Re: Laying out a new house - looking for Wiring and controller advise

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

"none" <none@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>"John J" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:za3eg.5659$1i1.716@xxxxxxxxxxxx

[snip]

>> I've read the Insteon comparison, done by Insteon, with a skeptical view.
>> Anyone had any real world experience with this size system and layout?
>
>Insteon has a major hardware defect, sub-standard choke coils that are
>allowing noise into the triac, which causes VERY undesirable and significant
>light flickering when certain loads are dimmed and there is Insteon
>communication. It won't be fixed until July (maybe, they aren't promising).
>(and boo to SmartHome for continuing to ship the defective dimmers when they
>have supposedly fixed the problem in the newer ToggleLincs but not the older
>Decora or KeypadLinc dimmers).
>
>I would wait until then if you plan on doing anything with Insteon.

Where did you find this information? I've been watching a thread on
SmartHome's Insteon forum (http://www.techmall.com/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=9)
which indicates there are two (perhaps related) problems. One is with
Insteon controlled lights that flash on/off rapidly when there is powerline
traffic from Insteon controllers and another is with certain non-Insteon
controlled lights (various lights & controllers) also flickering during
Insteon transmissions. I haven't seen any diagnosis from SmartHome and
question whether "sub-standard choke coils" could explain the symptoms.

There is another problem which I've seen, Bruce Robin has seen, and others
have also reported wherein Insteon controllers/modules appear to be reacting
to very low level out-of-band "noise". The LED on the controller/module will
flicker rapidly and the controller/module will stop responding to legitimate
powerline signals. This problem has been around for a few years, predating
Insteon. I first saw it with the very first PowerLinc RS232 interface, it's
also present in their 2000STW LampLinc modules and now it seems to also be
affecting the Insteon hardware.