One of the wall sockets in my house has suddenly become unresponsive
to X-10 commands. I have switched appliance modules and no
difference. The wall socket is still active and appears normal except
for the X-10 issue.
Before this I noticed that the window candles had come on by
themselves.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Frank

On Dec 20, 9:34*am, frank1492 wrote:
One of the wall sockets in my house has suddenly become unresponsive
to X-10 commands. I have switched appliance modules and *no
difference. The wall socket is still active and appears normal except
for the X-10 issue.
* * Before this I noticed that the window candles had come on by
themselves.
* * Any ideas?
* * * Thanks
* * * Frank

unplug everything on that branch and try again.

Conjecture that some new load plugged in is stomping on the X10
signals.???

Robert Macy wrote:
On Dec 20, 9:34 am, frank1492 wrote:
One of the wall sockets in my house has suddenly become unresponsive
to X-10 commands. I have switched appliance modules and no
difference. The wall socket is still active and appears normal except
for the X-10 issue.
Before this I noticed that the window candles had come on by
themselves.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Frank

unplug everything on that branch and try again.

Conjecture that some new load plugged in is stomping on the X10
signals.???

Not necessarily that branch, but that phase of the power.

I am not aware of any changes made. I thought maybe one of the candles
was getting ready to burn out so unscrewed all the bulbs. Actually the
candles did turn on by themselves once.
This is a very old house with many unmarked circuits so tracing
would be difficult.
What kind of a load would "stomp" on the signal? Examples?
Thanks!
Frank





On Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:00:56 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote:

Robert Macy wrote:
On Dec 20, 9:34 am, frank1492 wrote:
One of the wall sockets in my house has suddenly become unresponsive
to X-10 commands. I have switched appliance modules and no
difference. The wall socket is still active and appears normal except
for the X-10 issue.
Before this I noticed that the window candles had come on by
themselves.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Frank

unplug everything on that branch and try again.

Conjecture that some new load plugged in is stomping on the X10
signals.???

Not necessarily that branch, but that phase of the power.

On Dec 20, 1:34*pm, frank1492 wrote:
I am not aware of any changes made. I thought maybe one of the candles
was getting ready to burn out so unscrewed all the bulbs. Actually the
candles did turn on by themselves once.
* * This is a very old house with many unmarked circuits so tracing
would be difficult.
* * What kind of a load would "stomp" on the signal? Examples?
* * Thanks!
* * * * Frank

On Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:00:56 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote:



Robert Macy wrote:
On Dec 20, 9:34 am, frank1492 wrote:
One of the wall sockets in my house has suddenly become unresponsive
to X-10 commands. I have switched appliance modules and no
difference. The wall socket is still active and appears normal except
for the X-10 issue.
Before this I noticed that the window candles had come on by
themselves.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Frank

unplug everything on that branch and try again.

Conjecture that some new load plugged in is stomping on the X10
signals.???

Not necessarily that branch, but that phase of the power.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Top posting has been known to stomp on X-10 signals.

frank1492 wrote:
I am not aware of any changes made. I thought maybe one of the candles
was getting ready to burn out so unscrewed all the bulbs. Actually the
candles did turn on by themselves once.
This is a very old house with many unmarked circuits so tracing
would be difficult.
What kind of a load would "stomp" on the signal? Examples?
Thanks!
Frank


An electric motor. A florescent light.

You can get a modes circuit tracer at HF for $20
http://www.harborfreight.com/circuit...ive-96934.html

frank1492 wrote:
I am not aware of any changes made. I thought maybe one of the candles
was getting ready to burn out so unscrewed all the bulbs. Actually the
candles did turn on by themselves once.
This is a very old house with many unmarked circuits so tracing
would be difficult.
What kind of a load would "stomp" on the signal? Examples?
Thanks!
Frank

Computers, electronics, power blocks, power strips, tool chargers, some CFL
bulbs. You just never know until you run into a problem. There are X10 filters
you can plug problem devices into then plug into the power to block them from
sucking up the signal. I have several of those filters to eliminate problems in
my house.

On Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:54:26 -0600, "HeyBub" wrote:

frank1492 wrote:
I am not aware of any changes made. I thought maybe one of the candles
was getting ready to burn out so unscrewed all the bulbs. Actually the
candles did turn on by themselves once.
This is a very old house with many unmarked circuits so tracing
would be difficult.
What kind of a load would "stomp" on the signal? Examples?
Thanks!
Frank


An electric motor. A florescent light.

Commie CFL. ;-)

You can get a modes circuit tracer at HF for $20
http://www.harborfreight.com/circuit...ive-96934.html

frank1492 wrote:
This is a pretty unsophisticated X-10 house as I use the modules only
at Christmas for window candles, and for controllling the curtain over
the screen in my home theater, so I probably wouldn't bother with the
repeater or filter route. For the time being, I have moved the
upstairs candles to another outlet, presumably on another circuit..
All of the comments suggest that something has changed to have
done this- new motor, CFL, etc. but I repeat that nothing has changed.
OTOH, could a CFL have gone bad, or could a bad X-10 module itself
cause a problem? For example, could a bad module somewhere else on the
same circuit (which appears to be functioning normally) cause other
modules not to work?
The circuit tracer sounds like an excellent idea but for the time
being I'll have to leave things alone. All of your comments, however,
will be saved for future reference if I get some free time after the
holidays.
Thanks again.
Frank

It's hard to really be sure nothing has changed. I've thought the same myself,
but then discovered some simple gadget someone else has plugged in or something
I forgot. The device could have simply been plugged in in a different location.
Again, it also could be a change in a neighbors house (on the same transformer).

Something you can do is try to make sure that the controller and devices it
controls are all on the same phase of the power. Unless you have a powered phase
coupler of some type, the undriven phase will likely have a significantly
smaller signal and will be less reliable.

On Dec 20, 11:34*am, frank1492 wrote:
One of the wall sockets in my house has suddenly become unresponsive
to X-10 commands. I have switched appliance modules and *no
difference. The wall socket is still active and appears normal except
for the X-10 issue.
* * Before this I noticed that the window candles had come on by
themselves.
* * Any ideas?
* * * Thanks
* * * Frank

Use an outlet tester to test the outlet connections would be my first
check. If this is good since you have replaced the appliance module
with a known good one I would suspect the controller. Try different
addresses on the controller and appliance module. Last resort would be
another controller.

Jimmie

On Dec 20, 11:39*pm, JIMMIE wrote:
On Dec 20, 11:34*am, frank1492 wrote:

One of the wall sockets in my house has suddenly become unresponsive
to X-10 commands. I have switched appliance modules and *no
difference. The wall socket is still active and appears normal except
for the X-10 issue.
* * Before this I noticed that the window candles had come on by
themselves.
* * Any ideas?
* * * Thanks
* * * Frank

Use an outlet tester to test the outlet connections would be my first
check. If this is good since you have replaced the appliance module
with a known good one I would suspect the controller. Try different
addresses on the controller and appliance module. Last resort would be
another controller.

Jimmie

Oh yeah almost forgot. I had a power strip with built in Radio
interference filter screw up not only the x10 lamps that were plugged
in to it but also some things that were on the same circuit.. I havent
had this problem lately put a lot of electronic circuits including
computers have internal Radio Interference Filters. circuits built in.

Jimmie