Any X-10 Gurus out there?

I have a Lynx system and I use X10 with it. Works well and does what i need it
to do. Anyways, every once in a while, say... once about every 3 mos or so the
x10 will stop working for a couple of days. None of my devices will work at all
then after a couple of days of pulling my hair out and getting no where on
resolving it, it will all of the sudden out of no where start working seamlessly
again. Any ideas on this would be mucho appreciated. Thanx in advance.

 

You could try the brute force approach if you don't want to spend a
lot of money on analyzers and filters. Smarthome.com sells an X10
repeater that boosts weak X10 signals to the range of 7 volts or so
(so they claim). There are also the 220 V. dryer plugs that cross
the X10 signals between the two hot legs of your electrical service.
Sometimes X10 signals will only reliably work on half the house (one
hot leg) unless there is a 220 V. appliance operating to bridge the
signal to the other leg. (Assuming a North American Split-Phase Power
System).

I've used X10 for over 7 years. Sometimes they just get flaky and
are less then 100% reliable. The convenience is usually still worth
it though.

Beachcomber

 

It all depends on how much you want to spend. An in-panel phase
coupler is going to require the services of a qualified electrician to
install and that is not necessarily an economical solution for an
existing house.

Within certain limits, some X10 problems can be solved by merely
re-arranging the transmitters and receivers so that if they are not on
the same ciruit, at least they will be on the same hot wire leg.

Beachcomber

 

x10 will consume hour after hour after hour after hour of troubleshooting,
fucking around, praying, cursing and generally cursing x10 and everything
associated with it. Get the combination phase coupler, whole house filtre
and have it installed at the service entrance. If you're ballsy and have a
bud standing by with a 2 x 6 to pry you loose or knock you off a wire you
shouldn't have touched, it's not that difficult to install.

 

alt.security.alarms

Would you and Jim please give links to good couplers and filters? I
saw this one at Smarthome: http://www.smarthome.com/4850.html , but I
somehow doubt it is as good as a hardwired one (it seems to work off
the inductance principal).

Is the SignaLinc™ stuff from Smarthome considered bad/average/superior
quality?

 

PZZ01 Blocking / coupler, that's the one I used. Two birds with one stone as
it were but I still have noise problems. I really like x10.
NOT

Dunno.

 

Possibly something is off (or on) for those days, but is normally in the
opposite condition? For example, if I leave the lights on in the master
bath, X10 in a good portion of the house doesn't work. Got to get a
blocking filter on that circuit...

sdb

 

On 13 Nov 2004 04:01:02 GMT "Alarminex"
used 48 lines of text to write in newsgroup: alt.security.alarms

No big deal.

 

On 14 Nov 2004 05:15:58 GMT "Alarminex"
used 61 lines of text to write in newsgroup: alt.security.alarms

Thanks. I don't do any X-10, but occasionally get asked about it. If
I ever do get one, now I'll know what I need.

 

Yup. Five recessed fluorescent cans.

sdb