X10 Community Forum
🖥️ActiveHome Pro => ActiveHome Pro General => Topic started by: raccah on November 11, 2008, 09:05:39 PM
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Hello,
In my kitchen and dining room we have 4 XPFM modules (two in kitchen and two in dining room) that are wired to a sub panel in the house. They are installed into the ceiling near their respective lights. All was GREAT! We used 4 XPT/XP2-W to allow a person to turn on/off either of the two ceiling lights in the kitchen and two more XPT/XP2-W in the dining room to control the two XPFM in the dining room. Pretty simple really and all was fine. But now all of a sudden when we flip on an XP2-W switch it turns on the lights in both the dining room (incandescent) and kitchen (fluorescent)! This happens with ONLY two of the four modules. It does not matter which one you trip, it will trip the other one - SOMETIMES. This is not predictable and nothing I do can assure me it happens. It happens every so often. Now the worse part. When it happens I cannot turn off the light I did not want to turn on until I turn off the original light.
So to recap, each of these switches (XPT) are modules that send the on/off request to an address that is powered by the XPFM. There are four of these XPFM, but for conciseness we will only talk of XPFM A and B. If I send the request for A to go on, the request may cause B to turn on as well. When this happens B cannot be turned off until A is also turned off, which may cause B to turn off as well. Then we try to turn on A again and most of the time it works. It is CRAZY!!! This has been happening more frequently in the past few months (since these changes below happened).
Well, two things that we can think of changed. First a roof was installed and finally some 8 months have passed since they have been installed. Any ideas of why this could be happening?
Any help would be great!
Thanks,
David
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Raccah
Your other post describes lights that are being turned on and off when your HVAC blower cycles. It is fairly unusual to find "noise" which can turn modules off AND on. Noise usually makes everything simply stop functioning. One question referring to the HVAC problem. When the blower turns on, do the lights INSTANTLY change state, or is there a half second delay?
This post also describes lights turning off and on. And you state in this post that everything worked fine for some period of time, is that also true for the HVAC blower problem?
Here is my WAG:
I think you have a bad XPT switch, especially if you have multi key XPTs and they cover the family room lights and fan addresses. If this is true, you might try disconnecting one XPT at a time for a day or so, to try and isolate.
Like I said, it is a WAG.
Good luck
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The kitchen/Dining Room problem and the Family Room issue (another post in this forum) have no relationship - we think, because the dining room/kitchen issue (posted here) happens when the HVAC is off totally and not even plugged in.
Further the switches are not the issue either, because we can reproduce this with a remote (if we try enough times). So what we are seeing in the kitchen/dining room is that two lights will go on at the same time. Also, since I switches are not really switches, and the remote causes this to happen as well tells me that the XPFM modules are acting up. So what do you think?
Also, the family room switches will turn on and off. If this is not a common situation, what would you think is happening? The HVAC is a multi-speed system with an induction motor. So could the motor be sending out enough noise that it sends out something that looks alot like a on or off message.
Any help would be GREAT!
Thanks
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By remotes you mean an RF type? If so what is being used to receive the remotes signals?
It would be kind of hard for noise to be close enough to a valid X10 signal for modules to respond.
Are there any active phase couplers/repeaters in the system?
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The kitchen/Dining Room problem and the Family Room issue (another post in this forum) have no relationship - we think, because the dining room/kitchen issue (posted here) happens when the HVAC is off totally and not even plugged in.
Further the switches are not the issue either, because we can reproduce this with a remote (if we try enough times). So what we are seeing in the kitchen/dining room is that two lights will go on at the same time. Also, since I switches are not really switches, and the remote causes this to happen as well tells me that the XPFM modules are acting up. So what do you think?
Also, the family room switches will turn on and off. If this is not a common situation, what would you think is happening? The HVAC is a multi-speed system with an induction motor. So could the motor be sending out enough noise that it sends out something that looks alot like a on or off message.
Any help would be GREAT!
Thanks
I have never seen pure noise "create" an X10 signal. I have seen local line surges fool devices into turning on/off.
I actually have a Leviton timer that is sometimes activated by switching on the closet florescent. This is direct noise injection into the electronic timer/switch. The Leviton unit itself has no communication capabilities.
Since it sounds like you have developed these problems on multiple circuits (XPS3 fans and XPFM lighting) after a period of time, I would look for a common failure point. I'm thinking of possible problems with your connection to the Power transformer. Possibly with the neutral connection as this would affect all of your 110V circuits.
