Largest UPB Installation?

[Steve]

PCS and HAI are shipping Gen II devices. SAI is not converting to Gen II at this time. The main functional difference is that on Gen II you can adjust the sensitivity of the switch to low so that it is more immune to noise. A Gen II switch will work up to about 20 or 25 on the noise scale.

There will be a UPB product guide right here on CT hopefully soon.

 

[Event5]

Anthony,

Here is an UPStart file of an installation I did. This is the same file I have shaired before. To protect the the client I renamed the file and did a group edit of all devices. I changed the network name and network ID. I had to upload the file as a text file, so it must be converted back to .upb on download. To download right click on the attachment and "save target as" .upb If you use Homeseer or someother system that looks for the upstart file, I suggest after looking at it you do not save it as it might replace YOUR Upstart file in Homeseer. This happend to me once and I had to rebuild my devices and links in Homeseer. It was not pretty.


Would you (or anyone else) be willing to share one of your files. It would be interesting to look at the arrangement of UPB products and settings you use.

Thanks
Dave

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING THIS FILE:
Right click on link; Select "Save target as" ; Change "Save as type" to "All files"; Add ".upb" to file name; This will change the text file to a upb file that UPStart will recognize.

 

[heffneil]

Are the GenII parts from HAI different part numbers? If not I assume its safe to say the stuff I just bought it Gen II.

Neil

 

[bwally]

I believe the part numbers are the same. But the HAI Gen2 devices have a silver sticker that says "Gen2" stuck to the devices and boxes.

Most HAI suppliers have only had Gen2 stock available since November ... however last month i did place an order from a favorite supplier and specifically requested "Gen2 Only" which they claimed is all they had ... but out of the 13 6-Button keypads i ordered 6 were Gen1

If that happens I would not open the box and just send them back and demand Gen2

 

[Event5]

Last week I returned to my first UPB install from nearly 2 years ago. This is the UPStart file that I shaired a couple posts back on this thread. I was called back for an audio concern not UPB.

When I opened UPStart with the last file I had used at this house, All devices came up and checked out perfictly. Everything UPB was just the way I left it 15 months ago.

The owners wife asked me to change the dim settings on one outside load/link. The change took less than a minute. That was it!

The house is almost 10,000sqft. with a guest house 100ft away. 120 devices and only 1 phase coupler. The UMI's down at the 3 driveway gates are about 100ft fromt the house and have the lowest signal, around 11.

The house has no central controller, just the plugin timers from SA and PCS.

As an installer, not having to return for "fixes" is worth the added expense of the product.

Dave

 

[webmtn]

This is a very late reply, and you probably have the information you need, but let me clarify the number of devices question.

UPB supports 250 Network IDs. Think of a network ID as a house code in X10. All devices on the same NID can communicate to and control each other. Then, you can have up to 250 units (Device IDs) per NID. So, while you can technically have approximately 64,000 devices, if you want devices on different NIDs to communicate to each other, you will need an intelligent controller that can "bridge" the NIDs. So, in most instances, 250 devices is a limitation, unless you have the bridging controller. I've heard of installations approaching 200 devices, but I've not talked to anyone who has put in more than 200 devices in one installation.

Most UPB devices (receivers) can be part of 16 different links (or scenes, if you prefer). You can have up to 250 links per NID and you can assign up to all 250 UPB devices to any particular link. For example, a default link that comes in most devices is Link 1, which you can consider to be an ALL ON link. The beauty of a link is that all receivers with that link in it will respond immediately to the link signal and you will not see the staggered effect that you used to see with a lot of X10 installations (depending upon the controller) where in order to get multiple lights to come on, you might have to create a macro that would turn on lights sequentially.

You can have one device associated with a link, or 250. And, each light can be set to respond differently to each link. For example, if 5 lights are associated with Link 5, one could come on at 100% with a 3.3 second fade rate, the second one could come on to 90% with a SNAP on fade rate, the third one could come on to 50% at a 5 second fade rate, and so on.

The programming is extremely powerful and flexible.

 

[AnthonyZ]

OK, I have a problem...

In the past eight weeks, I have installed three UPB gigs with networks over a hundred devices (171, approx. 120 and approx. 130). All three have been absolutely HORRIBLE to program. When initially loading the devices via HAI, followed by UPStart discovery, I have LOTS of missed loads. Often, the HAI will "see" the loads but UPStart won't. Other issues include wierd communication anomalies like loads that fail programming and yet, still respond to command lines. Just wierdness. I am also having to run all over the house plugging my PIM into various receptacles and getting varying results from one receptacle to the next. For example, I can program load "A" from one rcptl. while missing load "B" and vise versa. The first was the biggy and I have worked out all the bugs after MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY wasted hours of bouncing around the house to try different receptacles to load from, etc. Those who read my earlier posts on this install may recall that I mentioned that it took a lot of babying to get it but I didn't make any issue out of it as I believed that it was an anomaly that was tied to just the one install. The second install had a second round of programming this past Thursday and I fought like crazy to get it done. Lot's of use of the F word but I dialed it in. Not cool. On this install, I was smart enough to contact Terry at Web Moutain to get some advice and while he was incredibly patient with me, we were unable to figure out the issue with one of my "virtual" three ways. (sorry I didn't get back to on it Terry, I think it may be a bad switch and I think it will be replaced with a keypad style device) Woke up the next morning and went to program the approx. 130 device install. What a freakin' nightmare, same problems, and lots of 'em, throughout. This one is nowhere near done and is absolutely horrible. All three have phase couplers properly installed. All three were physically installed by different electricians. All three are seperated by as many as eighty miles. Used different PIM's. Different laptops. The one constant has been the use of HAI 35A00-1's. Typically in the past, I have experienced 100% loads, 100% programming and zero service calls. From my first install, they JUST WORKED. My questions are....1. Is it the size of the networks causing problems? How will I ever deal with a 250 device install if such is the case? or 2. Has HAI outsourced manufacturing to a new vendor since licensing Gen2? Is the QC a problem? 3. Am I alone in this or have any of you experienced this frustration? It pi$$es me off because HAI just doesn't offer enough margin on the product for me to waste SOOOOOOOOO many hours dealing with this. I need a lower price point than Vantage (I have meetings set up 'em) option and HAI is starting to reek of Insteon as of late...

