New problem - intermittent lights flicker on the lsm-15 Evolve switch

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
#1

Hi All,

I’ve had the lsm-15 switch controlling my porch lights for about 3 years with no problems. Just light week I noticed that when turning on the lights, they will lose power for a second or so and then will continue to do so at intermittently. More strangely, turning the switch (ON) will sometimes also momentarily trigger the horn on my parked car. Just curious if anyone here has experienced similar problems or if this means it’s time to replace the switch?

WB

#2

[quote=“WhiteBeard, post:1, topic:187764”]More strangely, turning the switch (ON) will sometimes also momentarily trigger the horn on my parked car.[/quote]That is hilarious! I have no idea how your switch is affecting your car horn.

If rebooting the switch, by flipping the breaker, doesn’t make it work correctly, then I would replace the switch. It sounds like the switch contacts are bad, likely carbon-ed up.

#3

[quote=“WhiteBeard, post:1, topic:187764”]Hi All,

I’ve had the lsm-15 switch controlling my porch lights for about 3 years with no problems. Just light week I noticed that when turning on the lights, they will lose power for a second or so and then will continue to do so at intermittently. More strangely, turning the switch (ON) will sometimes also momentarily trigger the horn on my parked car. Just curious if anyone here has experienced similar problems or if this means it’s time to replace the switch?

WB[/quote]

You have a remote lock on your car, don’t you? The switch is going bad, very bad. Some part of the control circuity/radio transmitter is momentarily hitting a frequency or harmonic that coincides with what’s used on your car remote. Which is weird because car remotes generally operate in the 300 to 400 Mhz range, but Z-wave is generally around 900 Mhz. Like I said, the switch is going bad.

If resetting it like Z-Waver suggested doesn’t help, replace it pronto.

#4

Same exact issues. Has happened with 4 of these devices. Replacing with evolve dimmers has no issue… They last about one year then this failure mode. And they do then trash other devices as a result.

#5

[quote=“bkurtz, post:4, topic:187764”]Same exact issues.[/quote]The switch flickers and your car’s horn blows?

Has happened with 4 of these devices. Replacing with evolve dimmers has no issue... They last about one year then this failure mode. And they do then trash other devices as a result.
I'm assuming that your switches are not all from the same batch. But, if they are, then you may have a bad batch.

I’m curious about how much load you are switching and how frequently they get switched. Do you think that this may be a factor, or do you think it’s just bad switches?

If you would prefer to use an On/Off switch, rather than a dimmer as a replacement, then you might wish to try the GE12722 On/Off Switch. It is very similar in appearance to the LSM-15, though the LED indicator is different. It shares the same features including lacking Instant Status.

#6

No issues with car alarms =)

The issue I was refering to was the flickering. To be clear, this isnt like a LED flicker but the light turning off and on quickly, you can hear the relay. My issues were across multiple purchases from Amazon. Most of my house uses dimmers, so largely these were used for outdoor lights:

  • First failure was a outdoor set of flood lights, and it lasted about a year. Eventually when I was able to see it happen (not just hear it as its the front of the house), I replaced it with a new unit I had purchased about a year after the first one.
  • About 8 months later, it failed again. This time I thought it was the load, so I went ahead and switched the floods to LED to lower the current on it.
  • It failed again in about 6 months and I went to a dimmer. Seems Ok.
  • Between the second and third failure on the front floods, the floods in the back yard had the same problem. Went to LED/Dimmer, but should have considered somethign else
  • About 2 or 3 weeks ago the garage light (flourescent) failed the same way. The failure was bad enough that the scene controller in the same box lost its config to Vera, and has a HORRIBLE connection as reported by vera despite being maybe 3m from the Veralite.

The network is otherwise pretty solid. I’d say I have on the order of 100 zwave devices, the evolve dimmers out number the LSM-15 by at least 5X and no issues there.

So I’m pretty sure its the stupid LSM-15s. The fail and they fail in a way that hurts the RF of the network somehow.

bk

#7

So happy I found this thread. I’m having the exact same issue. 3 of the 5 of these that I’ve bought have developed this issue in the last few months.

Evolve had the audacity of suggesting my house wiring was to blame!

I’m going to pull one of the failed ones apart, figure out the failure mode, and post a condemning video on Youtube. NOT HAPPY! >:(

#8

Best of luck. I had about 4 bad ones, replaced some with dimmers, remainder I’m switching to GE.

I’d prefer not to mix and match, so if you find something please let me know. If you’d like for me to check any of my bad ones for a particular scenario I can check, but I was too lazy to bring them to the office and scope them out as its a very intermittent problem and I generally prefer to stick with voltages less than .9V. =).

bk

#9

I wouldn’t be surprised if the problem turns out to be bad electrolytic capacitors.

-bob

#10

Same problem here - LSM15 just started flickering after probably two years of service. I’m going to see if Evolve will step up and replace the switch.

#11

I have had pretty high failures rates of my Evolve devices recently. Failures 3x LTM-5, and have and 2xLDM-15 and 1x LSM-15. The LSM-15 every so often audibly click repeatedly rapid fire. My GE’s have been stable (after a few early failures) , and my Linear (who originally made the Evolves) have been rock solid .

I can recreate the clicking on demand by forcing a Configure Node command in vera. Other times it seems to act on its own, probably while polling or heal process. Each time it does cause a power interruption when this happens. Attaching a video of what is happening.