Have you noticed any lighting anomalies (dimming/surges) when loads are turned on?
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Boiler - THANKS for helping me sir!!!!!!
Yeah when the HVAC turns on - the lights dim in the whole house slightly - I guess this is not normal? OK what does it mean? I am NOT an electrician, but we have one - who upgraded our house and before he upgraded the house panel to a brand new super big panel - it did the same thing. Back then if our neighbors AC went on our lights would dim as well (before we knew what X10 was :) ).
So you think the wiring is a bit off for the house. What should I be asking my electrician?
Brain H - Thanks for helping me as well!!!!
We have a CM15a that listens to RF commands. We also have an HCPRF-1TW Leviton Decora DHC (that is a RF receiver with a plug) - because the antenna on the CM15a did not always get the commands from a different part of the house. We have an LE-6299 signal bridge in a sub panel in our home. The main panel and the sub panel are all new (they are both Square D panels). The main panel does NOT have a phase coupler. The Sub panel has the phase coupler in it. The kitchen is wired to the sub panel. The Dining room and the Family room are wired to the main panel.
Again thanks for your help! It has baffled us for a long time and we appreciate your help!
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Yeah when the HVAC turns on - the lights dim in the whole house slightly - I guess this is not normal? OK what does it mean? I am NOT an electrician, but we have one - who upgraded our house and before he upgraded the house panel to a brand new super big panel - it did the same thing. Back then if our neighbors AC went on our lights would dim as well (before we knew what X10 was :) ).
So you think the wiring is a bit off for the house. What should I be asking my electrician?
It sounds as if you have a number of things going on.
1) If your neighbors AC affects the lighting in your home you may have a transformer problem - or more correctly, the power company has a transformer problem.
2) The fact that your furnace blower can cause line drops/surges and turn devices on isn't all that surprising. Induction motors can draw a fair amount of current for an extended period of time on startup. You may not be able to filter this. What does surprise me is that you said this worked for a period of time. That implies that something degraded.
3) As for your XPFM's, I'm not altogether clear on the configuration. I can envision the ballast on your fluorescents causing a line spike that would turn on a XPFM on the same circuit. I do not understand why you would not be able to turn the unit off.
On the other hand, if you are having problems with the Incandescent circuit activating the adjacent XPFM, I would be a bit concerned about the wiring. Incandescents do have a surge current on turn-on but nothing like the spike involved with a capacitive/inductive load (fluorescents and motors). I would not expect turning on a florescent circuit to affect anything else.
Start by talking with your electrician. Unfortunately, a new panel does not mean new circuit wiring throughout the house. He will probably have a decent handle on the overall condition of the wiring. Explain what you've been seeing exactly as you've done here - including the loading from your neighbors A/C. He should be able to perform a few quick tests to determine whether the problems are internal or external to your house (or both).
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Yeah when the HVAC turns on - the lights dim in the whole house slightly - I guess this is not normal? OK what does it mean? I am NOT an electrician, but we have one - who upgraded our house and before he upgraded the house panel to a brand new super big panel - it did the same thing. Back then if our neighbors AC went on our lights would dim as well (before we knew what X10 was :) ).
So you think the wiring is a bit off for the house. What should I be asking my electrician?
It sounds as if you have a number of things going on.
1) If your neighbors AC affects the lighting in your home you may have a transformer problem - or more correctly, the power company has a transformer problem.
We have called the utility company and are asking them to look into this.
2) The fact that your furnace blower can cause line drops/surges and turn devices on isn't all that surprising. Induction motors can draw a fair amount of current for an extended period of time on startup. You may not be able to filter this. What does surprise me is that you said this worked for a period of time. That implies that something degraded.
For this one - we installed a new HVAC system and x10 about the same time and have pretty much had this problem all along. The thing that has changed is that the heat pump was initially broken, so we depended on the (supposed to be backup) gas furnace which runs at a different fan speed for the first cold season. This is the first cold season the heat pump is operational.
3) As for your XPFM's, I'm not altogether clear on the configuration. I can envision the ballast on your fluorescents causing a line spike that would turn on a XPFM on the same circuit. I do not understand why you would not be able to turn the unit off.
