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[Tuicemen]

I liked to think my setup was fairly reliable! My WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) was slowly climbing.
This summer we had to rewire this old place(Long story there).
During this time I was testing new modules for Authinx (x10) mostly at my off grid place but I went back and forth due to delays in the rewire.
During this time I also picked up a XTBM signal analyzer to perform test on the new equipment never figuring I'd need it  for anything else.
With the new wiring complete things started to sometimes work sometimes not.

I started to think some of my old modules were failing so I replaced them with backups I had.
Initial this worked but the inconsistent behavior soon started again.
Using the XTBM I found some of the new devices I was testing  for Authinx weren't performing up to pare and I complained about them.
This week a lamp that had served me flawlessly for many years stopped turning on completely using the XTBM I soon discovered no signal was getting to this outlet. I quickly moved the lamp to a outlet on the same circuit and it worked.
My wife who I've been slowly convincing automation was a good thing started complaining. She was thinking the outlet was bad, I knew better.
Oh No I'm losing WAF Not good! I thought time to get to the bottom of this.

I knew there were devices that could cause issues as a signal sucker or noise generator. However none of these had caused major issues in the past.
Also these things were on separate circuits. I thought! Well they use to be. Not now!
It turns out the electricians had  grouped my outlets differently then before.
I now have some small signal suckers present on my automation circuits and one noise generator I've yet to weed out.

The thing causing me so much head ache?
My Wife's laptop power supply/charger. It went from a sometime issue to full nuisance causing everything x10 on that circuit to fail.
I now see I have to remap my circuits so I know where everything is connected. I see now my old map is useless.
I also see I'm going to need a few noise filters some things aren't a issue on their own but once combined with something else I have a problem.

I had PCs isolated on their own circuits so they were never causing a issue. Now some were!
I never had a Phase issue which after a rewire I did
A new rewire I had assume would make my place even more X10 friendly, I was wrong

Signal suckers and Noise producers will kill a x10 system but also any WAF you managed to create.
It turns out a home rewire can do that too!

This evening that reliable light came on as scheduled  (I move the laptop to a different circuit until my filters arrive).
When that light automatically came on my wife's face just lit up! Maybe the WAF just inched up a notch. 
That XTBM saved me many hours of frustration.
 

[toasterking]

Thanks for sharing your story!  I expect that in the long term, your new wiring will prove to be a benefit to making your house more X10-friendly, and that it would have in the short term also if you hadn't existing signal problems.  But since you didn't have the meter before, it would have been very difficult to know that you had those problems that were being masked by long wiring runs and interconnects.

I think that the only way to completely prevent this kind of thing is to use your meter to identify and isolate all noise sources and signal suckers now, which it sounds like you have probably already done as part of your troubleshooting, and then continue using the meter to test out each new piece of equipment the first time you plug it in.  Check the noise level and the X10 signal strength with the meter in an outlet next to the one you're plugging the new thing into both with and without the new thing plugged in.  If you have a repeater, the XTBM transmits a signal when it is first plugged in that should get repeated and display the signal level immediately.  If you don't, you can use a Palm Pad remote and a transceiver plugged into an outlet near the distribution panel to send a signal to your meter to check the signal strength.  If your new thing causes an increase in noise or a decrease in signal level, you probably need to plug it into a filter and then retest.  And some filters work better than other filters for particular loads.  I expect that if you had already found and fixed all your problem areas this way before your home was rewired, you would have had no problems at all.

I keep my XTBM Pro handy and check every new piece of equipment I add.  It's really not that tedious if you keep it current.  If I'm having a sleepover party and a bunch of friends all bring their cell phone chargers and plug them in for the night, then no, I don't check every one of them with the meter, but if I'm adding something that I will use here more than once, I test it.  The reward of long-term reliability of X10 in my house is worth it.

Another thing that people don't think about much is that power supplies can degrade in equipment that has already been tested and a once-behaved power supply can slowly or suddenly start spewing noise, so if you want to be really vigilant, you'll also repeat the whole-house signal inspection periodically!

[Brian H]

Thanks for sharing your findings.

I had an aging LED bulb start spewing garbage. I found it with my XTBM {not Pro} meter.

[toasterking]

These are great examples of why X10 PLC is not as "plug and play" or "user friendly" as it used to be!

[Tuicemen]

These are great examples of why X10 PLC is not as "plug and play" or "user friendly" as it used to be!

Actualy the new transmitter modules transmit a much stronger signal.
AGS added to the new modules also help.

