my cm15a has died

[petera]

cleaned the battery contacts and put in new ones. Now the CM15a shows connected, until I plug it in. Then it disconnects again

Your CM15 issue sounds terminal. If you’re going to continue this route I’d invest in a new one.

Regarding your CM11, I can assure you it works fine with HomeGenie and many other controllers out there, most based around a Raspberry Pi solution but not all, with the aid of a serial to usb cable albeit without the benefit of RF communication.

I wouldn’t invest too much time and energy into AHP. Even Mr T realized this a while back.

[brobin]

Without batteries I can't connect to it at all. With batteries I can purge running macros, and clear memory. But as soon as I plug the CM15 in, the device disconnects.

Thanks

If you can't fix it I have two CM15A's I'm not using that I'm too lazy to post on ebay. PM me if you need one.

[Brian H]

My thought are dried out capacitors. In the AC supply. Too much AC ripple.

This is from the FCC Database Schematic of the through hole controller modelCM15A. The present surface mounted controller CM15A model is a different design.
When the AC run power supply, 30 DC Volts is not there. The Battery DC is routed through a diode into the small 5 volt regulator. When AC is On the diode is back biased and the battery is disconnected.

I have seen this dried out capacitor issue in may electronic devices. Especially the Insteon 2413 PLM. Has a switching power supply and capacitors not made to be in a switching power supply.

[brobin]

That's a very common problem where manufacturers choose caps that aren't up to the task in their power supplies to maybe save a nickel.  I used to have a bunch of ReplayTV units and every one of them needed a new cap in the power supply.  Same thing with the Insteon hub and some PC graphics cards that were used in flight simulators at a museum.  When replacing caps I always go with ones rated for "high heat" (105C) and select as high a VDC rating as physical dimension limitations permit.  Never had to replace one twice.

[jfaska]

Got a used one off of ebay. It works without batteries (when plugged in). This one only shows connected when not plugged in with batteries.

Was the suggestion reversing the batteries or the device in the plug?

Thanks

[JeffVolp]

I have seen this dried out capacitor issue in may electronic devices.

Both my main and backup Ocelots failed due to dried up electrolytics, but it was an easy repair.  The symptom was random actuations, which I tracked down to it occasionally running through the power-up sequence with no power interruption.  The power up sequence sets X10 devices to the state they should normally be in at that time of day (daytime, evening, or night).  With the electrolytic replaced, I'm back to 100%.

Jeff