Any insight?

 

[Steve]

Anthony - You have far more experience in this than I do but I'll share some things I have seen. With regard to failed programming but normal operation working - I have typically seen this when there is any noise on the line. I think for some reason programming is much more susceptible to a noisy (even minor) line than normal operation. Maybe programming takes one shot and quits, whereas normal mode has 5 retries? I don't know but that has typically been my experience - but then again I have not done big numbers like you have.

The other thing I have noticed and have just not had time to troubleshoot, is there is a weird anomaly with 1 PCS Gen II switch. It turns out my plasma tv either just started putting noise on the line or I just never noticed it. But in any case it is low noise. For some reason the PCS Gen II switch which in preliminary testing powered its way through moderate to high noise well, fails 90% of the time now with the low noise while the standard Gen I SAI switches still work 100%. That is bizarre to me since I have seen it work 95% of the time in noise 3 - 5 times as high. So I'm not sure if its the 'type' of noise instead of the 'level' of noise, or if there is something in Gen II that needs to be looked at and tweaked more. I need to do alot more testing before I can make any kind of real factual statements, but those are my preliminary observations.

 

[upstatemike]

Some good input here...

AnthonyZ - Do you think your problems are specific to HAI products or do you think any UPB brand would have the same issues?

Steve - Could you prgram your switches on the bench prior to taking them out to the job (to avoid having to program so much in a noisy environment) or is that not practical with UPB?

webmtn - Thanks for the clarification on UPB capacity. I can't see needing more than 1 NID in most situations. One concern a lot of potential UPB users have is that there do not seem to be many new devices being introduced. There are plenty of new versions and brands of the same device types, switches and keypads, but where are the screw-in modules and wireless remotes? Seems like these are long overdue considering how long UPB has been available.

 

[Steve]

Steve - Could you prgram your switches on the bench prior to taking them out to the job (to avoid having to program so much in a noisy environment) or is that not practical with UPB?

Sure, its possible. But hopefully not too many places have noise. I imagine each installer has their own way of doing things and bench programming up front is certainly an option.

 

[nightwalker]

I've had many large installs using HAI UPB switches. I had trouble with one of them, my first. Ever since and especially on large houses that typically use this many devices, i put a phase coupler in every sub panel. It's not supposed to make a difference but it has. I gave up trying to explain it because i can't but it's been a viable option for me and has sure helped my callbacks. The first house also had a emergency generator system that i had to disconnect from the line while i was programming. Since then i always take the generator offline while programming, i don't know if it was needed but it takes a second to do and i think of it as insurance. The first house also had an elevator that was putting lots of noise on the lines. i had to filter that.

 

[AnthonyZ]

Awww, the elevator. I never considered that but job number three does indeed have an elevator. It was not in use as I programmed but maybe there is motor noise even while in idle. I don't know.

upstatemike, my theory is that it's an HAI issue but I could certainly be wrong there as well, as I am not sitting on enough SA or PCS stock to monkey with it. It may be a Gen2 issue though as well. I just know that UPB USED to be solid and profitable. Now it is neither. Since HAI makes fully 50% of their profit off UPB, I would hope that they would put as much engineering behind it as possible. Of course, we've heard for years how solid their humidity sensors and worthless...um...I mean wireless products are and we know how inaccurate that really is.

nightwalker, do you place the cost of the PIM's and install on the client or have you been eating it? It may be worth a shot though I agree that we've been trained that it's not necessary...

 

[nightwalker]

nightwalker, do you place the cost of the PIM's and install on the client or have you been eating it? It may be worth a shot though I agree that we've been trained that it's not necessary...

Yes i do, when i go to the house for the first time, if it's big enough I'll search out the sub panels and just spec a phase coupler in for each. I also throw in a few plug in filters, if i don't use them during install i leave them with the customer in case they get a new device that kills their system, they can plug it in themselves with a little coaxing over the phone.

 

[Ranger Digital]

Anthony, I take it these are retrofits? I have ZERO experience with UPB as all our installs are new construction. If these jobs you have problems with are not retro, why are your straying from hard wired? just curious as hard wired NEVER is a problem for installing. it just works.

 

[AnthonyZ]

Retro is right, Tuck. Like I said, I'm setting up meetings with Vantage as soon as possible for hardwired. Too many nightmare stories to "experiment" with ALC. Centralite may be an option but is pretty small.

I did speak with HAI this morning and they brought up the idea of making sure that the PIM's are also Gen2. To their credit, they said that if I determine that I'm running on Gen1 (I don't know as I didn't supply gear on any of these three installs), they will swap 'em. Could be worth a shot and I'll post as I find out more.