The Wifi unit had no problems communicating with the light it was when I used AHP and the cm15 that it became a issue.
This light was also on a old module with out AGS
 

[toasterking]

Thanks for those details and that's great news to hear!  A stronger transmitted signal and AGC for reception won't completely resolve the underlying issue but they'll help to deal with it and are things that would benefit X10 reliability in any installation.  It's good to know that Authinx is actually paying attention to this and it's helping performance in their new products!

[dave w]

It's good to know that Authinx is actually paying attention to this and it's helping performance in their new products!

Authinix is taking quality more seriously than the old "X10 Wireless" company. Unfortunately better signal reliability increases cost. But X10 is still more economical than Insteon and Z-Wave. I give them a big thumbs up. 

[Tuicemen]

The new transmiters I've tested so far were all at 9.99 Vpp  or greater.
Far surpassing my old equipment.
Even the new mini timer  MT14A has a larger wall wart transformer to produce more power then the MT13A.

The owner does take quality seriously.
I falsely reported poor results with the new mini timer and he got right on the manufacture.
I plugged it in right next to a signal sucker when testing its output.   Even so it still had a reading better then the old unit on a clean circuit.
He bent over backwards to be sure I had the correct wall wart for the unit having service reps contact me directly instead of the other way around.

The fact that the Wi-Fi unit has taken so long to come to market has been the manufactures Idea that better meant cheaper and it took so long to change that interpretation.
That and the fact they insisted on using a developer of there choice for the software during developement.
Authinix now has there own developer looking at adds and fixes that need to be done.
Sadly waiting on a new release would mean a even longer delay and I stated the software worked well enough for a release.
Hope everyone agrees.
 

[dhouston]

The new transmiters I've tested so far were all at 9.99 Vpp  or greater.

Prior to the CM11A all transmitters output ~10Vpp. The TM751, RR501, PL513, TW523 etc. continued to do so until rather recent redesigns. Even the original Powerlinc from SmartHome was 10Vpp. I never understood the reason for the reduction and doubt that it was related to a cost reduction or even FCC regulations.

[Tuicemen]

I never understood the reason for the reduction and doubt that it was related to a cost reduction or even FCC regulations.

The way Jeff Volp explained it to me was smaller transformers aren't capable of pushing out a high signal.
Since smaller sometimes means cheaper X10WTI went that way to save a penny, reducing the output.

Authinix has went with larger transformers in their new transmitters.
This is evident in the weight when compared to the old versions.
It is also evident in the size of the new wall warts of the new units requiring these.

[Tuicemen]

I continue to see noise from time to time on some circuits these are proving hard to find as it isn't continuous.

However I did find One high noise culprit and hopefully that was the one eluding me.
A CFL which was on a x10 module which was tripped by the motion sensor in my outdoor flood light (PR511)
I had forgotten about CFLs creating noise as they age.

This was setup on our back deck to let us know when the dog wanted back in as she doesn't bark just sits at the door.
However coons and other things can also trip this with the bulb being of low wattage it wasn't to noticeable unless you were looking directly at the lamp.
I had started to remove most CFLs from our place due to my wife's concerns of fires cause from them.
Since this was a globe type I missed it.

[dhouston]

The way Jeff Volp explained it to me was smaller transformers aren't capable of pushing out a high signal.

I believe the CM11A, CM15A, TW523, PL513, et al use the same KC1047 coupling transformer.

[JeffVolp]

I believe the CM11A, CM15A, TW523, PL513, et al use the same KC1047 coupling transformer.

It was the power transformer I was referring to.  Only the CM11A and CM15A have power transformers, and they are pretty small.  All the other X10 transmitters I am familiar with have inexpensive transformerless power supplies that are limited in the amount of energy they can deliver.

The X10 spec for the PSC05 quotes 5Vpp into a 5 ohm load, so I have done my testing with that load (4.7 ohm 1W carbon composition resistor in series with two parallel 2.2uF 250VAC capacitors.)  The XTB-IIR will deliver over 35Vpp into a 5 ohm load on one phase and over 25Vpp into 5 ohm loads on both phases.

Jeff

[dhouston]

It was the power transformer I was referring to.  Only the CM11A and CM15A have power transformers, and they are pretty small.  All the other X10 transmitters I am familiar with have inexpensive transformerless power supplies that are limited in the amount of energy they can deliver.

That seems to support my point that the halving of output from the PL513 & TW523 was not related to cost reduction as the CM11A & CM15A have more expensive power supplies.