LZW36 Fan/Light Switch Canopy Module Disconnection Issues

[poelock]

What Fan (Make/Model) do you have? This is important.

• Home Depot - Hugger 52 in. LED Gunmetal Ceiling Fan - https://www.homedepot.com/p/Hugger-52-in-LED-Gunmetal-Ceiling-Fan-AL383LED-GM/304542817

Does your fan have pull-chains or is it remote operated? (If pull-chain, make sure to set it to high)

• Pull chain with fan set to High and Light on

What wiring schematic are you following? Schematics can be found here: LZW36 Wiring Schematics 9 – NOTE: Please let us know if you have any alternate wiring

• Power to Switch Box

How far from the canopy module is your switch?

• 10 ft

What is the estimated temperature in your house?

• ecobee sensor (2 ft from ceiling) in room with fan averages 75 at night, 77 during day

Can you give pics of the canopy installation (show how it’s sitting in the canopy and how it’s wired?

Do you have any access points near the fan?

• Unifi AC-PRO roughly 12 feet from switch and 22 feet from fan. 3 total Unifi APs installed (2 AC-PRO and 1 AC Mesh)

Would you consider your 2.4 GHz network large or overworked?

• not really. 2.4 scan image attached.

When you lose connection to the canopy, does your switch still send/receive Z-Wave commands? I’m assuming yes, but just want to double check.

• yes

are you still receiving power usage updates when the canopy is not responding (if it stops responding with the lights on, does using the pull-chain on the lights cause power usage to drop)? If the power usage meters are still working, it could help point the manufacturer in the right direction.

• will test next disconnect.

My disconnects have been really sporadic. Since installing the unit (same day as received) I’ve only had 4 disconnects. Haven’t had one in 5 days.

[SandyB]

Hi Eric,
Per your suggestions, I did re-organizing the wires in the canopy (the antenna is now pointing more towards the switch, out of the canopy slightly & all the other wires are out of the way), and things are much better (it gets ~75% of the commands rather than 5%) - thanks!!!
One question; is there a “best” direction to point the antenna wire?

[Hoveeman]

@Hoveeman

I actually noticed this about power last night before going to bed. My Son’s room and Daughter’s room both showed active power reports, but the new room showed power of 0 even though the fan was running (canopy was disconnected). I was going to post today that this seems to be a reliable way to check if the canopy is disconnected without having to physically be in the room to check.

@Eric_Inovelli
I have some bad news… My daughter’s room that has been solid since the install (7/1/20) disconnected from the canopy. It is also not following the power report idea that we thought. It is still reporting power of 53 watts even though the light and fan are both off. I tried pressing the buttons on the dimmer and it didn’t change the power reporting or control the fan. I haven’t pulled the air gap in-case there is something you’d like me to try.

Pic of the report in Hubitat showing power:

Video of the switch:

LZW36 Canopy Issues

[danforce]

Here are my responses to the questions posed since my original response.

@Eric_Inovelli

do you have any other switches you can test to see if it’s a defective canopy module?

I purchased three switches, so yes, I can swap canopy modules or just install the other two and see if they have the same problem. I’ve been holding off on installing them all until I was confident they worked well.

@Eric_Inovelli

When you lose connection to the canopy, does your switch still send/receive Z-Wave commands?

When I lose connection to the canopy, the switch does still send and receive Z-wave commands.

@Eric_Inovelli

are you still receiving power usage updates when the canopy is not responding (if it stops responding with the lights on, does using the pull-chain on the lights cause power usage to drop)?

I have not checked on the power usage updates when disconnected. If it happens again, I’ll check and report back.

@Eric_Inovelli

On the one that does not work, you’re seeing the following:

• Even with the antenna hanging out of the canopy, the results were the same (ie: disconnects)?
• Air-gap pull seems to fix it temporarily
• Even with the canopy completely exposed, there still were connection issues

Pulling the air-gap on my switch does sometimes fix the problem temporarily, but it’s not reliable. The longest I had to sit there and fuss with it, pulling the air-gap repeatedly and pressing buttons, before I received the response I was expecting was for about three minutes.

