X10 Community Forum

🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Topic started by: poursha on January 14, 2006, 03:03:50 PM

Title: Free, easy improve for X10 switches
Post by: poursha on January 14, 2006, 03:03:50 PM

The cheapo, loose feel of the WS467 and
WS4777 switches just drives me nutz. So, I
did an easy fix, which seems to work pretty well.

The looseness is caused by excess gap between
the OD of the exterior button (white) and the
ID of the plastic housing. What I did was
take a small screw driver, and carefully pry
off the button. The button is held on by a
plastic friction pin. Don't know if this can
be easily damaged, so take care when prying
off. Then, I just wrapped the perimeter of
the button with a few layers of masking tape.

One trick is to NOT wrap the tape 360 degrees
around and around the button. This is because
the GAP between the side is bigger than the
top and bottom. So, if you wrap around and
around, then all will grow equally, and the
top/bottom will become tight before the sides
get thick enough.

Don't know how many layers yet. I forgot to
count. Maybe 5 or 6 layers. What I did to
make the sides thicker than the top/bottom
was to wrap from side, across the top, to the
other side, then cut the tape. Then, the next
wrap from side, across the bottom, the the
other side, then cut the tape again. Cut and
trim the tape with a sharp razor blade.

If this seems to work, then I'll do to all my
switches. Then, I'll probably pre cut the
tape, and count the correct amount for each
switch.

After taping, simply push it back onto the
switch. One thing I noticed is after the
tampering, the button can now my removed
without a screw driver. It isn't loose, but
can be taken off by hand now. NO biggie, if
it falls off, I can always glue it to the pin.

RoB

Title: Re: Free, easy improve for X10 switches
Post by: ccrider67 on January 13, 2007, 12:54:48 PM

I just installed two of the WS4777 3-way switches and they are warm to the touch and they make a faint buzzing sound.  Is this normal?

Title: Re: Free, easy improve for X10 switches
Post by: Puck on January 13, 2007, 01:15:22 PM

Quote from: ccrider67 on January 13, 2007, 12:54:48 PM

I just installed two of the WS4777 3-way switches and they are warm to the touch and they make a faint buzzing sound.  Is this normal?

Some light reading material  ;)

dimmer switch buzzing (http://www.smarthome.com/solution42.html)