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[bergman]

I have a simple system in a very small house. X-10 sensor Flood lights on front of the house send a signal to turn on an in-line switch that controls the conventional flood lights on the rear of the house. The system used to work reliably. Now the floodlights function fine. Turns on with sensor, sends signal to turn on rear floods and front floods auto off after 10 minutes. However, the rear floods are not receiving the auto off signal reliably thus I come home and find them still on. I have the drier bridge and I previously tried the capacitor bridging method. I also have a whole house surge suppressor bridging both legs. the total wiring run is very short as the house is only about 900 square feet. It's so short that I could just go to conventional wiring, but I hate to lose to the technology! Ideas? Thanks!

[Brian H]

Anything new in the home. Like a nice new electronic toy or moved something to get holiday decorations installed?
Regular bulbs in the rear light?

[bergman]

Both front and rear lights are using CFL floods.

[Brian H]

If they are old CFLs. You may want to try a new one in the rear.
We did see a post where an aging CFL started making more power line noise when on and made the X10 off signal be missed.

[bergman]

They are brand new CFL's but if CFL's cause noise, I'd go back to conventional bulbs for reliability. I will go search, but is there any inexpensive filtering suggested for households with CFL's? This often occurs in the middle of the night when the only operating CFL's would be this particular fixture.

[JeffVolp]

Some CFLs produce noise in the X10 frequency band when they are on.  That interferes with the ability of the switch to receive the OFF command.  Here I installed a Leviton 6287 noise block between the X10 switch and any fixtures with CFLs.  That filter is pretty expensive - around $30 each.  For a cheap fix, some have modified the plug-in X10 XPPF filter for an in-line installation by removing the plug prongs and bringing out wires instead.  However, it may be impossible to squeeze that unit into an existing electrical box.  Note that either of these fixes requires the X10 switch to have a local neutral connection.

Jeff

[bergman]

Is there an in-line switch that is more resistant to fluorescent line noise?

[bergman]

The CFL noise is making a lot more sense as the switch does accept an off signal from a module located within about 10 feet. I'm guessing that the signal strength of this off signal is strong enough to overcome the noise whereas the signal from the controlling flood light on the front of the house is just barely being overcome by the noise.

[JeffVolp]

Is there an in-line switch that is more resistant to fluorescent line noise?

I understand that some of the newer X10 devices now incorporate AGC to deal with powerline noise.  The Leviton X10 compatible switches I installed DO have AGC.  However, we have a 120V LED bulb that created so much noise that it even blocked Leviton switches on that circuit.

One other factor is that with AGC, the detection threshold will be raised above the noise level.  So, a stronger signal will be necessary if there is noise on the powerline.

It is best to isolate (or replace) particularly noisy devices, and let the AGC deal with the residual background noise produced by other devices in the home.

Jeff

[bergman]

OK. I got the Leviton 6287 filter and I'm wiring it in line with the XPFM. When I connect the filter, it shorts the connection so that the light is on regardless of the switch position. The filter IS connected with the correct wires to load and hot. Is this an indication of a bad filter or some issue with my neutral that has not shown previously? the wiring couldn't any more straight forward.

[Brian H]

The filter should be between the load and the XPFM.
The Blue load wire from the XPFM should go to the 6287 Black Line wire. The load wire from the 6287 should go to the lights line connection.
All neutrals together.

[bergman]

Wow! Thanks! What a blunder. It took about 90 seconds to fix that one as soon as I read your message. Now we'll see if the filter solves the issue.
Thanks again!!