Converting an X-10 RF wallswitch to operate using a standard toggle switch

DL | You might find it easier to use a SPDT (aka three-way) switch and some DL | series capacitors.

DL | > Note that if you want the switch to do the same thing independent of DL | > which way it is flipped (e.g., to activate something that toggles) DL | > you can wire one capacitor between each contact and the pole. That DL | > way the switch shorts one capacitor as it brings the other across the DL | > circuit you are trying to control, eliminating the discharge time from DL | > consideration.

RG | That's an interesting concept. Do you think it would significantly increase RG | the drain on the coin cell battery?

DL | I wouldn't think so.

I just bought some RW684 2 channel wireless wall switches - the kind that use 4 AAA batteries to replace a similar 4 channel switch whose switch button has begun to require ever-increasing pressure to make contact. Now that I have the bad switch apart I want to see if I can, as suggested earlier, hook this switch up to a toggle-type lightswitch with more reliable contacts.

The circuit board "switches" look like big solder blobs and I can probably cut away the traces that lead to them and solder my own switch leads onto the board.

What's the best way to attach a wire to a circuit trace? I was thinking of drilling a tiny holy in the trace and scraping away enough of the green insulating coating to make a good joint. I could also trace the circuit path from the switch to the first discrete component, which I believe it a pin on the circuit board's IC, but there's not a heck of a lot of space to attach a new wire.

Also, does anyone care to take a guess what type and value of capacitor would be effective in the kind of setup Dan described?

P.S. and FWIW, the instructions with this switch say that banks 9 and 13 won't work with the RR-501 transmitter.

Thanks in advance!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green
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With the X-10 company you never know what you can believe. Their hardware/firmware changes without notice (sometimes dramatically) and instruction sheets are frequently obsolete or just plain wrong for what limited information they provide.

Regards, Charles Sullivan

Reply to
Charles Sullivan

I suppose this will be easy enough to check out. I have an RR501 running my HACS matrix switcher. I may not have run into the problem yet simply because the HACS only uses the first 8 unit codes of the housecode it's assigned to. I'll test it with some appliance modules and post the results.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

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