Plugwise Oddities and general findings

[richard naninck]

Got my 9 plugs installed and running however:

2 circles in the cellar (circle 8 powering the Quinta and Avanta and circle 2 a fridge). I call them circles 2 and 8 because that's the sequence my own software polls them. If I poll circle 2 then circle 8 fails and if I don't poll C2, C8 comes through OK. The same thing happens visa versa. So when C8 is polled first, C2 fails. Both circles are plugged in all the time so it's not that they are taken out of the loop. I just have problems with polling both. The source software also has trouble but finds them both eventually. I took a good look at the Source messages and saw that sending multiple of the same request takes care of a burnthrough. So if one circle request fails, I repeat the same request up to 5 times and almost always I get a reply somewhere within these extra five requests. It is not a timing issue. It appears to me as somekind of routing problem but don't understand why. I don't have much clou about MESH networks so that may be the problem. But Source also has trouble so....

Second oddity is this: I got a circle now powering my complete PC domotica setup and it ran fine for two days orso. After that I got two very quick powercycles (off and back on again) within one hour which obviously shutdown my server PC and that is unacceptable. The circle was plugged into the wall directly and in the circle I got a surge protector and in the surge protector I got the power cable to my setup. These cycles happened during testing and programming, but I cannot issue a command that would cycle (toggle) a plug so quickly so....??? Or is there a reset command somewhere that does this?

Now I got the surge protector first in the wall followed by the plugwise circle followed by the power cable to my setup. I never had trouble with powercycles before, so maybe a Circle can produce a spike that triggered my surge protector. I find the surge protector of more importance so if it happens again I will remove the circle from my PC setup.

In general: I can't find standby killers to save money on which a cheaper system like FS20 couldn't do better. I checked my waterboiler and one hour it takes 55W and the other 0W. Average 27W. After 8 hours of no power, it takes 1900W for 5 minutes and therefore killing all the presumed savings. Same goes for the Quooker. That thing takes between 9 and 13W per hour and consumes even more when powering up again. Oven and Microwave can't be turned off because of the running clock display but consume even less power in standby than a circle would do. Same goes for dishwasher, drycleaner etc. So in my system I got the circles now just for fun to have something to look at and they produce nice indicators in my domotica theme. I can now see if a device is in use or not which makes up for good eyecandy in my floorplan panel.
Stuff I can save money on is a spare PC consuming 15W when it is powered off, my old Humax DVB-C plus some other stuff attached to the same plug (30W) and two speakers with powered subwoofers consuming 17W each while doing nothing. All of those now switched using 25Euro FS20 switches. Obviously money can be saved when going on holliday because of the time factor.

[Bwired]

I think your mesh network is not stable yet. Try to install the circle+ as near as possible to the usb stick.
Try to run the source for a while until is looks stable and the network is set.
All the switches should be reacting very fast to On and Off in a stable network, if not stable it can take for more seconds to switch. If i change something to my network, for example adding some circles then I mostly have some problems like this to, but this is soon stable again after restating the source and polling the circles.
The circles can only switch on and off by itself when you are updating a firmware.
I have my 32 circles for years now and still mainly stable.

Nice thing about the circles ones integrated in you HA system that you can switch off devices with events, for example with Alarm Away ON.

[richard naninck]

Source seems to have the same problems like I do with my own code. I guess my living space is too large. For example I had to sacrifice the Circle+ to do nothing but sit in a wall outlet just to cover the space between the PC and the kitchen where most of the circles are. I also had to reposition the USB stick a few times to get a good connection.

As you can see in the attached image I can enable and disable circles. A disable means that it doesn't get polled. I can set another radio button which enables the alarm to switch the selected circles off when armed and on when disarmed. I put a power threshold in the loop to check if a device is still in use. So the checked power needs to be below the set threshold for the alarm to be able to switch a circle off. If the threshold is set to 0 a circle simply cannot be turned off. Handy in case a circle powers the domotica PC. Switching would kill the setup;)

I guess more circles will make it better but in my simple case one less circle in the cellar makes it better.

