X10 Community Forum
🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Troubleshooting Automation Problems => Topic started by: gkamieneski on November 30, 2018, 09:15:22 PM
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I am considering replacing my incandescent bulbs in my electric Christmas window candles with LED bulbs. I have these in mind, https://www.amazon.com/Emotionlite-Equivalent-Candelabra-Nightlight-Replacement/dp/B077GQTWZT/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 (https://www.amazon.com/Emotionlite-Equivalent-Candelabra-Nightlight-Replacement/dp/B077GQTWZT/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8)
Currently I automate these window candles with a mix of appliance and lamp modules, but given the trouble I went through when I went to LED coach lights (required going the the newer relay wall switches), I wonder if I will have problems with the lamp and/or appliance modules.
Trying to avoid the situation where the LED candle bulbs stay on somewhat or flicker, even when the X10 module is off.
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I am considering replacing my incandescent bulbs in my electric Christmas window candles with LED bulbs...….
…..Trying to avoid the situation where the LED candle bulbs stay on somewhat or flicker, even when the X10 module is off.
I think many of my conversions to LED lights... will never re-coop cost of switching to LED. However.... if you're very, very, young... your experience may be different.
I connected my interior Christmas LED and other lights using appliance modules. and I stringed as many lights as I could to each appliance module. Mine worked out fine. However.... I have also used Socketrockets with adapters to convert them to accept a 2-prong plug... which can control very light loads.
Which brings up a point: Why turn OFF a 0.7 watt lamp? Six of these bulbs wouldn't even use one watt. Which is just about as much as a appliance module uses just listening for a PLC command.
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Which brings up a point: Why turn OFF a 0.7 watt lamp? Six of these bulbs wouldn't even use one watt. Which is just about as much as a appliance module uses just listening for a PLC command.
6x0.7=4.2
AM486 uses 0.4W as measured with a Kill-A-Watt.
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Trying to avoid the situation where the LED candle bulbs stay on somewhat or flicker, even when the X10 module is off.
At only 0.7 watt per bulb, I don't think a dark bulb is gonna happen if driven by a X10 module.
Maybe the new "CFL friendly" Appliance Modules, but I think even their local control leakage (load sensing) current would light the LED candle bulbs.
I agree with HA Dave, why turn them off? I guess if you have them in the bedroom, that might be a bother. If you use one module to turn on several candles in the bedroom you could always keep one incandescent in the string.
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AM486 uses 0.4W as measured with a Kill-A-Watt.
Dave, was that the newer SMD style module? I'm wondering only because I remember it being higher. But that was the old module.
Does that change if there is a load, or is that with the load?
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Thanks, everyone.
I had thought the candles were actually using 7w bulbs, not .7 watts. My current incandescent candles work perfectly with Activehome and the WiFi module controlling the Christmas lighting scenes. My only reasons for considering the LEDs are that the incandescent bulbs seem to fail quite often (increased by the cat knocking over the candles in the windows) and also because I would feel better with less heat coming from them (should they contact a curtain or window shade).
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Do you know if the appliance module is the older hardware with Local Control Sensing or the latest CFL friendly ones?
The CFL Friendly appliance module when I tested one. Did not trigger back on when the lamps local switch was toggled.
It still has the low On/Off sensing current. So a real low LED load may still glow. I tried a single LED night Light bulb and it glowed dimly when the appliance module was off. An older appliance module with Local Control Sensing makes the same test bulb glow brighter.
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AM486 uses 0.4W as measured with a Kill-A-Watt.
Dave, was that the newer SMD style module? I'm wondering only because I remember it being higher. But that was the old module.
Does that change if there is a load, or is that with the load?
Since it was many years ago (shortly after the Kill-A-Watt came along) I'm sure it was the older, TH style. Since Kill-A-Watt measurements are made with the module plugged into the Kill-A-Watt, measuring with a load would give the sum of the module plus the load.
BTW, the Amazon listing says 0.6W in one place and 0.7W in another.
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Which brings up a point: Why turn OFF a 0.7 watt lamp? Six of these bulbs wouldn't even use one watt. Which is just about as much as a appliance module uses just listening for a PLC command.
6x0.7=4.2
AM486 uses 0.4W as measured with a Kill-A-Watt.
You math is impeccable.... I was mistaken. Plus... I don't own a kill-a-watt and was remembering a post here from years ago... and honestly thought appliance modules used more power than that.
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I had thought the candles were actually using 7w bulbs, not .7 watts.
I have an LED bulb (.5 watt) that burns 24/7. It was simpler (for me) to just let it burn than try to control it. But it is amazing to think about that those old little (7 watt) night lights... used as much electric as does many full sized room lighting 7 watt LED's use now-a-days.
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I don't own a kill-a-watt and was remembering a post here from years ago... and honestly thought appliance modules used more power than that.
I used the Kill-A-Watt to measure the power used by various X-10 modules when idle. See...
https://www.laser.com/dhouston/x10-sig.html (https://www.laser.com/dhouston/x10-sig.html)
Scroll to the bottom of that page.
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I used the Kill-A-Watt to measure the power used by various X-10 modules when idle. See...
https://www.laser.com/dhouston/x10-sig.html (https://www.laser.com/dhouston/x10-sig.html)
Great research and information (well organized too). Thanks for sharing that. That should be something I remember.
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Since Kill-A-Watt measurements are made with the module plugged into the Kill-A-Watt, measuring with a load would give the sum of the module plus the load.
Yeah, sorry I was not clear. What I was wondering is: with AM in the off state, is there any difference in stand-by current with a load plugged in and nothing plugged in. But I (now thinking about it) think it would be so minuscule as to be un-measurable by the K-A-W.
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What I was wondering is: with AM in the off state, is there any difference in stand-by current with a load plugged in and nothing plugged in. But I (now thinking about it) think it would be so minuscule as to be un-measurable by the K-A-W.
I think you are right that the difference would be minuscule but I might make some quick tests if I can remember when I'm next at my workbench.
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I think you are right that the difference would be minuscule but I might make some quick tests if I can remember when I'm next at my workbench.
Don't bother. Not worth the effort, Dave. I don't even know why I was curious, now.
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I'm not going to stay up past my bedtime to catch it at 100 hours but at 96 hours the kWh = 0.03 which works out to only 0.312W with a load plugged in but idle.
I'm not sure why it's less than I had measured with no load. It is probably a different Appliance Module. I do not recall how I went from kWh & Hrs to watts before - this time I used...
https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/kwh-to-watt-calculator.html (https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/kwh-to-watt-calculator.html)
I'll unplug the load and start anew with this same AM.
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OK - 97 hours w/o load gets 0.03kWh and, using the same site for converting to watts, I get 0.309W. Given that the kWh were the same for both with and without load I'd conclude there's no difference. The apparent difference of 0.003W is likely due to the Kill-A-Watt only indicating whole hours so there could have been as much as 1 hour and 59 minutes difference between the test durations.
I don't recall when the Kill-A-Watt was introduced but I made the original readings shortly thereafter. I suspect the difference between then and now is due to a newer Appliance Module.
BTW, the AM date sticker is 8B06.