| >|the impedance of the wiring itself but I don't quite understand how a 6825 | >|can attenuate alien signals without also attenuating legitimate signals | >|trying to go from 2B to 2C. | >
| >It can't. | | Then if the 6285 really will cause as much trouble for interpanel signals as | it will for alien signals, I don't see any advantage to using them here.
It's tricky to say without really knowing what's going on. If he is dealing with fixed-threshold receivers and if the noise is above the threshold then there is no choice but to reduce the noise(*), even if it is at the expense of valid signals. It's one of those communications problems where the best you can do is attenuate everything and increase the real signal to compensate. Without some kind of AGC or automatic threshold adjustment in the receivers, merely improving the signal to noise ratio doesn't help: the absolute noise level is what matters.
(*) Ok, you do have the choice of modifying the receivers to change the threshold. I did that with some generic X10 2-wire switches. There isn't much headroom, so you have to enjoy fiddling...
Alan has told us that the 6285s block signals from either panel reaching the other panel. Given that and your description of the 6285 internals I think he's dealing with a noise source that's internal to the apartment.
My experience with Leviton's tech support was SO awful I would buy *any* competitor's product first. I got the impression that they would tell customers anything just to get them off the line. As for answering tech emails - well, it never happened. One of their employees appeared briefly here a while back and confirmed a certain uniformity in their hiring process. Rude certainly fits like a glove. Maybe you'll have better luck, Bubee.
In your case, the situation is so complex that diagrams and explanations are required. That's probably not going to happen with a Leviton phone tech. I was never able to get an answer to my emails so I can't comment on their online support other than to notice its total lack thereof.
But you really don't know whether you have solved the problem or whether the mystery noise source has shut down for some reason, correct? This is why I think going with a repeater so soon is a bad idea. If there's noise so bad that it makes X-10 devices respond unbidden, then it's likely the noise is going to affect the repeater adversely, too. Besides, responding to a second copy of a command is never as good as responding to the first one. First off, it introduces a time delay - slight but noticeably. Secondly, it defeats the idea of sending two copies for redundancy.
If you can possibly do it, clean up your own wiring of any signal suckers, surge protectors, UPSs, switching power supplies for laptops, printers, etc., or anything else likely to "soak up" or otherwise impede X-10 signals. It means a lot of time at the breaker panel and running back and forth to outlets, but the only way to find these problem devices is to switch off all the breakers except the test transmitter and the meter and then turn the breakers back on one by one and watching the meter.
I'd been SO wary of adding more shmatteh to the system before I understood the underlying issues. KISS. It works SO well.
You don't need two repeaters - at least not yet (especially hinky HCA02-10E's), until your are SURE you have blocked your apartment wiring from the rest of the world. Until you take that step, your powerlines are at the mercy of whatever your neighbors are plugging in. No solution that leaves your home "powerline grid" vulnerable to outside PLC signals is going to keep the noise and perhaps other tenants X-10 signals from getting in. That's about as plain as it gets.
Yep.
It should, but that advice is mostly for single family homes. I still don't know what your wiring looks like, and were it my apartment I would be crawling all over it with an ESM-1, a Monterey PSLA and a fox and hound wire tracer set to understand where EVERY outlet goes to and what the signal attenuation looks like.
To do this I set up a TM751 in an outlet next to the circuit panel and then send it continuous signals from a transmitter with a purposefully jammed button. Then I go all over the house looking at the signal strength at various outlets. From their, I get a pretty good idea of what branches are problematic. Also, from there, I can shut off one leg of the house wiring after another to find circuits that contain suckers or other X-10 signal traps. A very long extension cord helps. You can plug the meter into almost any outlet in the house with it and still read it back at the panel(s). You'll probably be as surprised as I was to see how little voltage is lost on a run of 100' of extension cord. It was a good reminder that the problem is usually a few devices scattered throughout the home that are either generating noise or otherwise interfering with X-10 signals.
Ever consider that God knows you're cheating by using an electronic shabbos goy? Maybe that's why you are having so much tsores getting rid of your electronic dybbuks!
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Dave's Insteon suggestion sounded very good. You can phase couple via RF inside Faraday cages, if necessary.
There's no certainty that you can eliminate the noise. Like Dave, I've had periods where the ESM-1 shows high noise levels for days, and then nothing. The only hope to straighten your mess out is to KISS and solve one problem at a time.
Adding amplifiers and repeaters into a noisy environment isn't the right solution from the start. If you are dedicated to using X-10, you'll have to understand your apartment wiring completely. Are you near any radio or TV broadcast towers. I recall reading about someone with a similar problem in the archives. Apparently a nearby transmitter can put serious noise on the line via induction.
That's only if you want your conflicting advice in writing. :-)
You either have to filter it or find some other control topology.
Dan and Dave have explained why that's not feasible.
Optimist. Very few X-10 installations are *ever* finished. There's always some bug or intermittent operation or failure to contend with. But it's the cheapest thing on the market AND the most universal. We'll see if that continues.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@whocares.com (Dave Houston) writes: | ddl@danlan.*com (Dan Lanciani) wrote: | | >It's tricky to say without really knowing what's going on. If he is dealing | >with fixed-threshold receivers and if the noise is above the threshold then | >there is no choice but to reduce the noise(*), even if it is at the expense | >of valid signals. It's one of those communications problems where the best | >you can do is attenuate everything and increase the real signal to compensate. | >Without some kind of AGC or automatic threshold adjustment in the receivers, | >merely improving the signal to noise ratio doesn't help: the absolute noise | >level is what matters. | | Alan has told us that the 6285s block signals from either panel reaching the | other panel. Given that and your description of the 6285 internals I think | he's dealing with a noise source that's internal to the apartment.
Alan did say in his initial posting that he had confirmed that the source was external to his apartment in the usual way (i.e., by turning off all his own breakers except for the one with the meter), but since he didn't mention repeating the test with a different single breaker I suppose it's possible that he was mistaken. As I said, it's tricky to say without really knowing what is going on. I can only base my conclusions on the information Alan has provided, taken at face value...
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