[rant] Lights with a mind of their own.

[Winfield Hill]

Well. To start, there's my front-porch light.
The light is switched with an X-10 module that's
gone over to the other side. Now when it's on,
it grows bright and dark every few seconds, in
a good imitation of my wife's Apple Powerbook's
LED standby-mode breathing pattern. I kind of
admire the show, but the neighbors are making
remarks to us about it. So that's on the list.

Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS
backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs,
as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook.
My wife complains of the errant changing light
interfering with her sleep, so I turned it around
and close my study door at night. I considered
all the poorly-designed LED breathing indicators,
and imagine a design drawing power from the LED
pins and inoffensively lighting a new LED, much
like my wife's laptop. That's also on the list.

Kaack! Now my Genie garage-door opener is acting
up, first its incandescent light that kindly comes
on for 20 seconds every time you open or close the
garage door, decides it'll stay on all the time.
My wife tells me that it hasn't gone off in days.
I'm busy 24-7 working on the book, so I told her
to cycle its power: turn the circuit breaker off
and back on again. She does this. Now the garage
door opener still works fine, but its light stays
_off_ all the time. Sigh. I really don't want to
put this on my list.

The last time it was our Casablanca ceiling fan.
It also played games with its lamp, and its motor
as well, going into various weird modes. That was
a failed storage capacitor, and it cost me a day
to take the fan apart, trace the circuit, and find
it. Yes, it saved hundreds of dollars buying a new
fancy fan, but who has the time? I mean, the book!

Anybody can help with the Genie, much appreciated!

 

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Well. To start, there's my front-porch light.
The light is switched with an X-10 module that's
gone over to the other side. Now when it's on,
it grows bright and dark every few seconds, in
a good imitation of my wife's Apple Powerbook's
LED standby-mode breathing pattern. I kind of
admire the show, but the neighbors are making
remarks to us about it. So that's on the list.

Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS
backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs,
as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook.
My wife complains of the errant changing light
interfering with her sleep, so I turned it around
and close my study door at night. I considered
all the poorly-designed LED breathing indicators,
and imagine a design drawing power from the LED
pins and inoffensively lighting a new LED, much
like my wife's laptop. That's also on the list.

Kaack! Now my Genie garage-door opener is acting
up, first its incandescent light that kindly comes
on for 20 seconds every time you open or close the
garage door, decides it'll stay on all the time.
My wife tells me that it hasn't gone off in days.
I'm busy 24-7 working on the book, so I told her
to cycle its power: turn the circuit breaker off
and back on again. She does this. Now the garage
door opener still works fine, but its light stays
_off_ all the time. Sigh. I really don't want to
put this on my list.

The last time it was our Casablanca ceiling fan.
It also played games with its lamp, and its motor
as well, going into various weird modes. That was
a failed storage capacitor, and it cost me a day
to take the fan apart, trace the circuit, and find
it. Yes, it saved hundreds of dollars buying a new
fancy fan, but who has the time? I mean, the book!

Anybody can help with the Genie, much appreciated!

If they're made the way they used to be made, the Genie circuit board
isn't protected against insects and relays are so grossly underrated
that the contacts fry. There's a good chance that you can fix both by
whacking the opener very hard with a screwdriver handle.

 

[Winston]

Anybody can help with the Genie, much appreciated!

I can reproduce that issue by pressing the square button
on my 'wall console'. The light remains on. If I cycle power
to the opener with the light on, it will revert to a 'light off'
condition as soon as power is restored.

I think your light bulb filament is now open, explaining the
'excessive dark' symptom you mentioned.


Further info from Genie:

1-800-849-3998(U.S.)
http://www.genie-garage-opener.com/


Thank you Dr. Hill for _Art of Electronics_!

--Winston

 

[Robert Latest]

Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS
backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs,
as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook.
My wife complains of the errant changing light
interfering with her sleep, so I turned it around
and close my study door at night.

Why don't you turn it off at night?

