From: James Sentman <james-AT-sentman.com>
Date: 11 May 2008 11:21:05 UTC   (03:21:05 PM in author's locale)
To: xtensionlist-AT-shed.com

On May 11, 2008, at 11:51 AM, Chuck Pelto wrote:

> I've come to realize that the Ack is not all it QuAcked up to be. A
> question for Michael is what can we do to REALLY validate the 'Ack'?

the ack is form the software meaning that it thinks that the hardware
device accepted or acknowledged the signal. It will tell you that the
communications between the device and computer are probably working OK
but can't really tell you about the state of the powerlines. Devices
like the Lynx had an internal buffer and would ack that they got the
packet before even trying to send them, or at least that is my memory.
But the CM11 wont send an ack until it thinks that it's sent it. But
that doesn't mean that it's sent it in a way that anybody else can
understand.

So not getting an ack is a good indication of a problem, but getting
an ack is no promise of proper transmission.

Something has changed in your house, some power supply capacitor has
blown it's top or some power supply has heated up to the point of
causing problems. The fact that sometimes you get an ack and sometimes
not even with trying a spare CM11 means that something is confusing
the poor thing. You're going to have to do zone by zone switching off
of things to narrow it down I fear. Unless people can give you some
other better ideas that don't immediately occur to me.

Thanks,
James

James Sentman sentman.com MacHomeAutomation.com