After I found this thread, I opened up my canopy to take the pictures requested. Before doing that, I had concealed the antenna of the canopy module inside the canopy. After taking pictures and re-assembling my canopy, I left two inches of the antenna outside. This has DRASTICALLY improved my experience. Where before it almost never worked, now it almost always works. Since placing the antenna outside it’s only disconnected twice and both times were resolved immediately on pulling the air-gap.

@Eric_Inovelli

• Do you have any access points near the fan?
• Would you consider your 2.4 GHz network large or overworked?

I also have an Ubiquiti AP Pro in the hallway directly outside the bedroom where the fan is installed. The AP is actually closer to the switch than the fan is. I would not consider my network large (two APs, one in the house and one in the detached garage) or overworked considering the capacity of my network design/equipment.

[vreihen]

@Eric_Inovelli

@vreihen (looks like you have 3)

Three spares in their boxes and one installed, four total. Question - Will it damage the canopy modules if I put power to the three spares (and their switches) for testing (and as potential RF jammers) on the bench with no fan/light loads connected?

As I’m trying to piece this all together, it seems like it’s boiling down to some defective canopies vs interference. @Hoveeman’s replacement of a canopy that had an AP in the same room in which the replacement canopy works leads me to believe this.

Playing Devil’s advocate, did @Hoveeman inadvertently “air gap” his switch when pulling the breaker to replace the canopy module?

Mine has not had any issues since about an hour after the initial install, which I noticed while playing with the extreme low end of the light dimmers with ancient dimmable LED bulbs that were audibly noisy on the previous “dumb” fan controller’s canopy module at low ranges. This was cured by a full 30-second air gap, and hasn’t happened again.

When I did the initial Z-Wave pairing of my first switch, I used my surface-mount gray plastic outlet box and lamp cord on the bench…and hot/neutral wires out to the canopy module that was connected to the new fan on the bench. I’m wondering if this isn’t “teething pains” with the new 700 modules, that are either having issues with Z-Wave mesh changes or trying to do some sort of new secure connection to the 500-chips in the Hubitat? I don’t know how often Z-Wave rearranges its mesh, but it may not be a coincidence that I had to air-gap my switch within an hour of powering it up in a new location and not having problems since.

I probably don’t want to know, but is the 700 module doing all of the switch’s Z-Wave and application processing in the block diagram, with the RF module to the fan as a side block (like many other consumer-type embedded chipsets)? One person reported a warm switch above, and it made me think of a runaway CPU in the switch that an air gap would also restart.

Does the manufacturer’s RF test bench also throw Z-Wave mesh changes or traffic floods at the switch in addition to the canopy module’s RF link? This could explain why they cannot re-create the issue on their end.

Anyway, I am actively trying to make the problem happen again…unsuccessfully! I ran the fan all day Sunday in breeze mode, moving the light dimmer around the low end of the range. I assume that breeze mode is implemented in the canopy module, and will stop changing if the canopy module processor locks up. This morning, I added a Hubitat Rule Manager task to toggle the lights on/off every five seconds to exercise the end-to-end connection:

I am REALLY trying to re-create the problem, but it seems that it stabled out after the initial 30-second air gap which is why I’m thinking that my issue (and possibly others that an air-gap restores connection to the fan) might be caused by Z-Wave mesh changes that the 700 chip is not handling correctly…

[Hoveeman]

@Hoveeman

@Eric_Inovelli
I have some bad news… My daughter’s room that has been solid since the install (7/1/20) disconnected from the canopy.

Now all 3 of my switches and canopies are disconnected all at the same time. Now I’m going back to the interference camp…

[Hoveeman]

@vreihen

Playing Devil’s advocate, did @Hoveeman inadvertently “air gap” his switch when pulling the breaker to replace the canopy module?

Yes, I did turn the breaker off to replace the canopy. This definitely turned off power to the switch as well. I then had to pair the original switch with the new canopy. It ended up in a funky state where the old switch was paired to 2 canopies. I was able to get the canopies reset and repaired one at a time. After that, I hadn’t air gapped the old switch. However, right now all 3 switches have lost communication to their respective canopies. 1 is showing power of 0 and the other 2 are showing 50-60 watts being pulled.

