RE: problem with AD10 / flourescent lighting

["Keith Doxey" <lists.diyha@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Paul

Most flourescent fittings have a Power Factor Correction capacitor connecte= d
directly across the mains input. It could be that this is soaking up the X1= 0
signal thereby reducing the signal strength reaching th module when its loa= d
is connected.

Try disconnecting the load and sticking a couple of hundred watt bulbs on there to see if it works.

It may also be that the flourescent units contains an electronic ballast no= t
a conventional choke type.

Local transmissions may still have sufficient strength to get through.

Keith

www.diyha.co.uk
www.kat5.tv


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Gordon [mailto:paul_gordon@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 16 October 2002 23:21
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx Subject: [ukha_d] problem with AD10 / flourescent lighting


Hi chaps.

anyone got any ideas re this problem I'm seing:

in my new kitchen renovation (http://paulgordon.homeip.net/kitchen), I have
put all the lighting on X10 DIN modules, which are the other side of a new<= BR> consumer unit. (We ran new tails from the meter, and fitted new circuits an= d
MCB's)

I have:

LD11 - ceiling lights, - mains halogen, - 400W (8 x 50W)
LD11 - patio lights, - mains tungsten, - 120W (2 x 60W)
AD10 - laundry room light - mains flourescent, - 1 x 36W
AD10 - cupboard lighting, - a mixture as follows: 3 x 24W mains
flourescents, 2 x 13W mains flourescents, 2 x 10W mains halogens
AD10 - 1 mains neon

now, I am having some problems with X10 signal reception.

Firstly, if I take a mini-controller into the kitchen and plug it into the<= BR> new socket ring, everything works 100% perfectly
Take the mini-controller out into the hall, (so now it is on the "othe= r"
socket ring main), and everything still works 100% perfectly, - thus provin= g
X10 signal transmission through to the new wiring yes?
Take that controller a bit further away and things start to drop off a bit,=
- many commands are not seen. this would seem to indicate a simple signal strength problem....

however, where things start to get a bit weird, is that having spent a whil= e
testing sending various commands from the HA PC, I can see the following behaviour:

the LD11's seem to be OK (actually I only tested the ceiling lights, not th= e
patio), but the ceiling lights responded to *every* one of about 20 on / of= f
commands I sent.

The AD10 for the laundry room light, similarly semd to be OK, - it responde= d
correctly to every test transmission I sent.
The AD10 for the Neon indicator, similarly semd to be OK, - it responded correctly to every test transmission I sent.

The other AD10 though, seems to only respond to ON commands. - try as I
might, I could not get it switch off via X10 from the HA PC (but as I said,=
a mini-controller in the kitchen works for everything). It seems to respond=
to 100% of ON commands, but not at all to ay form of OFF command, including=
an ALL UNITS.

So my question is: is it likely to be a dodgy AD10 unit? - like I said, it<= BR> response perfectly to all commands sent from a nearby mini-controller, but<= BR> seems not to see more distant OFF commands. (I haven't had a chance to swap=
the AD10 unit out yet...). Is there any basis for believing that OFF
commands might be inferior to ON commands? - i.e. could they be "weake= r" and
thereby more prone to signal strenght problems? or could the load be causin= g
a problem? (but like I said, there's no problem with a "close" tr= ansmission,
or with local control for that matter).

To be clear, there are absolutely no low-voltage items involved, and no
transformers of any kind.

I'd appreciate any pointers, - up 'till now, I haven't really had any X10 transmission problems...

Paul G.









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