X10 Community Forum
🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Troubleshooting Automation Problems => Topic started by: stuffdone on December 30, 2011, 03:39:01 PM
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After a trouble free year, the other day ALL 4 modules stopped responding to controls.
At about sunset I successfully turned on a floor lamp in living room using the 16 button table top remote.
This remote is plugged into the same physical outlet as the appliance module.
Later that evening I decided to turn on a small fan in the living room but the module failed to respond. Same controller.
I tried turning the light back off...no response. I tried turning on the other modules without any response. I went to bed room where I have a 4 button mini-control but from there nothing responded either.
Manually turning the fan on/off did not turn the module off as would be expected. It is "locked" in the on position now.
I have a wireless module and a palm-pad controller. With the exception of the outlet built into the wireless module, not single wall module would respond to controls. ( Obviously due to a shortsighted design flaw, the outlet in the wireless module never did respond to plug in controls even though modules did respond to wireless before this sudden death. )
:'(
There has been nothing new added to the house.
No neighbors to interfere with me. Nothing changed at all other than the total death of all modules.
I use all appliance modules due to my use of Compact Fluorescent lamps.
Ideas? Is it time to move to Zwave ?
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Did the power company recently change your meter to a Smart Meter? We have cases reported of them killing X10 fairly well.
If the RF Tranceiver is the TM751 and not a RR501. You are correct. It has no power line receiver in it and will only respond to an RF command from a remote.
I would try unplugging all but one X10 controller and see if it worked. If not unplug it an try the other one. There is a slim chance one of them is stuck on transmitting a power line signal.
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No not a thing changed at all.
But awhile ago, 24 hours later, they started to work again at just about the same time I first turned the living room light on at dusk.
I will see what happens later this evening and report back.
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At about sunset I successfully turned on a floor lamp in living room using the 16 button table top remote.
What type of bulb in the lamp - incandescent, CFL, LED?
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Noise?
If you are positive you did not add anything, did you move anything to a different outlet. Also CFLs aging can become noisy.
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did you "lose" a remote recently? might it be stuck between a desk and the wall where it slipped down and is constantly pushing a button sending signal that blankets everything else (like happened to me once for a couple weeks)?
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Manually turning the fan on/off did not turn the module off as would be expected. It is "locked" in the on position now.
That is normal. "Local Control" only turns the Appliance Module (or Lamp Module) ON, not OFF.
Disable all you CFLs and see if you have control again. You may have a CFL going bad, making elecrical noise which corrupts the X10 signal.
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There has been nothing new added to the house.
Did ANYTHING get moved to a new outlet?
No neighbors to interfere with me.
There are no other homes on the same pole transformer? They don't need X10 to cause interference. A bad CFL across the street shut down my system last year.
Nothing changed at all other than the total death of all modules.
I use all appliance modules due to my use of Compact Fluorescent lamps.
I agree with the suggestion that it could be noise from a failing or newly replaced CFL.
In addition to the failing CFL across the street, I had one here in my own house, too.
But awhile ago, 24 hours later, they started to work again at just about the same time I first turned the living room light on at dusk.
Some CFLs have been known to get noisier after they "warm up."
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- No new lamps at all.
- I have nothing but woods around me.
- I have no one sharing the pole transformer.
- I live on a dirt road with no neighbor.
- They will work part of a day at random.
- Some times not at all for 24 hours.
- No fallen controls. As stated above I tested from both controls when this started.
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- No new lamps at all.
- I have nothing but woods around me.
- I have no one sharing the pole transformer.
- I live on a dirt road with no neighbor.
- They will work part of a day at random.
- Some times not at all for 24 hours.
- No fallen controls. As stated above I tested from both controls when this started.
Can you correlate ANY of the problems to specific lights being on (perhaps with a failing or noisy CFL)?
What about any other device (laptop charger, cell phone charger, other battery charger, other motors or transformer-powered devices, etc)?
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Generally speaking, at the time I wish to turn something on, none of them are on.
I have only four items I control and one has not been plugged in for a week since this started.
1) A small table fan.
2) A floor lamp with one CFL.
3) Two CFL lights on the outside of my shed and one inside on single appliance module.
Generally I turn the lamps on at sundown. Now that it is winter I seldom turn the fan on at all.
The fourth item is a small space heater in one bathroom which is also not used often and is currently unplugged.
Yesterday evening before it started to get dark the lamp in the living room just turned itself on. At that moment I tried to turn it back off but the modules failed to respond. A little later they began to function again and I was able to turn off the living room lamp from the bedroom. I can't see any reason for this sudden irrational behavior. ???
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Could be the CFLs are beginning to fail. You may want to change them.
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The consensus suspect is a noisy CFL. If you have some incandescents, replace all of the CFLs for long enough to test this theory.
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Yesterday evening before it started to get dark the lamp in the living room just turned itself on. At that moment I tried to turn it back off but the modules failed to respond. A little later they began to function again and I was able to turn off the living room lamp from the bedroom. I can't see any reason for this sudden irrational behavior. ???
That sounds like line noise to me.
*something* is creating noise, and X10 modules are prone to problems from noise on the line. Noise can both block signals, AND cause random turn-ons.
It could be from ANYTHING in your home (not just something connected to an X10 module), or even from the outside.
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Since I don't have a clue and nothing is new to add to a suspect list how do I determine the source?
Seems like it is time to upgrade to Zwave or something more reliable since it appears that X10 could stop anytime again even if I find this source. I have no means to listen to noise on line voltage. No scope etc.
Given that I leave so many things off all the time I can't understand why all of a sudden noise. ???
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"Nothing changed" might not be 100% accurate. More likely, there is *something* that changed, you just don't know what. A CFL starting to go bad can cause noise. That noise pattern can change as the bulb warms up, and random noise CAN cause random turn-ons.
A motor load (like a refrigerator, heat pump, or even a furnace) can also cause noise. Since those things generally cycle on and off at different times, the noise can seem to have no pattern.
When it happens, the quickest way to troubleshoot would be to turn off one circuit breaker at a time, and see if the problem goes away. Obviously, turning off the circuit with your X10 modules and controllers on it wouldn't do much good, so if turning off each of the other circuits in your house doesn't find the problem, you may need to unplug EVERYTHING else on those circuits with X10, while shutting off everything else in your house. You might try moving the X10 devices and controller to the SAME circuit, and then moving them around the house together to different circuits, to see if EVERY circuit in the house is affected. Sometimes only one phase is affected, not the other.
If the modules are on opposite phases from the controller, then the signal might be weak to begin with, and a small amount of noise, or a signal sucker (surge protectors can actually reduce the signal strength as they absorb some of it) could be the "straw that is breaking the camel's back" in this case.
If you DO find a circuit that seems to be causing the issue, then one-at-a-time, unplug or disconnect each device on that circuit, until you find the problem one. You may need to buy a filter or two for the problem devices.
If turning off EVERYTHING doesn't not fix the issue, then it could be noise coming in from the outside.
You COULD switch to a different technology, ot perhaps you could try Jeff Volp's "Tuned Signal Sucker" or "Active Noise Reducer".
See his website for more details: www.jvde.us (I don't get a commission, but I have bought some of his products, and they do work well for most people).