[cappiel]

@Eric_Inovelli answering my questions

• yes I did try to manually pair a few times, switch always flashed green, but commands Nor fan didn’t work. Similar to @FanOfFans feedback

I’ll reinstall the canopy tonight to check power readings.

[Sky320]

@Eric_Inovellii am not getting power reports when disconnected, z-wave reports but no power

log after air gapped

[Eric_Inovelli]

Tag @anon14959390, you’re it on this thread!

Kidding, let me process this tonight. I think what I may have to do is start PM’ing each of you 1v1 and start to try to replicate each instance.

[Hoveeman]

Appreciate your time and support!

Let me know if you want to take a road trip down to Ohio and test in my RF Anechoic Chamber (my house). Lol

[anon14959390]

Seems like moving could work. Let’s try a few more steps first though. Honestly the exorcist doesn’t seem that bad of an idea.

[Rich]

• Fan (Make/Model): Daylesford 52 in. LED Indoor Oiled-Rubbed Bronze Ceiling Fan (Model # 205547382)
• Pull-chains or remote operated: Remote Operated
• Wiring schematic: Standard Power Into Switch wiring provided by Inovelli
• Distance from canopy module to switch: 10ft
• Estimated temperature: 72 degrees
• Picture: I’ll try and get a picture, but the canopy is small and opening it would show how it’s sitting in the canopy
• Access Point: I do have an access about about 15ft from the switch
• Would you consider your 2.4 GHz network large or overworked: I have google wifi with 4 access points in the house. I wouldn’t say the network is overworked, but it does have well over 30 devices connected both wifi and hardwired.
• Note: Airgapping does seem to solve the problem for me as well temporarily.

[Wkboarding]

• Do you have any access points near the fan?
  I have a ubiquiti ac pro access point about 15 feet away.

• Would you consider your 2.4 GHz network large or overworked?

I have around 10 devices on the 2.4 ghz network. I wouldn’t say it’s over worked.

[Hoveeman]

I don’t want to derail this discussion thread, but there are a lot of Unifi users in this thread that are having issues. I was curious about everyone’s settings for their Unifi Setup. I created this separate thread where people can input their information.

LZW36 and Unifi Users

@Eric_Inovelli and @anon14959390, If you think this is irrelevant and would like me to remove it. Let me know!

[Sky320]

@Hoveeman mine are Zyxel and Google WiFi and same issues here as all the rest.

[jwbryan]

I’m not convinced it is an issue with Ubiquiti gear interfering with the LZW6. Rather, I think that is indicative of the user base as most of us are advanced and more likely to use prosumer level gear. I run 8 APs, with the closest within 15 feet of the switch, and 8ish feet from the fan. I have >75 devices (more than half on 2.4GHz) on WiFi and have configured the UniFi AI (or whatever it is called) to adjust the channels based on nightly scans of the RF. So far, I have not had any issues.

[NicksGarage]

My setup is a Netgear C7000 router with a Netgear AC750 repeater at each end of the house. One is in the same room as the fan but on the opposite side of the room from the wall switch. I did unplug it to see if that made a difference and it didn’t. I have about 20 devices on the 2.4ghz network plus a couple 4 or 5 more connected to that extender. The main router is in the center of the house with the fan located two rooms over.

[Eric_Inovelli]

Just an update – @EricM_Inovelli just bought a spectrum analyzer to take a look at one of the defective modules to see if, in fact the signal is getting to the fan module to rule out any RF issues.

My gut is telling me this is likely not an RF issue due to some of the data-points above, but we’d like to prove it.

The analyzer should be at his house in 2 days.

[TRiddle1983]

Yesterday was not a good day. Had to pull the air gap on 4 switches multiple times per switch. It at least does fix it temporarily (the times are all over the map for how long it stays connected to the canopy). I never lose z-wave connection though.

Of my one switch that has never had a “problem” with needing to pull the air gap, I am getting the crazy random light flickering on it. As I mentioned above, all of my fans are the same, all of the installations are the same. I run Unifi gear and ran it unplugged to test with no change in random whacky behavior.