A number of people have reported serious problems from external noise coming in over the powerline and interfering with their X10 systems. Several of these have been due to new power meters. One of my customers had such severe noise that even a PZZ01 couldn't block it, and he eventually gave up on X10 entirely.
I have been trying to come up with a way to deal with this. Some time ago I developed the tuned signal sucker to severely load down noise that exists on the system. Since it also attenuates the X10 signals somewhat, it has to be used with some sort of signal booster.
Many of us have distribution panels with a dozens of circuits. If you examine where all those circuits go, relatively few actually power X10 circuits. It occurred to me that if there are just a small number X10 circuits, they could all be isolated with the relatively inexpensive 20A XPF filters to create a private X10 system. Each of the isolated circuits could then be coupled to the “master” X10 circuit with XPPF couplers. The advantage of this approach is that it doesn't require disconnecting the main feed to slip the neutral through the PZZ01, and it may be more effective than the PZZ01.
Jeff
Author
Topic: A Different Solution for External Powerline Noise (Read 7062 times)