X10 Community Forum
🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Troubleshooting Automation Problems => Topic started by: craig-o on March 08, 2006, 03:32:44 PM
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Greetings all, newbie here.
I've got a very simple home automation setup. A remote, a single transciever (on house code A), two lamp modules, and an appliance module.
Everything had been working fine for about 2 years until about a week ago when one of the lamp modules stopped working consistantly. Typically, it will not turn on or off at all, although sometimes it will. Nothing has been changed in our home that would contribute to any interference.
Any advice on how I can further troubleshoot this would be appreciated.
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Humm nothing in 2 years? ??? Not even a newer CF light blub? ??? Many things can cause noise which sounds like the case. When the light doesn't work what else is on? ??? When it does work are the same things on? ??? Just a starting point for you! ;) :D ;D
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Thanks for the response.
I didn't mean to imply nothing had been changed in two years, that would obviously not be the case. However, nothing has been changed or added in the past month or so that should cause this to stop working. At least nothing I can think of. The module doesn't even work when in the house has been shut off for the night.
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Will the module work in a place where one of the others are? Try a different module in the same outlet and see if you get the same behaviour! See what is on the same fuse/breaker disconnect each thing one at a time to see when it starts to work that should tell you if the noise is on the same line which is most likely!
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Craig O,
Try unplugging the transceiver module and plugging it back in. In the past I have had problems with these hanging up and stop working. If you have a spare module replace the non functioning one with it. If the new one works all of the time then the problem would be in the old module. One other thing you might want to check is the wattage of the light bulb in the lamp. Have you replaced it with a lower wattage. I think I read in one of the posts in this forum that low wattage bulbs can cause problems. I am sure that others on this forum can speak more intelligently about this but I believe it has something to do with the module sensing a current.
Jim
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I tried swapping the module with one that was working at another location. The one that had not been working did work at the different location, however the one I replaced it with did not work at the problem location. When I moved them back, the one that previously did not work, worked again for about 10 minutes. The time it took me to switch these around and was about 15 minutes, during which time nothing in the house was turned on or off.
I don't know the wattage of the bulb at the problem location for certain, but I think it's a 40 watt bulb. I'll check that when I get home.
What strikes me as strange, is that this started happening all of the sudden after having worked reliably for so long. I do know that the bulb at the problem location has not been changed recently. This may not be important, but we do use traditional bulbs.
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I was reading through some other posts here and found a reference to DVR type receivers contributing to line noise. My controller is plugged into the same socket as my TV, VCR, and Sattelite DVR receiver. Although everything but the controller is on a powerstrip, could these things be my problem? They have been setup this way for over a year with no problems, but I may try unplugging these things when I get home.
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Try that. If it corrects the problem, then you need to get all the modules into outlets, not a power strip.
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Could be the power strip is going or one of the other electronic devices is starting to send noise You may need to get a filter as well as removing the power strip as they are bad for noise as well! Any Cats/Small dogs ? Check all the wires around that power bar maybe one has been chewed! :o (not a good thing for fluffy) ;)
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After unplugging our TV, DVR, and VCR all the modules worked. Just to check things further, I moved the controller module to another location and replaced it with a lamp module. I plugged all our other stuff back in and everything is still working.
Thanks for your assistance all!