I'm busy 24-7 working on the book,

Ah. That's why. Sadly I don't have the opportunity to design electronics
any more (I've crossed to the other side -- semi manufacturing) but I'll
buy that book at the first opportunity. Maybe as a substitute.

What? You've been reading this? Go back to work!

robert

 

[Joerg]

Well. To start, there's my front-porch light.
The light is switched with an X-10 module that's
gone over to the other side. Now when it's on,
it grows bright and dark every few seconds, in
a good imitation of my wife's Apple Powerbook's
LED standby-mode breathing pattern. I kind of
admire the show, but the neighbors are making
remarks to us about it. So that's on the list.

X10 is a pain in the neck. Poor protocol and IMHO poor quality. Many
times a module has decided to runs its own little erratic timing sequences.

Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS
backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs,
as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook.
My wife complains of the errant changing light
interfering with her sleep, so I turned it around
and close my study door at night. I considered
all the poorly-designed LED breathing indicators,
and imagine a design drawing power from the LED
pins and inoffensively lighting a new LED, much
like my wife's laptop. That's also on the list.

The MyBook World here has a ring which can only light in the color blue
and it only blinks when accessed, usually. Otherwise it's on steady.

Kaack! Now my Genie garage-door opener is acting
up, first its incandescent light that kindly comes
on for 20 seconds every time you open or close the
garage door, decides it'll stay on all the time.
My wife tells me that it hasn't gone off in days.
I'm busy 24-7 working on the book, so I told her
to cycle its power: turn the circuit breaker off
and back on again. She does this. Now the garage
door opener still works fine, but its light stays
_off_ all the time. Sigh. I really don't want to
put this on my list.

The last time it was our Casablanca ceiling fan.
It also played games with its lamp, and its motor
as well, going into various weird modes. That was
a failed storage capacitor, and it cost me a day
to take the fan apart, trace the circuit, and find
it. Yes, it saved hundreds of dollars buying a new
fancy fan, but who has the time? I mean, the book!

Anybody can help with the Genie, much appreciated!

Same happened with one of the Genie screw drives here. "Why is the
garage lit in the middle of the night?". A relay had developed a
"growth" on one contact. I gently sand-papered that away and it's
working again for years. However, I didn't want to do that standing on
the ladder so I removed the board with the relays on there, popped the
dust cap and fixed it. Don't forget to unplug the thing first.

We are all waiting on the next AoE edition, so be careful on that ladder

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Well. To start, there's my front-porch light.
The light is switched with an X-10 module that's
gone over to the other side. Now when it's on,
it grows bright and dark every few seconds, in
a good imitation of my wife's Apple Powerbook's
LED standby-mode breathing pattern. I kind of
admire the show, but the neighbors are making
remarks to us about it. So that's on the list.

Meanwhile my Western Digital MyBook World NAS
backup drive lights up with a bank of white LEDs,
as it tries, and fails, to emulate a Powerbook.
My wife complains of the errant changing light
interfering with her sleep, so I turned it around
and close my study door at night. I considered
all the poorly-designed LED breathing indicators,
and imagine a design drawing power from the LED
pins and inoffensively lighting a new LED, much
like my wife's laptop. That's also on the list.

Kaack! Now my Genie garage-door opener is acting
up, first its incandescent light that kindly comes
on for 20 seconds every time you open or close the
garage door, decides it'll stay on all the time.
My wife tells me that it hasn't gone off in days.
I'm busy 24-7 working on the book, so I told her
to cycle its power: turn the circuit breaker off
and back on again. She does this. Now the garage
door opener still works fine, but its light stays
_off_ all the time. Sigh. I really don't want to
put this on my list.

The last time it was our Casablanca ceiling fan.
It also played games with its lamp, and its motor
as well, going into various weird modes. That was
a failed storage capacitor, and it cost me a day
to take the fan apart, trace the circuit, and find
it. Yes, it saved hundreds of dollars buying a new
fancy fan, but who has the time? I mean, the book!

Anybody can help with the Genie, much appreciated!

For inclusion in Vol 2 AoE:
"X-10 protocol is shit"