TED 5000 MTU and Gateway not talking

[bperrybap]

Ok, so I've got some sort of PLC issue or a h/w issue in the gateway or MTU of a recently purchased TED 5000 system.
The Gateway seems to be working other than not receiving any MTU data.
The stats reported by the gateway have never showed any "MTU Rec" or "MTU Skp" packets.
The MTU LED is blinking but the side LED on the Gateway has never blinked to indicate MTU PLC traffic.
The Gateway is able to communicate the TED wireless LCD display.

I've opened a ticket (#15368, opened on Feb 6, 2015) but the issue is still on going and communication responses from support are very slow.
I'm hoping that there is someone in the community that can help.

Here is what I've got:
- TED 5000-C (gateway, MTU, CTs, wireless LCD display and charger)
- two additional MTUs with CTs.

I initially tried it but got no PLC communication from MTU.
I then tried it with all the breakers off but 1 breaker.
That 1 circuit had both the MTU and an outlet with the gateway.
Still no communication. So I Hard reset the gateway with the button on the side of the gateway.
Still no communication, so I updated the f/w.
First the gateway f/w then the footprints s/w as stated on the support page.

The original revisions indicated by the gateway were:
Gateway Version: 1.0.400
Daughter Board Version: 1.0.88
Foot Prints: 1.0.223
MTU Version: 1.0.0

After the update:
Gateway Version: 1.0.499
Daughter Board Version: 1.0.88
Foot Prints: 1.0.281
MTU Version: 1.0.0

After the update, the behavior was the same in that the Gateway was not seeing any packets from the MTU.
So then I ordered an inline filter and a plug in filter directly from TED.
Using the inline filter on a dedicated circuit with a dedicated outlet on a dedicated 4ft of wire made no difference.
Still no communication.
Tested with inline filter and all other breakers off, still no communication.


The setup with the TED inline filter is as follows:
NOTE: while there is a UPS in the house, testing was done with the breaker to it off, and the power strip physically unplugged)
The dedicated test circuit consists of:
- Dedicated 20 amp SquareD qo breaker (the type with the Red indicator)
Nothing but TED inline filter attached to it.

- 4 feet of 14/2 Romax wired to TED inline filter and single outlet
   - ground romax wire to ground bar
    - white romax wire to Neutral bar
    - black romax wire to Ted inline filter black wire and black MTU wire

- TED inline filter with:
    - white inline filter wire wired to neutral bar
    - Red inline filter wire to 20 Amp breaker
    - Black inline filter wire to:
        - black wire of MTU
        - black wire of Romax

- TED5000 MTU serial # 10 68 9A
    - Red MTU wire capped off
    - White MTU wire to neutral bar
    - black MTU wire to TED inline filter black wire and Black Romax wire.

- TED5000 Gateway serial # 21 6F 8E
    - plugged into dedicated outlet on end of 4 ft 16/2 romax
    - wired to router
  

All breakers in panel are SquareD qo breakers.
Photo of panel attached.
Also attached is a screen shot of statistics page.

The Gateway front green led is blinking about once per second.
The Gateway side led is off
The MTU green led is blinking about every other second.
The TED display LED is blinking green in sync with the Gateway front green led.
The TED display is updating the date/time.

Other things I've tried:
================
I tried each of the other 2 MTUs trying to eliminate if there was an MTU h/w issue by swapping out MTUs.
All the MTUs behave the same with no packets received by the gateway.
I had some old X10 equipment laying around and I tried it on the same circuit with the TED equipment disconnected.
The X10 communication worked on the same circuit where the TED gateway and MTU were not talking.

I've tried it with and without the inline filter.
I even tested to see if the inline filter would block X10 communication and the inline filter will block X10 communication.
So the inline filter seems to be working as expected.

Other Notes:
========
My electric meter is a Texas ONcor smart meter.
I live in a patio home and the  neighbor house is about 12 feet way.
There is a transformer for the street about 40 feet from the panel where the TED is installed.
X10 will jump from phase to phase without a phase coupler between phases even when there are no 220 circuits enabled to provide the coupling.
(it must be looping back from the transformer at the street to jump between phases).