On the other hand, if you are having problems with the Incandescent circuit activating the adjacent XPFM, I would be a bit concerned about the wiring. Incandescents do have a surge current on turn-on but nothing like the spike involved with a capacitive/inductive load (fluorescents and motors). I would not expect turning on a florescent circuit to affect anything else.
Hopefully to clarify: 2 XPFMs in the kitchen - 1 fluorescent, 1 inscandescent. 2 in the dining room - 1 fluorescent, 1 incandescent. 4 sets of XPTs with 2 switches each - back to back in 2 doorways to control both. This is the part that degraded. The problem is always that both the fluorescent in the kitchen and the incandescent in the dining room get turned on together. This happens from the "switches" at either doorway, or from the remote, or from a timer. It doesn't happen all the time, but more frequently than before. When it happens, it is sometimes impossible to turn off one without the other.
Start by talking with your electrician. Unfortunately, a new panel does not mean new circuit wiring throughout the house. He will probably have a decent handle on the overall condition of the wiring. Explain what you've been seeing exactly as you've done here - including the loading from your neighbors A/C. He should be able to perform a few quick tests to determine whether the problems are internal or external to your house (or both).
This wiring in the kitchen and dining room is all brand new (and done by the same electrician). We were open to the studs. The same electrician installed the X10 modules in the kitchen and dining room. Family room (HVAC) was not open and not totally rewired, and we installed x10 switches there ourselves.
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So, 4 months later and the utility company has replaced the transformer that feeds our house. Good news - no more dim/flicker behavior on big systems turning on. Bad news - extra module problem described here is still happening. So, what to research next?
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So, 4 months later and the utility company has replaced the transformer that feeds our house. Good news - no more dim/flicker behavior on big systems turning on. Bad news - extra module problem described here is still happening. So, what to research next?
Good deal and bad deal I guess
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Bad news - extra module problem described here is still happening. So, what to research next?
You had so many problems, descibe the "extra module problem" so we know what you are talking about.
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Wow after all the problems.
The XPT/XP2-W controllers are still triggering the extra modules or have new glitches arrived?
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For those of you asking what the problems are or if they have changed, the answer is that they are exactly the same as in my first post above. I think this link will work: http://forums.x10.com/index.php?topic=16816.msg92686#msg92686
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Well it should work. It is the TOP of this thread.
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So, 4 months later and the utility company has replaced the transformer that feeds our house. Good news - no more dim/flicker behavior on big systems turning on. Bad news - extra module problem described here is still happening. So, what to research next?
Have you tried removing and re-inserting the keypad modules to the XPT base? They are known for developing connection problems.
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Is it possible that you wired the XPT module to the SAME black and white wires as the switch right next to it?
This is my case, I did connect the black and white wires to an x10 switch in the same gang box. If the switch light is OFF, the XPT works just fine turning on and off and dimming all other lights. But if the other switch is ON, XPT stops working until I turn the other switch OFF. Is this normal? How can I solve this if I don't have an extra set of black & white wires (it used to be a 3 way switch without the neutral)
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criskolo; Sounds like you connected your XPT to a switch loop. Where the Line is on one of the switches contacts and the other is the lights line input. The White in that case is NOT neutral. So when the manual switch is off. The XPT steals its power return through the load; back to the real Neutral. When the manual switch is on. There is no power on the XPT as it is being shorted out by the manual switch.
So a White wire is no guarantee it is a Neutral.
I have a few switch loops in my home and yes white is one of the wires and is not a Neutral.
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Hello criskolo,
Welcome to the forum.
The behavior you described can be caused by a number of reasons -
- The load on the adjacent X10 switch is generating noise (CFL or electronic ballast) and preventing the XPT communication from being heard by other devices.
- Your X10 transmission levels are marginal, switching the X10 load (incandescent) is sufficient to drag the level below the receive threshold.
- Your "white" wire isn't really a neutral.
I'm a little concerned by the fact that this was once a three way circuit. If you're working on the end of the circuit where power is entering, all may be good. If this switch was the position that supplied the load (likely since you're controlling the load with the X10 switch) it's possible that the white wire isn't a neutral or not the correct neutral.
Please describe the original circuit in detail. It's possible that the power to the two switch positions were actually fed from the opposite phases (220V present across two different black wires). If so, we'll need to determine which phase the "white" wire belongs to.
Boiler
Edit: Just saw Brian's post (which makes a lot of sense). Since this was once a 3-way, there should be another wire available (red?).