If what you suggest is true, the Source software stores the correct route in the circle (+)? I have seen messages pass by where the macaddress of the circle + and another macaddress is in the same message. Maybe that's where a route gets set. Also when searching for new circles a message loop 0018circle+mac00 - 3F is issued and the replies followed present all FF's. Maybe there the complete route is reset and rebuilt. Lot's to learn I guess.

[Bwired]

Looks good Richard.
Regarding the route, as for my understanding you are talking to the usb controller which is only communicating with the circle+ who controls all the circles and probably route. You need the source for building the network initial.

[DJF3]

Pieter,

How did you generate this picture??(PW topology map)


DJ

[richard naninck]

Looks good Richard.
Regarding the route, as for my understanding you are talking to the usb controller which is only communicating with the circle+ who controls all the circles and probably route. You need the source for building the network initial.

OK, when first testing the suite, I hooked up the USB stick and only the Circle+ and tested it with Source. All worked fine. Then I shut down source and started my own code. It recognised all extra circles at once without having to add them in the Source first. Does that comply with your remark to build the initial network in Source first?

EDIT: Powercycle during firmware update is very nice to know. Whenever I do that, I need to remove the circle powering my PC or else the update would end in a shutdown PC hence no update and maybe even messed up firmware.

[Bwired]

How did you generate this picture??(PW topology map)DJ

Hi DJ,
There is function in the source which generates a complete map of the plugwise network, including this nice graph.
If you push that button it starts MS Visio and the grid of the source is poping up. from the grid you can see the devices and start drawing the graph manually in Viso
Sorry had to make this joke, I have seen your mails and if I knew the answer you got it

[Bwired]

OK, when first testing the suite, I hooked up the USB stick and only the Circle+ and tested it with Source. All worked fine. Then I shut down source and started my own code. It recognised all extra circles at once without having to add them in the Source first. Does that comply with your remark to build the initial network in Source first?
EDIT: Powercycle during firmware update is very nice to know. Whenever I do that, I need to remove the circle powering my PC or else the update would end in a shutdown PC hence no update and maybe even messed up firmware.

Beginners mistake to do a firmware update on the PC with a Circle connected , we all did it somehome. Us early adapters where warned about it.
Do a test, let the source run for some hours till al devices can be handled form the source. If you shut down the source and start it again, all the devices should be online within a minute. We did not discover al the plugwise functions yet.............

[richard naninck]

Well, thanks for the warning. I didn't do a firmware update and don't intend to (yet). But still the circle caused two power cyles. Haven't seen the problem for over 20 hours now with the new setup I described earlier.
I will run Source for a few hours to see how my code reacts to it.

[Bwired]

if the source runs, click on every device to get the current powerusage (popup)
this should popup for every device in a second, no timeouts should occur.

[richard naninck]

- Sporadic resets of nodes caused by Circle+ time sync sent out

Out of the firmware release docs. This may have caused the circle reset I experienced two times...

[richard naninck]

Just updated and up and running again however a newly introduced Hex(83) character took me some time to figure. Everything appeared as was but my code didn't take that new 83 coming behind 0D 0A into account.
Hopefully that was it with the changes in protocol;)

Still no heartbeat

[jakkes]

How did you generate this picture??(PW topology map)DJ

Hi DJ,
There is function in the source which generates a complete map of the plugwise network, including this nice graph.
If you push that button it starts MS Visio and the grid of the source is poping up. from the grid you can see the devices and start drawing the graph manually in Viso
Sorry had to make this joke, I have seen your mails and if I knew the answer you got it

I can't find the button/function.....
Should that button be on the "instellingen" screen?

[PietjeNL]

U should read better :

Sorry had to make this joke

So no there is not a option for it.

[Digit]

And I don't have Visio!