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[grahamk]

I have a single X10 lamp module on an outdoor light that has power supplied via the 120V breaker on a hot tub 220V breaker box that hangs off of my main panel. The wire from the hot tub panel to the outside light is about 150 feet long.

X10 transmitter modules inside the house won't control this outside lamp (if i put the transmitter module on the same outdoor line it works fine). I figured phase coupling was in my future, but tried the "turn on the dryer" test and i still cannot control the lamp with the dryer running from inside the house. I understand the dryer test is not flawless. Also, I have LOTS of UPS's in the house, which I hear can cause problems.

Does the subpanel cause an issue, or the length of the wire? What are the chances that a passive coupler on my dryer is going to fix this? My wife's getting a bit tired of me spending money on this....

Thanks for any advice.

[JeffVolp]

This sounds like a weak signal level.  You probably have a number of signal suckers in the house that load down the X10 signal.  X10 signals decrease as they propagate away from the transmitter.  Not enough signal is left after that long run to control your module.

Back at our last house we had a similar problem with the outdoor post light.  Everything inside the house worked virtually 100%, but sometimes that post light would miss its command.  Installing the old Leviton 6201 repeater at our distribution panel helped, but that one long circuit still wasn't quite 100%.

Everyone with a X10 system should have a good passive coupler if X10 devices are distributed across both phases.

Jeff

[grahamk]

Thanks Jeff.

[dave w]

$0.02

An active coupler (aka "repeater" or "coupler/amp") although more costly, would be a better investment since a really good one (XTB IIR or ACT234) will put out such a strong signal that electrical noise (X10's nemisis) is overridden in most cases. If you still go with a passive coupler I think the X10/X10Pro unit is superior to the Smarthome.com unit.