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[watson524]

Hi all,

We have all of our Christmas decorations using X10. I have a bring/amplifier in my panel and then some X10 outlets, lamp controllers and one switch. All has worked fine since early December until last nite. On our upstairs banister, I have a string of lights wrapping the banister. Then to an extension cord under a door to the nearest room and into the LM465 and into the outlet. Never had any issues. Last nite, 11:30, everything went off except this one thing. Not wanting to mess with it, we just unplugged in. Today, I plugged it in to troubleshoot. Turned the lights on by pressing the all lights on button on the mini timer, then hit all off. All worked fine except this one banister didn't go off. Changed the code to A3 (from A1) to isolate. Same behavior (also used the "code" button on the mini timer vs the all lights on). Got a spare LM465 and saw the same behavior. Had my husband unplug his new Xbox (which was turned off) that is now also in another outlet in his office where the banister is plugged in just in case. That was the ONLY thing changed in the way of the electric system and this has worked for over a week with the Xbox plugged in but I figured let's be sure. Same thing....... Moved the extension cord to another outlet in the room and all works fine. For some reason, regardless of code or module, and regardless of top or bottom outlet in the box, it doesn't respond to the off command. I even let him plug the Xbox back in while we were in the other outlet and all is still ok. That plus the fact that it's been ok for over a week with the XBox plugged in leads me to think it's nothing to do with that but I'm stumped.

thanks in advance!

[dave w]

Try this. When Christmas string will not turn OFF, unplug the string and substitute a standard table lamp for the string. Any difference?

You indicate only one outlet in this specific room has a problem.  Do you know if the suspect outlet is controlled by the same circuit breaker that the "good" outlets are controlled by?

BTW: LED lights and LED Christmas strings will not work by themselves in a Lamp Module or most Appliance modules. The LED's will not extinguish in the OFF state due to leakage current through the module. If this string is LED, did you have anything else plugged into the LM465 or the Christmas string when everything was working well? i.e and incandescent string, in conjunction with an LED string.

You could be describing a "threshhold" noise problem. There is a ton of information on this forum on Noise, Phase Coupling, and Signal Sucking. One source is here.
http://jvde.us/x10_troubleshooting.htm

[Brian H]

Does sound like the Xbox is either generating some noise that put a marginally OK signal to fail and the reason only off or it is absorbing some of the signals. The load may also be generating some noise when on.

[watson524]

Does sound like the Xbox is either generating some noise that put a marginally OK signal to fail and the reason only off or it is absorbing some of the signals. The load may also be generating some noise when on.

But wouldn't the fact that it was fine for the first week the XBox was in and that I took the XBox out of the loop and still had the issue negate that theory?

[watson524]

Try this. When Christmas string will not turn OFF, unplug the string and substitute a standard table lamp for the string. Any difference?

Nope, no difference with a standard incandescent bulb lamp

You indicate only one outlet in this specific room has a problem.  Do you know if the suspect outlet is controlled by the same circuit breaker that the "good" outlets are controlled by?

Yep, the outlets are on the same breaker.

BTW: LED lights and LED Christmas strings will not work by themselves in a Lamp Module or most Appliance modules. The LED's will not extinguish in the OFF state due to leakage current through the module. If this string is LED, did you have anything else plugged into the LM465 or the Christmas string when everything was working well? i.e and incandescent string, in conjunction with an LED string.

You could be describing a "threshhold" noise problem. There is a ton of information on this forum on Noise, Phase Coupling, and Signal Sucking. One source is here.
http://jvde.us/x10_troubleshooting.htm

Don't have LED lights so that's not a concern. And this is the only thing in the LM465. One string right into an extension cord into the LM465 in the outlet.

I'm stumped since all was fine up until last nite and nothing has changed since then.

[dave w]

I'm stumped ....

Other than "threshold noise",  me too. Sorry.