X10 Community Forum

🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Topic started by: jackg on January 21, 2017, 02:13:50 PM

Title: Holiday Lighting with X10
Post by: jackg on January 21, 2017, 02:13:50 PM

I use Lamp (X10 LM-465C) and Appliance (RCA HC20AM and Radio Shack 61-2681B) modules to control the holiday lights in our home.

I set up 4 zones: the tree; garland over the kitchen cabinets; a Christmas village; and candle lights in 17 windows plus a string of lights around the deck and a front yard display.  Four presses of the buttons on the palm pad turns all these lights on or off.

Under older versions of Windows, I was able to use the Firecracker program to set up a schedule to turn these zones on at dusk and off at bedtime, however I haven't been able to find any software to schedule these tasks under Windows 10.  I have a USB to RS232 connector for the X10 CM17A computer module, but no software to drive it.

Title: Re: Holiday Lighting with X10
Post by: bkenobi on January 23, 2017, 11:39:28 AM

Can't Win10 run things in some kind of compatibility mode to simulate WinXP or older?  WinXP and I thought Win7 could simulate older versions but I've never actually used Win10.

Title: Re: Holiday Lighting with X10
Post by: dhouston on January 23, 2017, 12:41:41 PM

Quote from: bkenobi on January 23, 2017, 11:39:28 AM

Can't Win10 run things in some kind of compatibility mode to simulate WinXP or older?  WinXP and I thought Win7 could simulate older versions but I've never actually used Win10.

This might help.
http://www.download3k.com/articles/How-to-add-an-XP-Mode-Virtual-Machine-to-Windows-10-or-8-using-Hyper-V-00770 (http://www.download3k.com/articles/How-to-add-an-XP-Mode-Virtual-Machine-to-Windows-10-or-8-using-Hyper-V-00770)

Title: Re: Holiday Lighting with X10
Post by: jackg on February 07, 2017, 12:55:04 PM

Thanks.  Unfortunately I can't find a downloadable version of the old Firecracker software that had scheduling in it.  The current download only mimics the handheld device.

Title: Re: Holiday Lighting with X10
Post by: Brian H on February 07, 2017, 01:21:12 PM

I have a few versions of Xfire software but I believe it is the on screen HR12A Palm Pad.
Do you happen to know if the one you are looking for was also called xfire or another name?

Title: Re: Holiday Lighting with X10
Post by: Tuicemen on February 07, 2017, 05:17:25 PM

Quote from: jackg on February 07, 2017, 12:55:04 PM

Thanks.  Unfortunately I can't find a downloadable version of the old Firecracker software that had scheduling in it.  The current download only mimics the handheld device.

The old Firecracker software never came with scheduling in it. It was a plug-in of which there were two, one for timers and one for macros.
I believe I have the timer one somewhere.
Even if you could find the plugins they wouldn't work as they required registration which we all know can't be done.

Title: Re: Holiday Lighting with X10
Post by: jackg on February 09, 2017, 12:05:03 PM

Thanks Brian H and Tuiceman.  I don't know the exact name of the scheduling program I used previously.  Maybe I will have to power up the hard drive I removed from my XP computer and find it there.