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[paul warshawsky]

I just figured out one of my troubles with my X10 setup.  Some background first...

I am an observant Jew and my principal use of X10 is to control my lights and appliances during the Sabbath.  I have noticed for some time that my timers and macros seem to be very (maybe even 100%?) reliable during the week (when they are not critical) but to fail in the same pattern on the Sabbath!  In particular one lamp never shuts off when it is supposed to and one appliance doesn't turn on reliably.  So today, after the Sabbath I decided to try to figure out why.  I started by setting all the X10 controlled lights as they would be at the time that the lamp fails and I found that I could not control that lamp (by AHP software connected to the CM15a).  I then experimented with each of the X10 controlled lights - no effect.  I then unplugged or turned off certain things that we use on the Sabbath (a hot water urn, our electric ovens are set in a Sabbath mode) - still no effect.  Then I started with lights that are not under X10 that we leave on during the sabbath.  Sure enough I finally found a connection!  We leave the light on in the bathroom in our basement (which happens to have CFL bulbs in it).  When this light is off, I have full control over the lamp in question, when it is on - no control (the lamp is on a different floor, as is the CM15a.)

So here is my question:  How can I filter a light fixture?

The moral of my story is ANYTHING can interfere with X10 - sometime it just makes no sense!

One last conundrum: The appliance cannot be controlled when that bathroom light is on.  It is set to come on twice during Saturday - it seems to fail each morning, and yet it works in the afternoon.  I suspect this is an additive effect of some other lights being on, but it makes me wonder if solving this bathroom light problem will fix all my issues or not.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Paul

[Charles Sullivan]

I just figured out one of my troubles with my X10 setup.  Some background first...

I am an observant Jew and my principal use of X10 is to control my lights and appliances during the Sabbath.  I have noticed for some time that my timers and macros seem to be very (maybe even 100%?) reliable during the week (when they are not critical) but to fail in the same pattern on the Sabbath!  In particular one lamp never shuts off when it is supposed to and one appliance doesn't turn on reliably.  So today, after the Sabbath I decided to try to figure out why.  I started by setting all the X10 controlled lights as they would be at the time that the lamp fails and I found that I could not control that lamp (by AHP software connected to the CM15a).  I then experimented with each of the X10 controlled lights - no effect.  I then unplugged or turned off certain things that we use on the Sabbath (a hot water urn, our electric ovens are set in a Sabbath mode) - still no effect.  Then I started with lights that are not under X10 that we leave on during the sabbath.  Sure enough I finally found a connection!  We leave the light on in the bathroom in our basement (which happens to have CFL bulbs in it).  When this light is off, I have full control over the lamp in question, when it is on - no control (the lamp is on a different floor, as is the CM15a.)

So here is my question:  How can I filter a light fixture?

The moral of my story is ANYTHING can interfere with X10 - sometime it just makes no sense!

One last conundrum: The appliance cannot be controlled when that bathroom light is on.  It is set to come on twice during Saturday - it seems to fail each morning, and yet it works in the afternoon.  I suspect this is an additive effect of some other lights being on, but it makes me wonder if solving this bathroom light problem will fix all my issues or not.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Paul

Some brands of CFL are noisier than others.  Try replacing the bulbs with a different brand.

If that doesn't work, you can install an X10Pro XPF wire-in noise filter in the lamp fixture (if there's room for it ).
  http://www.x10pro.com/pro/catalog/platform.html#filters

[paul warshawsky]

I don't suppose a plug in filter would work?  I suspect the plug in the bathroom may not even be the same circuit...  (Will check later.)  I don't think there is a enough room in the box, but I think I could wire it behind the box - do you know if these filters give off any heat?

Thanks,

Paul

[JeffVolp]

If it is a hard-wired circuit, the small Leviton 6287 filter may fit into the electrical box.  It is about 1.5" x 2" x .75" thick.  I was able to squeeze it behind the X10 switches in all our electrical boxes that control CFL ceiling fixtures.  If it doesn't fit into the electrical box, it should certainly fit into the connection box for the first fixture in the string.  To meet code, it must be enclosed in the electrical box.  It does not give off any significant heat when powering CFLs.

Note, the Leviton 6287 is much more expensive than the X10 products, and it can be hard to find.

Jeff

[Brian H]

I X10Pro also makes a wired in filter.  XPF
Details are on their web page in the Installation Instructions Tab.
http://www.x10pro.com/

[JeffVolp]

I believe X10Pro also makes a wired in filter.

Yes, they do.  It is a 20A monster in-line filter that fits into a 3-gang electrical box.  The Leviton is the only commercial in-line X10 filter I am aware of that can fit directly behind a X10 switch if the box is deep enough.

Since the 6287 is hard to find, I'm thinking about picking some up to offer on the XTB site along with the XPF and XPPF.

Jeff

[Noam]

Paul  -
The plug-in noise filters only work as passthrough devices, so the light would have to be plugged into the filter to have any effect.

