Re: LampLinc 2000STW - mystery solved

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:430219bc.60162750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[snip]

>> However, SmartHome's ostrich-like behavior regarding an obvious design
>> flaw that is still affecting new LampLinc & SwitchLinc devices has to
>> make one nervous about Insteon. I _think_ I even saw reports here of
>> recent (but pre-Insteon) PowerLinc controllers losing their memory.
>
>I just looked through Google, searching on various forms of *linc, reset,
>power loss, etc and it's clear this issue goes back to at least 1999 with
>the same sorts of issues being reported repeatedly.  Some, but not all,
>switches in a house will reset to A1 after a power loss.

That's why I added the caveat to my otherwise positive comments on Insteon.
That the complaints have spanned six years raises questions about their
dedication to quality.

>I suppose we'll learn sooner or later whether the Insteon line has inherited
>its parent's flaw as more of them get into the field.  I tend to think that
>they're going to use the same design as before on the X-10 side of the
>switch.  Let's hope, for end user's sakes that they haven't made it worse
>instead of better.
>
>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.

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.