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

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

The explanation for the flicker given by "SmarthomeJohn" in the AcessHA
forum cited by Wayne is...

<quote>
The component is the choke coil. We found that the repeated Insteon signals
generated by the dimmer was getting into the traic and causing the flicker.
Basically, we are upping the value to attenuate the Insteon signals that go
into the triac.
</quote>

That makes no sense so I think John may be in marketing rather than in
engineering. Or maybe he works in the alarm side of the business. ;)

It's more likely that the choke, which is intended to block triac noise from
getting to the powerline, is of the wrong value and the triac noise from the
Insteon unit is sufficient to cause problems for other microcontroller based
dimmers sharing the powerline. Lutron sells some inline triac filters that
might "fix" this.

On the other issue, I should note that the "noise" from my NEC monitor,
which effectively renders Smarthome modules useless, has never bothered any
of the X10-made modules I have.

"BruceR" <br@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>When I was converting from X10 to Insteon I found that some of my
>Leviton X10 dimmers would cause their loads to flicker when Insteon
>signals were sent. I have not seen the same from other Insteon units
>though. Once I completed the conversion, the flickering was gone with
>the X10 units.
>
>
>> "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.
>