I'm in the same boat (however, I haven't started switching over to CFLs as quickly yet) in that I need the switches to work, because I can't do anything about it when they don't. I replaced four switches last week with Smarthome Togglelinc relays, so I can start switching my incandescent bulbs over to CFLs. I plan to switch them out as the old bulbs burn out. I'll have to make sure to do a "Sabbath Simulation" to make sure everything can be controlled with the appropriate lights on as I change out the bulbs in each fixture.

I have one switch controlling my outside lights that regularly doesn't hear the signals from the CM15a. It is at the end of a long run, and on the opposite phase from my CM15a.
I do have a capacitor in place, but it is out at my A/C disconnect switch (a spot I felt more comfortable installing it, because there was plenty of room in the box, and I could cut ALL the power to it at the breaker box), so the signal does have to travel pretty far to get to that one switch.
I have found that filtering the UPS and two laptop power supplies between the breaker box and the switch helped a little.
What I did to fix it was add a macro that sends an RF command, and I have a transceiver closer to the switch that picks up the signal. It seems to work most of the time now.

[paul warshawsky]

Well my cheap and thus far effective solution was to move my CM15a down to the basement where it is closer to the breaker box.  This seems to have removed the interference issue.  I have a coupler repeater in my box so I guess the problem is the CM15a signal was not getting to the repeater.  (Unfortunately the electrician put the XPCR completely in the box so I can't see the LED for troubleshooting.)  I tested things by writing a macro that turns on basement lights, waits 30 sec, turns on living room lights, waits 30 sec... etc. for the whole house then starts turning them off again.  I then ran up and down the stairs 10 times while I used the macro to test various situations.  As the CM15a is now far from the computer a Sabbath simulation would be a real pain to run...

In fact we are going to be moving our office down to the basement so the computer and CM15a will be near each other again soon (our current office is becoming a baby room.)  So this solution is a reasonable one as the module was going to be moved soon anyhow.  Though the CM15a will be nearby, it will actually be on a different circuit from the computer (and UPS).

We'll see what surprises AHP has in store for us this Sabbath!

Paul

[Noam]

Paul -
One scenario I've always worried about is a power outage on the Sabbath. Since the CM15A doesn't have the ability to recover from a power outage (and make sure the correct lights are on / off), I came up with a workaround, that (fortunately?) I've never had the opportunity to test in a real-world situation:

I put in a PowerFlash module, set to M1. I put it into "contact closure" mode, and mode "3", which is a momentary on / off signal sent.
I put a jumper between the two terminals, permanently shorting them.

When power comes back on (after having been out for at least 5 seconds or so - long enough for the capacitors in the PowerFlash to reset), it triggers the "M1 On" macro.
This is actually a series of If-Else-Else-Etc macros that set the appropriate lights and appliances based on time of day and day of the week.

--Noam

[paul warshawsky]

Noam,

That sounds pretty cool.  Since I can't get X10 to reliably do simple stuff I have a simpler power failure plan - I have a few critical lights that are not on X10 but are left on 25 hrs.  Since I feel bad about wasting power, these are all CFL bulbs (hence the interference problem.)  If there is a failure Friday night, we don't have much light to eat by, and there are no lights in our bedroom, but two bathrooms are on (including one off the master bedroom that allows a bit of light into the bedroom) and the entrance from the garage has some light.  I actually find the failure of a light to go off more annoying to a certain extent.  Especially when one of our bedroom lights fails!  In fact we have two lamps in the bedroom that are both on the same housecode - strangely we had trouble with the one on my side of the bed failing to turn off.  This seems to have resolved since installing the XPCR (I also added a few backup off timers - i.e. turn off at 23:00, 23:05, 23:10, but now it seems to reliably go off at 23:00).

Thanks for the suggestion!

Paul

[PajamaGuy]

I apologize up front for not having enough time to detail some possibilities, and I'd like to help but don't know enough about your Sabbath "rules", but, I'd think about a 2nd CM15a.  And I'd look into the P16 anomaly, and run a recurring hourly lighting reset macro that relies on date flags to know what day it it.

If you explain just a tad more about what youwant to do, some of us lesser experts may come up with an idea.

[Noam]

Paul -
We do something similar. I don't leave the bedrooms lights on at all (night-lights in the kids' bedrooms), and we leave the bathroom lights on full time (no X10 on those).

PajamaGuy - To give a basic summary, on the Sabbath we cannot turn lights or appliances on or off. (There are a lot of other prohibitions, but those are the ones that apply to this forum).
We ARE allowed to use timers (or in this case, X10), but we cannot do anything to fix the system if it doesn't work properly. Hence, the need for a very reliable system.
I know a lot of people in my community who use X10, with mixed results.

From what I've read, Smarthome's Insteon system is much more reliable by design, but is much more expensive, too.
I just replaced my remaining four X10 wall switches (the fifth one had failed along time ago) with Smarthome Insteon relay-type switches (at $46 a pop!), to be able to use CFLs.

