Re: problem with AD10 / flourescent lighting

["James Dunn" <james.dunn@xxxxxxx>]

Paul,

One thing you might be suffering from is a raised noise floor.  The actual devices (neons) may actually be generating enough noise to
stop the accurate reception of signals from a more distant device
(hence why ON works but not OFF and why it works locally but not
remotely).

You may also be suffereing reflection interference problems when
transmitting from a distance which also may not be helped by a high
noise floor.  X10 isn't the best of infrastructures for handling
noisy mains.

Try looking around your house and removing any devices from the mains
supply that you can temporarily do without (particularly switched
mode psu units which could be in the TV, radio, computer etc).

See if this makes a difference to the on/off performance.

As a separate test, try removing the neons to see if they are
generating noise and again, see if this makes a difference to the
on/off performance.

If it does improve things, some experimentation with carefully placed
X10 filters may improve things in the longer term.  I suffered very similar issues to you (X10 black spots in one or two places around
the house). My X10 behaviour has improved dramatically since I put
X10 filters on several devices.

Interestingly, I suffered a lot of noise coming into the house from
outside in the street.  It was particularly noticeable that I had
strange random switchings during the day time of the working week
when builders were working on restoring a propert near to me on the
same mains supply.  At weekends the switching problems went away. = ;

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

James Dunn

--- In ukha_d@y..., "Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@h...> wrote:=
> Hi chaps.
>
> anyone got any ideas re this problem I'm seing:
>
> in my new kitchen renovation
(http://paulgordon.homei= p.net/kitchen), I have
> put all the lighting on X10 DIN modules, which are the other side
of a new
> consumer unit. (We ran new tails from the meter, and fitted new
circuits and
> 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
> new socket ring, everything works 100% perfectly
> Take the mini-controller out into the hall, (so now it is on
the "other"
> socket ring main), and everything still works 100% perfectly, -
thus proving
> 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 while
> 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 the
> patio), but the ceiling lights responded to *every* one of about 20 on / off
> commands I sent.
>
> The AD10 for the laundry room light, similarly semd to be OK, - it responded
> 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
> response perfectly to all commands sent from a nearby mini-
controller, but
> 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 "weaker" and
> thereby more prone to signal strenght problems? or could the load
be causing
> a problem? (but like I said, there's no problem with a "close&quo= t;
transmission,
> 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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