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[tom sanchez]

I have a CM15A which controls three Leviton
6381 wall switches. I have modules which
turn the switches ON in the afternoon and
OFF in the late evening.

For a week or so, everything was working
fine. But, lately, the wall switches do not
turn ON at the preset time. They will turn
OFF at the preset time, though...after I
have already turned them ON manually (they
turn ON to full brightness when switched on
manually). I'm wondering why they turn OFF
but don't turn ON.

Also, the modules are showing a mysterious
question mark in the dimming percentage box.
If I turn the switches on through the
modules, I can boost the dimming percentage
to 100%. But, after a while, the mysterious
question mark reappears. I have no idea what
this means and I haven't been able to find
any information in the downloaded manual.

If anyone has any ideas on any of this, I
would appreciate it. Thanks!

[roger1818]

Tom:  What happens if you try to manually
turn the module on or off using the AHP user
interface?  Odds are there is something
interfering with the X10 signal when you turn
it on, but not when you turn it off.  There
are two general situations that could cause this:

1)   There time of day that you turn them on
has more noise than the time of day that you
turn them off.
2)   When the incandescent bulb is on, it
somehow improves the signal to noise ratio
slightly and causes the switch to work (I
won’t bother theorizing why this would be but
I have heard of this before).

Either way you will need to figure out what
is causing the problem.  Do you have some
type of phase coupler?  Having one will solve
80% of all X10 signal problems.  I wrote a
tutorial on phase coupling at:
http://www.x10.webhop.org/Phase_Coupling.htm

If you have one, it is probably something on
the powerline that is either generating noise
or absorbing signal.  Fortunately it doesn’t
matter which it is since X10 noise filters
will solve either problem, but you need to
figure out what equipment is causing the
problem first.  I wrote a tutorial on
powerline noise at:
http://www.x10.webhop.org/Powerline_Noise_and_Noise_Filters.htm

Also, it probably doesn’t matter in your
case, but what do you have the 6381 defined
as in AHP?  I believe the 6381 will accept
extended dim commands so you could define it
as a 2-way lamp module to take advantage of
this.  The 6381 isn’t 2-way so you won’t be
able to take advantage of the status request
functionality, but I don’t believe the AHP
software really uses that very much.

As for the question mark in the dimming
percentage box, this is because the CM15A
doesn’t remember the brightness of modules
and will only remember the on of status of
the “monitored house code.”  The AHP software
will remember this info for all modules while
it is running, but when you stop it or
disconnect your CM15A, it has forgotten the
status, and will display a question mark to
indicate that.

[tom sanchez]

Thanks for your advice, Roger. I actually
deleted the 6381 modules and replaced them
with 2-way lamp modules. I also set them to
power on to 99% brightness, instead of 100%.
This seems to have worked. I'll keep my
fingers crossed. Thanks again!