My system works most of the time, and I've added some redundant timers to help out on the Sabbath. I'll have to keep an eye on things as I start to switch out my bulbs for CFLs.

[paul warshawsky]

Moving CM15a down to the basement seems to have fixed everything - I think one timer failed, but I'm not sure.  This may have been due to a particular appliance having been on, so I reprogrammed the light to come on five minutes before the appliance and I'll see if that fixes the problem.

Now I just have to hope that when the computer gets moved to the basement it doesn't screw things up again...

Paul

[Noam]

Paul  -
The plug-in noise filters only work as passthrough devices, so the light would have to be plugged into the filter to have any effect.

I'm in the same boat (however, I haven't started switching over to CFLs as quickly yet) in that I need the switches to work, because I can't do anything about it when they don't. I replaced four switches last week with Smarthome Togglelinc relays, so I can start switching my incandescent bulbs over to CFLs. I plan to switch them out as the old bulbs burn out. I'll have to make sure to do a "Sabbath Simulation" to make sure everything can be controlled with the appropriate lights on as I change out the bulbs in each fixture.

I have one switch controlling my outside lights that regularly doesn't hear the signals from the CM15a. It is at the end of a long run, and on the opposite phase from my CM15a.
I do have a capacitor in place, but it is out at my A/C disconnect switch (a spot I felt more comfortable installing it, because there was plenty of room in the box, and I could cut ALL the power to it at the breaker box), so the signal does have to travel pretty far to get to that one switch.
I have found that filtering the UPS and two laptop power supplies between the breaker box and the switch helped a little.
What I did to fix it was add a macro that sends an RF command, and I have a transceiver closer to the switch that picks up the signal. It seems to work most of the time now.

Well, it's been well over a year now, and I was having superb results with my 6 outside CFLs (60-watt "bug lights," all purchased at the same time, and all on Smarthome relay-type switches) until last week.
All of a sudden, I noticed that nothing was working. Even manual commands (from the Pc or from a handheld remote) weren't getting through.
No amount of rebooting, resetting the CM15A, etc. would make any difference. I simply couldn't control anything. I have two CM15A units (one runs the system, the other one monitors it), and an RR501 plugged in. Unplugging them all, and then using only one at a time made no difference. Time to put the kids to bed, and no way to dim their lamps down. Surprisingly, my wife was less upset about this than I was.

However, since we needed the system to work, started troubleshooting further.
I created a "test rig" by taking a surge protector and plugging in a spare TM751 and appliance module. I set the TM751 to Housecode "C" (my main housecode), and I set the appliance module to C16 (my only unused unit code on housecode C). I was unable to control the appliance module from the TM751, on the same power strip!
I plugged the whole strip into a filter, and suddenly I could control the appliance module (but still nothing else). So, I knew I had SOMETHING in my house that was causing enough noise that any X10 signals were lost. I couldn't think of anything that was different (the only new thing was a new TV, but the system was working AFTER we installed it, and unplugging the TV didn't fix anything).

After moving my test rig (the power strip) around to a number of outlets around the house, I confirmed that the problem existed everywhere, not just on one or two circuits.

I wasn't looking forward to the "turn off one breaker at a time to isolate the noise" test, but I knew I had to get through with it.
thankfully, I started from the bottom of the breaker box. The very first circuit I turned off (the one to the shed and the outdoor light near it) was the culprit! With that breaker off, everything else worked (I checked every device).

Since I didn't have anything in the shed that could cause any noise, I figured it had to be the light.
Sure enough, when I turned off the switch, the noise went away, and all of my commands worked! As soon as I turned then light back on, the system stopped working again. So, I removed the bulb, and again confirmed that EVERYTHING was working correctly, even with the switch on.

Next, I pulled an identical bulb from one of my other fixtures, and installed it in the fixture near the shed.
Everything continued to work.

To confirm my suspicion, I put the suspect bulb into the fixture from which I'd removed the good bulb. Everything went south again as soon as I turned that switch back on. On top of that, I heard a faint "buzzing" noise from that bulb, which I didn't hear with any of the others (I hadn't noticed it in the original location, probably because the fixture is higher up on the wall). I concluded that it was a bad bulb, and replaced it with an incandescent for the night.

I purchased a replacement bulb at Home Depot, and it worked just fine. I brought the other one back. I explained that I'd bought it a while ago, and didn't have a receipt, but the bulb is supposed to last 7 years according to the package - which I had kept. While it still lit up, it created enough electrical noise to shut down the rest of my house. I considered that to be a defect, since none of the other 5 I'd bought at the same time had that issue, and it had just started a few days earlier.

The cashier happily took the bulb back, and gave me store credit for the amount I'd paid for the bulb.

[Brian H]

Great troubleshooting. 
The write up of the exact steps you took may assist others in troubleshooting.

End of life CFL things can be a problem to find. No other sign of failure other than the buzz? Some start arcing and smoking.