Cause of some major X10 problems found

You need to be more specific when referring to hardware. They made the LynX-10 for many years. It needed a TW523. The LynX-10PLC came along a few years after the X-10 patent expired.

It cannot show Palmpads colliding. Palmpads send RF to a transceiver which, in turn, send PLC codes on the powerline.

I prefer the tender, less chewy form.

Thanks! There's nothing like hands-on analysis. When high-energy gamma sources were first detected in space (ironically as a result of looking for nuclear weapons test ban violations!) the flood of explanations ranged from exploding galaxies to the exhaust trails of alien spacecraft. When we finally got better X-ray 'scopes in orbit and coordinated those observations with ground-based visual sightings, we discovered that these incredibly powerful bursts are extra-galactic in origin, not alien spacecraft! When a star collapses into a black hole, it's an event with a remarkably directional nature. When the emissions are pointing exactly in our direction, we see incredibly strong bursts of gamma radiation because the energy of the event is given off in very narrow beams.

-- Bobby G.

The new charger arrived and the troublesome one is on it's way to Jeff. BTW, the charger did not cause any problems with Insteon transmissions.

That's great! Thanks for your donation to "science." (-:

One point of clarification, though, if I might ask. Did the charger affect the Insteon switches operating in the X-10 mode?

-- Bobby G.

Robert Green wrote:

I didn't do any specific testing but my wife said that she had been using that charger here in the house with Insteon/X10 for several months and during that time I had no problems with any of the devices. She had it plugged into a circuit that also has both Insteon and X10 mode operations in close proximity and they never missed a beat. I do have an XTB-II here serving as a replacement for the Stargate's TW-523. Almost all commands are generated by the Stargate but an Insteon wall controller in the same room worked flawlessly. In the other house, I have only older X10 devices and use an XTB (not II) on the Time Commander's TW-523 and have a Smarthome Plug-In Dryer Repeater. The charger only affected one or two WS12 X10 switches on the same circuit and in close proximity to the charger with the problems stated earlier, specifically, no control from controllers and false ON's. This old installation will be retired next spring when we move to a new home in Houston that will have either newer generation X10 or maybe even Insteon. For the new home in Houston, I'm tempted to just reinstall all the newer (circa 2000) Leviton & Switchlinc X10 devices that the Insteon gear replaced in the Honolulu home. The biggest advantage to doing that is that it's already paid for and will work with my Time Commander+ or another Stargate I bought on ebay. With an XTB-II in the picture I think I can count on excellent reliability. If the X10 stuff doesn't cut it I can always upgrade to the Insteon line but I doubt very much that I'll need to do that.

I'm sure it's going to at least generate some interesting output for Jeff to analyze as well as provide a great real-world test for his noise rejection circuitry. Since each X-10 installation is unique, he might not see anything like the effects you saw. X-10 problems are idiosyncratic. When I have power blips, a lot of X-10 modules turn themselves on - but not all. I suspect things like location, load, proximity to other electronic devices and inherent vice all have an effect on module operation or more precisely, mis-operation.

I'd be curious to know if the new charger causes the same sort of problems in the same location as the old one did. In other words, is this a design flaw in the charger or just a defective (or out-of-spec) unit?

Now that John's sold me on the HomeVision controller I've been reading up on the caller ID and phone management function that I assume is similar, but perhaps not as capable, as the Stargate commander. I can see why you'd be reluctant to move to a new system that didn't support all those features. Now that the XTB's are here, I think I can finally abandon my feudal system of loosely federated X-10 controllers that I've relied on for so long in favor of a centralized controller. X-10 gear is now ridiculously cheap on Ebay as people with reliability problems abandon it for pennies on the dollar when they change to Insteon or Z-wave. Too bad they don't know about the XTBs.

-- Bobby G.

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We'll be back in Houston at the end of October so I'll have a chance to try that. Both the one I sent to Jeff and the replacement are NOT Nokia branded chargers but different (from each other) 6 buck aftermarket ones from Hong Kong ebay merchants. The brand name on the one I sent to Jeff is "Celltek" while the new one is unbranded.