Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LittleLarry]

 I read the faq on phase couplers but I was wondering if sometimes people might just use a secondary transceiver instead of using a phase coupler or x10 filters if they preferred?

For instance I have 1 lamp that seems to be either on the other phase or is blocked out by too many ups's or other noisy items. I find if I put the transciever in an outlet that is close to the lamp, it works fine, it's just that where I have my original tranceiver, the signal doesn't make it to this other sectioned off lamp unless it has a transceiver in the outlet near it (about 10 feet away). If I leave the transceiver there, then the other lamps don't get the x10 signals, which is why I would need 2 transceivers.

Is this an acceptable solution? What is the downside to this besides the extra $10 or so? I wouldn't want to do too many like this of course but is anyone else doing it this way instead of using phase couplers and filters? Is this considered a big waste of electricity to do it this way?

Will the 2 tranceivers interfere with each other, cancel each other out, or fight for supremecy, even if I use different house codes, or is that not necessary?

I could see one big downside for this if you were using a cm15a because the cm15a would only be able to control the devices that were near itself, and not the other devices that needed the 2nd tranceiver.

[Brian H]

Transceiver's like the TM751 and RR501 only send signals they receive by RF back on to the power line.
So if a weak power line signal reaches a transceiver. It will not be sent back to others. Also the smaller TM751 has NO power line receiver in it so it can not even be turned on and off by a power line signal. This is also why it will gladly step on another X10 power line signal it does not see. The RR501 has a receiver and is polite, but again will not pass signals on to others, except what it receives by an RF signal.

They only respond to the house code they are set to. So different house codes would only be processed by the one set to that house code along with the modules on that house code.

The AHP CM15A can be set to process all 16 house codes or to selectively have certain codes processed.

[LittleLarry]

 Does that mean that people have been known to use multiple transceivers instead of a phase coupler \ x10 filter from time to time as a quick workaround?

[Dan Lawrence]

 Does that mean that people have been known to use multiple transceivers instead of a phase coupler \ x10 filter from time to time as a quick workaround?

I would say no.   Phase couplers are used to do exactly that:  Couple two phases together so X10 signals can pass from one to another.  A phase coupler can be a whole house one or as simple as a capacitor in an a electric stove outlet for simple X10 systems.

Multiple transceivers are just that, TM751 or RR501 transceivers.  The only rule about transceivers is that there is one transceiver per housecode.  Need two, the second must be on another housecode.  I have 2 RR501s getting RF signals from a pair of SS13's, one on housecode A and one on housecode F.

[HA Dave]

 Does that mean that people have been known to use multiple transceivers instead of a phase coupler ...?

I am sure people have tried about everything.... and with mixed results. There are no hard rules. How well what works.... depends on many, MANY variables. But one thing is sure.... the more reliable your system is... the more FUN it is.

[stefanis]

Yes, I use two trancivers.

I have one at the front of the house and one at the back, that's how I'm divided. It works just fine except when the dryer is running, then it is kind of hit and miss. But since I only run the dryer for a couple of hours a week, it is not a big deal.

[HA Dave]

........... But since I only run the dryer for a couple of hours a week ...

Some of us (like myself) would go a little nuts just knowing that our (my) system might be off-line for a couple hours.

[Brian H]

Since TM751 modules are not polite. When the dryer is running it may bridge the phases [a test we sometime do] and they actually step on each other. 

[JeffVolp]

Since TM751 modules are not polite. When the dryer is running it may bridge the phases [a test we sometime do] and they actually step on each other. 

Yes, if they receive acceptable RF signals, they should both transmit at the same time in bit-sync.  One might think that would be OK because the 120KHz bursts would be in alignment.  But, when the dryer couples the phases, the 120KHz bursts will sum together.  Since each TM751 has its own internal 120KHz oscillator, the frequencies will not identical.  As the signals sum together, there will be a beat frequency which is equal to the difference between the two signals.  While hard to understand unless you have actually seen it on a scope, this can cause null points in the 120KHz burst unless one signal is significantly stronger than the other.  The term is "destructive interference".  Depending on the beat frequency and amplitude match, this may cause some bits in the transmission to be lost.

Jeff