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markm
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Joined: February 15 2007
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| Posted: February 15 2007 at 17:40 | IP Logged
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Greetings all,
I cannot think of the solution to the problem I am struggling with. I have a four way Insteon setup, master (with the load on it) is a 1000W SwitchLinc dimmer. Three other controllers are setup as secondaries to control master, two of those are KPLs. I have KPLs setup in 8 key hardware mode with 6 key mode keypad. The forth controller is just regular SL dimmer. All secondary controllers have no load attached.
I configured upper key on both KPL controllers to control master and linked all together so when I switch any of controllers all others show appropriate status. It works great, with one exception. When I use master to switch the lights, one KPL responds with only light A coming on, the other responds like desired, with both lights A and B responding.
This happens only when I use master to switch the light. When I use other SL or other KPL to switch the lights, the KPL in question responds with both light A and B.
When I try to delete, create, rebuild, or reverify link in PH to and from master to the light B of KPL, I am getting verified links, but behavior of KPL doesn’t change (still no light B response), and after a while I get "link not found" message in PH. As far as I can tell both KPLs are programmed the same way, but only one responds with both A and B keys, the other doesn’t.
Why is there that master doesn’t like one of my KPLs? I think it is not likely to be a master hardware problem (controls OK other KPL) and also not likely a responder KPL problem, since it responds OK to other KPL and SL. Any ideas where the problem is and how to fix it, or at least work around it?
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cmhardwick
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| Posted: February 15 2007 at 22:39 | IP Logged
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This is the "order matters" firmware bug of the KPL
remove the links to to the A (load) and B buttons on the KPL that's not responding correctly (since it's only the ones from the Master, just remove those 2)
Now, create the link to the B button FIRST, then create the one to A (Load).
To restate the bug, if you are creating a group (either on the PLC OR from another switch/controller) that includes Load AND secondary buttons on the same keypad, you MUST create the links to the secondary buttons first, otherwise they will not respond. Smarthome is aware of this and hopefully this will be fixed in the next KPL releases.
There's a way to order the creation of links in PH now, but i'm not clear on it and have just gotten in the habit of doing it this way.
It's a real pain because I've gotten all mine correct, but when I had to let PH rebuild one of my KPLs because it had to be reset, it didn't create them in the same order, so I've had to go back and redo some.
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Cicero, Enjoying automation!
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markm
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| Posted: February 16 2007 at 23:31 | IP Logged
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Thanks Cicero, I did recreate the links one by one waiting for each link to be verified before entering another, and that did the trick. I read about the order of links bug, but thought OH would take care of it, and it didn’t. Anyways, I am glad I was able to fix it thanks to your explanation.
Now I am stuck with another problem, similar, but more complex. I am programming another (third) KPL to control the above setup. I am creating a scene where the main light controlled by A+B buttons should go off. I have s button setup on a third KPL to turn on group 1 and 2 to level 0 while turning some other lights to desired level. No matter what I do, the button toggles one responder (B) instead of setting both A and B to off. The A responder stays on off, as it should. The recreation of links did not help in this case. Before I redesign the way I to the scene from the third controller, I thought I ask if there is a solution that I am not aware of.
Thanks again for the answer to my other post.
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cmhardwick
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| Posted: February 16 2007 at 23:47 | IP Logged
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If I'm reading this correctly, you want the buttons to go off (secondary buttons) while some other go on when you press a button on another KPL. Dave will have to explain how this is done, because I haven't figured it out myself hehehe. The secondary buttons don't take a "level" command, so when linking from a different KPL, you can't tell some to go off when others go on. Dave mentioned a way to do this using the insteon cleanup command, but I haven't tried it.
Anyway, the computer will have to do the controlling, not KPL, thus introducing a slight delay. I hope he posts a clear explanation of how to do this, because i have some scenes I want to do it on! <hint hint> 
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dhoward
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| Posted: February 19 2007 at 14:13 | IP Logged
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Mark,
Welcome to PowerHome!
I see that Cicero solved your first problem (thanks Cicero ). The order problem can be worked around in the current version by creating the links one at a time but the upcoming beta (any day now) has a new "Sort" column that will allow you select the specific order that PowerHome will create the links. This should help for this problem in the future.
Your second problem unfortunately does not have a solution (not until SmartHome makes some changes to the KPL firmware). KPL secondary buttons do not respond to "level" settings so even if you send an "on" command at 0 level, the KPL secondary button only see's "on" and will remain lit. So there is no way (using just linking) to have some secondary buttons turn on and others turn off.
