Re: LampLinc 2000STW - mystery solved

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in

<stuff snipped>

> >In terms of designing a brownout simulator, it might be very difficult
> >because in a real power "incident" large appliances will suddenly come
back
> >on line simultaneously and create both an enormous current flow and a
great
> >deal of back EMF.  That might be very hard to simulate without flipping
the
> >main house breaker on and off rapidly.  I'll bet it wasn't part of their
> >testing procedure even though that's the real world these devices operate
> >in.
>
> I suspect it's simpler than that and related to the design of the address
> programming circuit. IIRC most of the reports (and my one incident) appear
> to be associated with momentary powerline glitches rather than long term
> outages.

That's what I was trying to say;  if they tested the units with a whole
house load flipped on and off at the main breaker a few times in a few
seconds, the might have identified the problem in their circuit.   Quickly
flicking the main breaker only *sort* of simulates the powerline conditions
found when the power company switches loads at the substation.  It's not a
real simulation because when a substation "chatters" every large load in the
neighborhood is being rapidly cycled on and off at the same moment.  Since
the reports almost always say that only a few modules exhibit the problem,
it might be load related as well.  Only switches driving large loads or near
large loads might be affected.  Maybe someone with some duff *lincs lying
around can run a few tests.

> EEPROMs are designed to retain data for years without power so its highly
> unlikely that the power glitches directly affect the EEPROM. It's more
> likely that a flaw in the hardware design or firmware logic is the
culprit.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that the power would be off long enough to
cause the EEPROM to lose its settings.  In fact, the ECS K7S5A motherboards
have exactly this problem.  If you don't have them on a UPS, a brief series
of power blips will cause the CMOS settings to default - which drives a lot
of people crazy.  They would go to sleep and the machine as fine and wake up
and have to reprogram the CMOS.  It was the fatal flaw in an otherwise very
nice, very cheap motherboard.

Fortunately a $50 UPS was the cure. While it's practical and even a good
idea to put a PC on a UPS, it's not so practical for a wall switch.  I
wonder if the Lincs and the ECS mainboard share any components in common.
They certainly share the same behavior.

--
Bobby G.