The flashing you see (and audible clicks) happens when I send a configure to the node. I was originally happy with my Evolves, but with the rash of recent failures, it seems like a very expensive mistake I made. I will try to see if Evolve will do anything about it, but knowing they are out of warranty… I doubt it.

Note: If you want to view it, change the extension to .mp4 if your video viewer has issues… The restrictions in this forum on file sizes and type made me do some transcoding and extension change from mp4.

#12

That is pretty weird. It certainly seems that the switch is failing. But, as you said, it seems related to communication on the Z-Wave network rather than a physical switch/contact failure.

As an easy test I’d try;

  • Exclude the switch. This resets it to factory defaults.

  • Power cycle the switch with the airgap switch. Like rebooting a computer, this sometimes fixes problems with the Z-Wave logic board.

  • Re-include the switch and see if the problem persists.

At least your car horn isn’t blowing.

#13

Unfortunately the LSM-15 (as compared to the LDM) do not have an airgap. However, I did disconnect it from the mains several times to reset it.

I did try to exclude the switch, and this also failed. The switch would not exclude after several tries so I ended up just deleting it. Definitely the switch had failed. When I connected it to mains power to test before I deleted (so I could exclude) , the switch buzzes/clicks continuously at a very high rate.

I am not sure if there is an issue with the Evolve version of the firmware or hardware vs. Linear/ACT versions of the same devices. The date codes of my Evolve devices are in the 2011-2013 range so possibly there is a production flaw at that time.

What is interesting is that when some of these devices act up, it destabilizes the Zwave network. I have had a couple of times where my mesh has been solid and almost 100% reliable for many months at a time and I wake up with several devices offline with a large number of random misses when triggering a device. When I remove a suspect device, (Evolve every time so far), the zwave network becomes stable again.

It makes me wonder if some of the problems people are having with UI7 and Zwave network problems could be related to bad devices failing or some bug in the devices related of the Vera+ zwave firmware version.

#14

Had the same issue with my LSM-15 Evolve switch today. Killed power on my circuit breaker to install two new smoke alarms (all I did was change the power connectors very simple). Turned back on power and the LSM-15 was buzzing very loud. Killed power and turned back on again and was still buzzing but then other LSM-15 devices were buzzing (very strange). Called electrician over and he could not figure out anything. We had a GFCI breaker trip a few times. Then all of a sudden everything worked normal again. Electrician believes it is a bad LSM-15 device but I am not certain this is the case as the company I buy these from sells 1000’s of these and has never seen it. Electrician is going to come back tomorrow to see if we can re-create the issue. As of now I cannot recreate so not sure what the deal is. Any suggestions?

#15

is it a buzzing or a rapid clicking of the relay that you where hearing ? Did you have any loads on the buzzing LSM’s that you could tell if they were cycling power ?

Re: New problem - intermittent lights flicker on the lsm-15 Evolve switch
#16

Any news on this issue with Evolve light switch?

I brought my switches around 2012-2013 and since it was more than one year, Evolve didnt want to replace them in the late 2015. I have since remove almost 3/4 of the light switch since the flicker is too much annoying.

Out of the 22 Evolve devices I brought, only the 4 dimmers and 2 LSM-15 are still Working fine… All the 16 other devices are good for garbage…

Envoy? de mon Nexus 6 en utilisant Tapatalk

#17

No resolution. I exchanged emails with their VP of Operations for a bit back in Jan and then never completed the thread after they were supposedly asking their OEM. I would send them an email and force the issue. Having a 80% failure rate is ridiculous (but not surprising based on my experience) . PM me and I will send you the VP of Ops email address.

#18

100% failure rate now for me. Back in 2015 Evolve RMA’d the few which had gone but the replacements plus all my remaining switches have gone now too. Local supplier no longer carries them (hmm, wonder why).

Also my LTM-5s have all died.

#19

Stay away from Evolve/Go-control and Aartech.ca

Neither supplier nor manufacturer will acknowledge the LSMs were a defective product, neither will take responsibility or offer concessions. They sell you a dud product and then leave you out hanging - a terrible way to run a business.

Out of spite I opened a dead LSM. Was hoping to find some bulged electrolytic or scorching but no such luck. Some dark colored residue around and under what looks like the bridge rectifier IC, but it could just be flux from sloppy hand-soldering rather than heat damage. We’ll see if my spite carries me far enough to power up and probe around on the thing - I’d love to be able to report these guys used some cheap ill-suited components. The job would be easier if I had a working LSM to compare to, but they’re all toast.

#20

Nortek/Linear/GoControl is a crummy company. Their support was crap, and with a great majority of their devices having failed over the last 5 years in my home, I will avoid them at all costs and tell anyone I can to do the same.
Not only did they manufacture an entire range of products with terrible quality (remotes, dimmers, switches, relays) but with the GD00Z garage controllers, they deliberately mixed their stock of old ZW and ZW+ with the same part numbers and just put a sticker on the old versions. Took 4 orders and even a conversation with a confused distributor who thought they bought the ZW+ to get the actual versions I ordered. No acknowledgement other than claiming its all the same (when they were not).

I don’t really blame the reseller after a few years, and I have seen where Nortek/Linear is screwing them over as well.