[Hai-users] Problem with ALC lighting on OmniPro II

[Eric Rosenquist]

Same here. I have about 60 ALC switches, and I've had a couple that have
been finicky since day one, especially in hot weather. Both are in single
gang boxes, but near the end of an ALC leg. I've had a few others that
worked fine for a few years and then stopped responding all of a sudden.
Replacement of the switch has helped in most of the cases, but not all.

 

The most recent problem was with my pool table light switch in the basement;
it stopped responding to automation. It took me a while to realize it, but a
switch at the other end of the basement in a hallway was not working either.
It turns out that the hallway switch had taken over the ID of the pool table
light, and that stopped both of them from working. The hall light was ID 11
(binary 01011) and the pool table was ID 3 (00011). The toggle for 8 (01000)
on the hall light was useless - the switch would read it as 0 no matter what
position it was in. I swapped the hall light to be 3 and the pool table
light to be 11 and the problem went away. Now I only get trouble if all of
the basement lights have been on for several hours, in which case heat or
something stops pretty much the whole leg from responding to automation for
a few hours. Some of the fault I suppose may lie in the ALC wiring, but I
ran the ALC BranchTech program on it and everything looked good.

 

Given that I paid north of $150 per switch 8 years ago, I expected 100%
reliability once the system was up and running.

 

I'm also very disappointed in the speed at which the ALC lights respond to
requests, but I suspect that my Aegis 2000 (original Omni Pro) and its lack
of processing power is the culprit there. The handful of X10 switches I have
actually respond faster than the ALC switches if I have a macro that
involves both!

 

My ALC experience has been disappointing enough that I'll be taking a long
look at UPB, Z-Wave, and other technologies when the time comes for us to
build another house.

 

Eric

 

 

  _____  

From: Dan Barclay [mailto:Dan at barclaysoftware.com] 
Sent: March 20, 2008 15:28
To: 'Pierre Metivier'; HAI Users Mailing List
Subject: RE: [Hai-users] Problem with ALC lighting on OmniPro II

 

I've had the same problem for some time on my own installation, just haven't
had time to fight it.  These are ALC switches that have been working fine,
then quit.  In a couple of cases more than one switch on a link has quit at
the same time.

 

I'm thinking the board, or one of the extender boards.  I've been kind of
disappointed in the reliability compared to what I was expecting.  The
system has only been in  for 3 years or so.

 

Dan

 

 

 

From: hai-users-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:hai-users-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Pierre Metivier
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 1:56 PM
To: HAI LIst
Subject: Re: [Hai-users] Problem with ALC lighting on OmniPro II

 

 

My 2 cents

 

I have found this problem in several customers homes and changing the ALC
switch was the fix in 90% of the cases and in 10% of cases I changed the ALC
board to fix the problem. If it is happening now to multiple switches, it
might well be the board.