I've tried everything and every combination that I can think of trying and there is no communication and since I just purchased the TED 5000 and this is the initial install, it has not ever communicated yet.
Nothing I've tried has worked:
- with and without inline filters
- using a dedicated circuit with only 4ft of wire from breaker to test outlet.
- with all other circuit breakers off.
- using 3 different MTUs
- hard resetting the gateway
- all devices in house physically unplugged (all power strips, TVs, etc..., everything in house unplugged from outlets)
Note: X10 on the very same circuit does work (X10 equipment was not connected to any wiring during TED testing)


Is there anything else to try or is there a hardware issue?
Like did updating the gateway create a situation where the gateway can no longer communicate with the MTU because the PLC communication protocol changed?

--- bill

[tmarks11]

I know this won't help the OP (since this was 4 months ago), but for anyone else who is using a filter:

Your gateway HAS to be plugged in downstream of the filter, so it is on the same leg as the MTU.

In the picture above, the OP shows a dedicated breaker powering the MTU through a filter, and the gateway is plugged in somewhere else.

To get rid of line noise, run the mtg AND a wall plug from the same filter and plug your gateway into it.  That made my skipped packet count go from about 7% down to 0.3%.

This is from the TED5000 installation guide...note they also show that if you plug anything else into the dedicated plug the gateway is on, you should filter it.  You are better off just not using that plug for anything else.



http://www.theenergydetective.com/downloads/Filter.pdf

[bperrybap]

I know this won't help the OP (since this was 4 months ago), but for anyone else who is using a filter:

Your gateway HAS to be plugged in downstream of the filter, so it is on the same leg as the MTU.

In the picture above, the OP shows a dedicated breaker powering the MTU through a filter, and the gateway is plugged in somewhere else.

It was quite a bit more than 4 months ago and No that isn't what I said in the description and it is not what the photo shows.
Perhaps take a bit of time to re-read the post again and look closer at the photo.
The text is VERY clear how things are wired up. 3 of the 4 bullets that talk about wiring have a line stating the black wires of the MTU, Romax and filter are all wired together.
If you look at the panel photo, you can see the black wire from the romax dropping down in front of the left breakers and passing by where the red dot for the "Break with UPS" is dropping down to connect the filter where the MTU is connected.
The MTU, and the dedicated outlet that has the gateway plugged into it are both on the same side of the TED inline filter.
The inline filter is in between the dedicated breaker and both the dedicated outlet and the MTU.
The black wires from the dedicated outlet and the MTU are literally in the same wiring nut.
So the gateway and the MTU are connected to each other on the same side of the filter just a few feet apart.
Your drawing is exactly the same as what I described and showed in the photo other than I'm not using a plug in filter in the dedicated outlet where the gateway is plugged in.

In the end, after a few frustrating calls to tech support and actually getting into an argument with the RMA person over how they handle their MTU RMA/returns/refurbishments, I abandoned trying to get the MTU looked at by them. I was able to acquire (BUY) another gateway from a 3rd party for a lower cost.
Against all of what tech support said and predicted, it did turn out to be a bad gateway. I could literally swap out gateways on the EXACT same plug and the 2nd gateway would work while the first would fail. Both were configured exactly the same way.
Once I had the new/good gateway, everything worked as it is supposed to work including without needing the TED inline filter.
I could place the gateway in my office even when the UPS was on the same circuit.
The USP is plugged into a surge protector and the surge protector filters out all the noise from the UPS so I can have the gateway and the UPS on the same circuit in my office.

All is well and has been working for for a while now. I should have done a follow up explaining that the issue was a bad gateway.
I have no idea if the updated f/w on the first gateway made it go deaf from MTU transmissions but the working/2nd gateway uses these revisions:
Gateway Version: 1.0.400
Daughter Board Version: 1.0.88
Foot Prints: 1.0.223
MTU Version: 1.0.57

And I did not update it to the latest f/w.

--- bill