices on the circuit that sometimes create a current drop.

 
Hi, Jon. I DID have it enabled on all three lamp modules. I turned it off this morning as it really isn't needed on the lights I've got hooked up to it. I'll watch it tomorrow morning. Thanks for the tip.