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Author Topic: Sensor Problem  (Read 29321 times)

Brian H

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #15 on: February 27, 2010, 12:25:47 PM »

I have a land line but if the power goes out for more than an hour. The phones go dead. Seem there is a phone equipment shack at the end of my road and its batteries last about an hour. ::)

If it is going to be a real long time with out power. They sometimes park a trailer full of batteries next to the shack and connect it to a battery jack on the side of it.
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Mel99

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #16 on: February 27, 2010, 01:04:26 PM »

I have a land line but if the power goes out for more than an hour. The phones go dead. Seem there is a phone equipment shack at the end of my road and its batteries last about an hour. ::)

If it is going to be a real long time with out power. They sometimes park a trailer full of batteries next to the shack and connect it to a battery jack on the side of it.

Really?? 

My understanding of the near-monopoly enjoyed by local telephone companies (for land line service) was that they are required by FCC regulation to provide uninterrupted service to the local subscriber.  If you lose power on your phone lines, you might have cause to contact the FCC.

All the local telco's I've worked with have the UPS batteries at each local office.

This does not include the features, such as speed dial, etc on a land line phone that has a electrical connection to one of your outlets.  This also excludes business installations that have a PBX or a multi-line key system.

A lot of businesses with sophisticated phone systems also have one or more traditional land lines for the sole reason of being able to make calls during an extended power outage at their site and their UPS batteries are exhausted.
 
The basic phone service such as dial tone and the ability to make and receive calls are supposed to always be there for residential users.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2010, 01:12:03 PM by Mel99 »
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Dan Lawrence

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #17 on: February 27, 2010, 02:07:25 PM »

I'll throw in my 2 pennies here.

What's the proximity of the alarm system to the nearest HAM operator, or supermarket with automatic doors or governmental agency running a new radio system or the nearest airbase?

When Agent99 did an antenna mod to his CM15, he picked up a lot of "skip", which instead of helping his system, it actually made it worse.

When was Agent99 a member here, but is Barbara Feldon an X10 user?   
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HA Dave

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #18 on: February 27, 2010, 02:16:33 PM »

When was Agent99 a member here, but is Barbara Feldon an X10 user?   

Actually Agent99's memory is/was a tad faulty... he didn't realize that 86 was the guy. Its been a couple years since we've seen much of Agent99 here. After his problems with the CM15A... he turned to the darkside (Elk).

Everyone is right about the battery backup! Except I think utility regulation is done by states. So expect the amount of time involved in service downage and repairs to be different than the old days.

Phone (and power company's) are required to "have a plan"... but not a perfect plan. The vast majority of phone service [power caused] outages last just minutes. And they have [in most cases] tiny UPS battery backup to handle that. In my tri-state area phone company's [as well as power companys] have agreements of cooperation so they share people and resources during emergencys. The phone companys have portable generators that can keep switching stations running during extented periods of outage.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2010, 02:34:34 PM by Dave_x10_L »
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dwp

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #19 on: November 01, 2010, 03:09:03 PM »

iam having the same prob mine is zone 8 flashes after awile but all sensors chim and set off the alarm. i notice if you have a hand held remote and you press all lights on or off button that zone led will stay on or off. that is press the button and hold it on and see if the led stays on or off, i think the consol or the hand held remote or both,
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Knightrider

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #20 on: November 01, 2010, 06:56:16 PM »

Re: Agent 99

Sorry, he uses a different name here.  He changed to Agent99 at the chat to avoid confusion as we have more than our fair share of "Dave"'s there.
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dave w

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #21 on: November 01, 2010, 08:10:08 PM »

iam having the same prob mine is zone 8 flashes after awile but all sensors chim and set off the alarm. i notice if you have a hand held remote and you press all lights on or off button that zone led will stay on or off. that is press the button and hold it on and see if the led stays on or off, i think the consol or the hand held remote or both,
???
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dwp

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #22 on: December 03, 2010, 01:57:26 PM »

well i got mine to work properly, it was 2 sensors to close to gether , i used 1 sensor as a glass break sensor & 1 as a D/W sensor they where to close to each other, i seperated them and had no problems works fine.
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mike

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #23 on: December 03, 2010, 06:51:22 PM »

........As a result of my work experience, I will never have only a cordless phone system in my house.  The reason is simple, electrical power. When, not if, you lose power to your house, your cordless phone system will not work

That's pretty harsh Mel!  Cordless phones are SO much more convenient! :)

Why not do what I do?  Enjoy the convenience of your cordless BUT also plug a hardwired old one in the closet so you got the backup but not the inconvenience? 
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mike

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #24 on: December 03, 2010, 07:05:38 PM »

My two cents on the 2 flaky zones.  I have 2 systems on two properties. 

One has been near flawless for maybe 3 years? 

Other one worked a year then got flaky and dang thing would go off in the middle of the night or when we were not home.  random.  I traced it to 2 DS10 sensors that seemed to be the flaky zones.  called x10 asked what could be causing this.  no help.  I would tell you I replaced at least one of those ds10s best i can recall after all the messing around i did.  FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT:  the screws holding the wires on the reed switch were loose!  so random loose connection and bamb!  alarm is triggered at 2am!  but I swear i replaced those darn ds10s during my 2 month fight to fix this.  been 6 months now and no false alarms again.

so might there be a loose wire?  or might the location of the magnet & switch be a bit to far or out of alignment?
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HA Dave

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #25 on: December 03, 2010, 09:39:20 PM »

....the screws holding the wires on the reed switch were loose!  so random loose connection and bamb!  alarm is triggered at 2am!  but I swear i replaced those darn ds10s during my 2 month fight to fix this.......
so might there be a loose wire?  or might the location of the magnet & switch be a bit to far or out of alignment?

Maybe... you replaced that DS10A [like you remember]... they can be defective. But you didn't get the wires secure to the already mounted magnetic switch [that you reused]. The DS10A will sense resistance and trigger when tampered with and the loose screws caused it to think it was being short-wired.
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mike

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #26 on: December 04, 2010, 07:37:29 AM »

Well thank you Dave! I was beginning to think my mind was going!  Sure, I would have replaced the ds10 but not the switch cuz it was mounted solid to the wall!  i do recall being able to turn the wire hold down screws on more than a couple reed switches by 1/4 to 1/2 turn more!  surprised me.

so moral of the story is yep, even if ds10 was replaced, those little screws may still be loose....
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birdzeye

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #27 on: December 09, 2010, 04:09:40 PM »

This might be a stupid question but....could an LED lightbulb interfere with x10 signals?

I'm only asking because I just installed one and now my system is "acting up".
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dave w

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #28 on: December 09, 2010, 04:28:50 PM »

This might be a stupid question but....could an LED lightbulb interfere with x10 signals?
Not stupid at all. The blanket answer is a huge YES. However the LED bulbs that have an array of small LEDs are less likely to cause problems. The spotlight style bulbs that have one, two, or three big LED chips are more prone to cause noise as they usually have very small power supplies in the socket portion of the bulb and because of the small space, noise filtering caps or coils for the supply are inadequate.

So why not just unscrew the bulb and see if system gets back to normal?
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Brian H

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Re: Sensor Problem
« Reply #29 on: December 09, 2010, 06:02:32 PM »

I will second the Yes.
I have an EarttLED EvoluxS that make between .60 and .99 volts X10 noise on my XTBM and it could be higher as I believe .99 is the maximun it will display.
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