Controlling ESPilight dimmer in Home Assistant

When viewing the message for a dimmer on the serial bus, I see:

home/OMG_Pilight/PilighttoMQTT
{"message":{"id":8334254,"unit":0,"dimlevel":15,"state":"on"},"protocol":"arctech_dimmer","length":"8334254","repeats":2,"status":2}

Thus, if I want to control the light level, I assume I should use the following command and get the following serial response:

home/OMG_Pilight/PilighttoMQTT
{"message":"{\"id\":8334254,\"unit\":0,\"dimlevel\":5,\"on\":1}","protocol":"arctech_dimmer","repeats":4}
Pub data per topic
message
{"id":8334254,"unit":0,"dimlevel":5,"on":1}
protocol
arctech_dimmer
repeats
4

The dimlevel range is 1-15 for this type of dimmer and works for a few commands. Then after a while the dimlight stops responding to OMG commands, unless I restart the OMG by unplugging. Any clues? Response in the serial interface does not change and through another conventional controller using same code it does respond.