In the 15 years I've been an X10/AHP user(I still have some of the IBM branded stuff laying around!), I've encountered some truly bizarre issues with what is actually a pretty simple installation.
So last year, over the July 4th weekend, we got a typical AZ monsoon storm where a very close lightning strike barbecued two circuit breakers in my panel. The only other casualty was my old Signalinc repeater that had been plugged into the dryer outlet for years... extra crispy inside.
So, since that repeater was no longer available, I bit the bullet and ordered a new XPCR. I installed it inside the main electrical panel, with dedicated breakers, and voila! It worked very well... Until a week or so ago when some truly strange behavior started.
First... a brief description. I have two very simple macros. One starts at dusk, turns on some inside lights, pauses a 1/2 hour, then turns on the some lights outside. Then another macro in the morning that turns everything off.
There is a separate "off" timer for some curio cabinet lights in the master bedroom that turns them off at 11PM.
So almost exactly a year after installation, the fun started (insert Twilight Zone theme here):
Episode 1: I'm in bed watching TV, and at 11PM the curio cabinets go off as scheduled... Then immediately they came back on! So I turned them off with my RF remote, and went back to watching TV. At midnight, EVERY X10 device in my house turned off. So I got up, went into my office, fired up AHP, completely reset and reloaded the CM15A, turned everything back on, and went back to bed. I also unplugged an old RR501 transceiver that is rarely used (second housecode) just in case.
A day passes, and no problems, until...
Episode 2: It's 10PM. Suddenly all X10 devices turn off. A second or two later SOME of them turn back on, but not all. That was the first clue. So I get everything turned back on. And(here's the really fun part) since my wife had an early flight and was going to bed early, I intentionally did not turn on the curio cabinet lights in the master bedroom. So after I get it all back in order (and again reload the CM15A), I walk into the bedroom and the curio cabinet lights are ON! I turn them off with the RF remote, they come right back on. This repeated over and over. They absolutely would not stay off! One time they came on, dropped to 50% brightness, and then went back to 100%! Finally they seemed to settle down and stay off. So I unplugged the main RF transceiver (again just in case), and went to bed. The next morning, I wake up and they're back on again, until the dawn macro kicked in and turned everything off.
The next morning I went out and turned off the circuit breakers associated with the XPCR, left them off for a few seconds, and flipped them back on.
It's been a couple days now, and so far no gremlins. The fact that only some of the lights came back on after the all units off would seem to imply that the extraneous all lights on command only went out on one side of the repeater... which is what prompted me to attempt the power reset of the XPCR.
I just hope this turns out to have been the culprit, otherwise I may have to find a good exorcist....
Has anyone out there seen this sort of strange behavior in a repeater? Obviously I'll be watching it carefully, but it may just be worthwhile to set a calendar reminder to power reset that repeater on a regular basis.
Never a dull moment with X10!
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Topic: XPCR "Haunted House" Effect (Read 2718 times)