As Cicero alludes to, you can do this using triggers in PowerHome. It's basically a couple of steps. First, is to create a trigger within PowerHome that fires at the appropriate time. This can be done with the "Insteon Group In" trigger for the appropriate controlling device. The second step is to determine how to control the secondary buttons you wish to turn off. Secondary KPL buttons can ONLY be controlled using group commands. You cannot issue a direct Insteon command to control the KPL seconary button. The group command can come in the form of an Insteon Group command or an Insteon Group cleanup command. It's difficult to explain, but I'll do my best.
Say you've got 1 instance where you want 2 secondary KPL buttons to go off on 1 KPL and 1 secondary button to go off on a second KPL. This is a total of 3 secondary buttons to go off on two different KPL's. To do this as a group, you would choose an Insteon group number (say 50) and add these 3 buttons as members. To turn off these 3 buttons on 2 KPL's, you would then just send an "OFF" command to the group using ph_insteongroup and all 3 buttons will go off simultaneously. This is all fine and dandy and you've only used up 1 of the PLC's groups (out of 254). But if you've got alot of these types of things where the buttons you're turning off are all different combinations, then you'll have to create a group for each unique combination. You may eventually run out which brings us to using the Insteon Group Cleanup commands.
Say you've got the same situation as above, but you've got several unique combinations of KPL buttons being off at any one time. Rather than creating a group for each unique combination, you can just create 1 group with ALL of the secondary KPL buttons you wish to turn off in it and then control them individually using Insteon group cleanup commands (you would typically never send a command to the group using ph_insteongroup unless you wanted EVERY KPL secondary button to either go ON or go OFF). Using this technique, instead of issueing a single ph_insteongroup command to control the 3 example buttons, you would call the ph_insteongroupcu function 3 times, once for each button you wanted to turn off. The 3 buttons would not turn off simultaneously, but would instead turn off in sequence 1 at a time (it would all still be very quick...about 1 second). The advantage here is that you keep the number of links in your KPL alot lower and you preserve the available number of groups you can create in your PLC.
Hope this helps,
Dave.
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cmhardwick
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| Posted: February 19 2007 at 18:40 | IP Logged
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Thanks Dave. I just wasn't clear on the group cleanup stuff.
Also, with the sort column in the next beta, will that order STAY for rebuilds? That's what I ran into.
Thanks!
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twomble
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| Posted: February 19 2007 at 19:48 | IP Logged
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Quote:
| The order problem can be worked around in the current version by creating the links one at a time but the upcoming beta (any day now) has a new "Sort" column that will allow you select the specific order that PowerHome will create the links. This should help for this problem in the future. |
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This is one problem that is driving me crazy. I have lots of KPL's and I need this feature to sort out the issues.
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markm
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| Posted: February 20 2007 at 13:15 | IP Logged
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Thanks all for in depth explanations and suggestions for the solutions. RIght now I am looking for the PLC and linking solutions only. I have only laptop in the house, and this is not suitable for the PC/PH solution ' '. However, I am going to keep this post in my record, should I decide to invest in a desktop dedicated to running PH.
dhoward wrote:
Your second problem unfortunately does not have a solution (not until SmartHome makes some changes to the KPL firmware). KPL secondary buttons do not respond to "level" settings so even if you send an "on" command at 0 level, the KPL secondary button only see's "on" and will remain lit. So there is no way (using just linking) to have some secondary buttons turn on and others turn off.
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It is good to know hardware limitations, that helps me to plan my linking around it. I might set lights for very dim level instead of turning them off, so technically they will be on, and that will keep LEDs in sync. I see if that works for me.
twomble wrote:
Quote:
| The order problem can be worked around in the current version by creating the links one at a time but the upcoming beta (any day now) has a new "Sort" column that will allow you select the specific order that PowerHome will create the links. This should help for this problem in the future. |
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This is one problem that is driving me crazy. I have lots of KPL's and I need this feature to sort out the issues. |
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I would up the ante on this request. How about the feature for fixing the "order bug" between the two devices automagically by PH?  Just select two devices and let PH do the work. Maybe we could have another column under device maintenance, in addition to "replace ID" and "swap ID" tabs? It seems like swap and replace functions do very similar thing already.
Sure it does Dave . Again, thank you for very clear and in depth answers. You have great program and provide excellent support for it  .
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dhoward
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| Posted: February 28 2007 at 17:30 | IP Logged
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The Sort columns in the Links screen are stored (version .10 available now). The .10 version does have a default link sort order (responders first, followed by controllers) but does not take this bug into account. I'll see how much trouble it would be to add an additional sort (basically rgroupno or button descending) so that this would be automatically be handled by default.
Dave.
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Topic: KPL, hardware or software problem?
