Although -- late-breaking news -- PLMs may be reappearing on the market next month per this announcement: “Product arriving April 2023”.
https://shop.insteon.com/en-ca/products ... -interface.
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Update (Dec 2023) - SmartHome/Insteon has returned from the dead. The 2413U USB PLM is available here (in Canada), and presumably elsewhere.
https://www.aartech.ca/2413u/insteon-po ... modem.html
Since replacing the capacitors in my 2413 and 2450 several months ago, both have been working fine.
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I’ve been using Indigo + Insteon for nearly a decade and would rather not abandon the Insteon investment if I can wring a few more years of life out of my 2413U. It’s version V1.C, date code 1426 (i.e., manufactured week 26 of 2014). There are lots of articles posted online about how to replace the electrolytic capacitors which are a frequent failure mode with the product. The most useful resources that I found are linked below. They are quite dated, and the essential information (what replacement capacitors to purchase) is mostly obsolete.
For the benefit of anyone considering “re-capping” their PLM, here is the list of capacitors I used. They were available from DigiKey.com, as of March 2023. All are from Nichicon (a well-regarded maker of quality caps) except for C2, 5 & 8 which are from Würth. I chose components with the longest rated lifetime running at 105C, available at reasonable cost.
- Code: Select all
C3 6.8uF @ 350V UCS2V6R8MPD 10000hrs @ 105C
C7 & 13 100 @ 35V UPV1V101MGD1TD 5000hrs @ 105C
C11 100 @ 50V UPJ1H101MPD6TD 5000hrs @ 105C
C8 10 @ 16V 860160372001 4000hrs @ 105C
C2 & 5 same as C8
Total cost for the 7 capacitors was $5.14 CAD. Shipping was $8. The order was delivered by FedEx a mere 23 hours after I placed it at digikey.ca!
Notes
C3 filters the output from the primary full-wave rectifier which sits directly across the 120VAC mains supply. The output is 170 VDC nominal. Original Insteon design used 6.8uF @ 250V. Given the voltages involved and the possibly of spikes on the AC supply, a higher rated cap is indicated, hence the 350V component for replacement. I tried a 10uF @ 400, but it was too big to fit.
C7 & C13 are part of a “Pi-filter” which sits at the output of a DC-to-DC converter (170 VDC in, 22 VDC out). The original design of the 2413 apparently used 10uF @ 35V. Later revisions beefed up these two components to 100uF @ 35V. Some posts suggested replacing these with caps rated for 50V to provide a little more headroom, but I found they were too big to fit on the PCB so I chose 100 @ 35, the same as the original design The DC-to-DC converter runs at 200 KHz - hence a fair bit of high-frequency noise is present. The use of capacitors with low ESR is preferred to attenuate the noise. (If you’re an EE, you’ll know what ESR means. If not, don’t worry about it).
C11 is at the output of the 5 VDC regulator. The original design used 100uF @ 25V. I used 100 @ 50V, since I had one on hand, and it fit on the PCB. You could also use 100 @ 25V (UHV1E101MED), or 100 @ 35 (UPV1V101MGD1TD).
C8 is an unremarkable 10uF @ 16V.
C2 & C5 are on the daughter board which comprises the USB interface. I had no reason to think these two were bad, but since I had the 2413 disassembled, I decided I’d replace all the electrolytics while I had it apart.
References
A valuable source of information about repairing the PLM is a 29-page series of posts that was started in Aug 2014 on the Universal Devices forum. It was active until April 2022, and then was closed for further input.
https://forum.universal-devices.com/top ... ply-fails/
It focuses on the 2413S variant of the PLM, which has a serial interface to the host computer. As it turns out, the USB version of the PLM (2413U) has the same main PCB design, comprising the power supply, the power line modem (22 MHz), and the RF transceiver (914 MHz). Different daughter boards then provide different types of connection to the host computer.
Another good resource is this one:
https://1projectaweek.com/blog/2017/6/2 ... -plm-2413u
As is this one, which also focuses on the 2413U version of the PLM.
https://www.rototron.info/insteon-plm-repair-tutorial/
The author of the rototron tutorial above also posted an excellent Youtube video showing the complete repair job from start to finish.
Highly recommended if you’re contemplating this DIY electronics project.
https://youtu.be/Ab0tW7vgP1I
As part of my Insteon rejuvenation project, I also recapped my 2450 I/O Link. Fortunately, it has a similar (though not identical) power supply design. I’ll put up another post here with details of the components I used for it and a couple of issues I encountered.
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