Do these exist: "Instant on" or very rapid start CFL???

Is there such a thing as a true "instant start" CFL which produces full intensity brightness as soon as it is turned on? I am trying to find an indoor bulb which will not require any warm up period to attain full brightness.

I know that claims are made, but wonder if they are exaggerated or true. General Electric, for example, actually labels their bulbs as "instant on" but they are not 'instant'.

I also realize that colder temperatures prolong the ionization / warm up period, but my application is for indoor use at normal 70 degree F temperature.

Thanks for any advice.

Reply to
Smarty
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So what kind of cockamaime, contrived logic is behind this requirement?

The reason I ask is to not necessarily be hurtful, but to see if perhaps there is some other solution to your problem. People come in this newsgroup on a regular basis asking for some piece of Rube Goldberg unconventional uninvented technology to solve a problem that a different piece of common technology would solve with a lot less hassle.

Reply to
mkirsch1

As I posted earlier in this thread, my question arises from my attempt to provide bright hallway and staircase access for elderly people with diminished eyesight. The original 100 watt incandescent bulbs are only switched on briefly, and CFLs take too long to get adequately bright.

As it turns out, the recommendation from "Mal" was 100% correct. I went to Lowes today, found the recently introduced General Electric "hybrid technology" bulbs he described, and took some home for testing.

They work superbly well.

The two part hybrid design automatically turns on both the CFL and halogen filament to provide full intensity output upon start-up. As the CFL warms up, the halogen bulb is extinguished, and within maybe a minute or so the lamp is 100% CFL.

There is a small color shift as the color temperature shifts from warmer (approx 2500 degrees Kelvin) to a cooler, bluer CFL temperature as the halogen lamp is replaced by the CFL output. The effect is not something you would normally see unless you are looking for it.

The 75 watt equivalent version of the bulb consumes 20 watts, produces over 1200 lumens output, is warrantied for 5 years for free replacement, and is estimated to last for 7.3 years in average service. They are sold at Lowes for $13 for two bulbs.

This is an ideal solution for me, saving a lot of watts, maintaining true "instant on", and having (supposedly) a long, warrantied life expectancy.

The nearest LED equivalent at Lowes was being offered on "clearance" for $29 for 1 bulb. Much longer predicted life but considerably lower lumens, 840 to be exact.

I am extremely impressed with this new, dual hybrid design from a lighting performance point of view. Time will tell if their MTBF / failure / life expectancy prediction holds.

I personally trust that GE will stand behind their warranty and are unlikely to be exaggerating their claims. On the other hand, I have several examples of "instant on" CFLs from Sylvania, Phillips, etc. which are not in any way delivering anywhere near full output until literally a minute or two after they are switched on. This GE is in a class by itself.

Thanks again to all who responded. As always, the knowledge and talent on this forum is incredible and very much appreciated.

Reply to
Smarty

That's great news. I am about to order one from Amazon to see how they interact with my X-10 home automation system. CFL bulbs have been a serious problem for X-10 users because their electronic profile is so different from tungsten incandescent bulbs, the kind X-10 was designed around. Of course, Amazon's price is double that of Lowe's, but it might be weeks before I got up that way and I wanted to see how X-10 controller modules reacted to the lightbulb.

I'm hoping these will eliminate the terrible problem of CFL's turning themselves back on because of how they work with the slight current trickle used in X-10 circuits to sense local control of the switch. I've got my fingers crossed. It could be the miracle bulb for both of us!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Bobby,

I had a very elaborate X-10 set-up in my home, with many devices being controlled by remote switches, and most of the lighting controlled by both the dimmable and non-dimmable wall switches. I had a couple dozen devices in total, and a bridge to ensure that both of my 110 volt feeds were coupled to pass the comparatively weak control signals from some home branch circuits to another. The system worked pretty reliably for many years.

Once I switched to CFLs as well as standard fluorescent tubes, my X-10 system became totally unreliable with all sorts of false triggers. Putting a scope on my AC line made it instantly obvious that the EMI created by these lighting devices was much stronger than the X-10 signals. Furthermore, the X-10 code length was too short to ensure no false triggering, given the noise environment.

I disconnected all of my X-10 stuff but have considered going to a newer Zigby or other RF controlled local are net approach with supervised switches capable of reporting their status back to the controller. I have had terrible luck with any AC carrier line devices, including some CCTV video cameras from Logitech and other devices which try to piggy-back on the AC lines once I went to CFLs and flouresents.

The noise levels are just overwhelming for these sensitive carrier devices like X-10. And the signaling was never designed to be robust enough to cope with the noisy channel either. They would need to do longer codes sent more redundantly to get anywhere near acceptable behavior.

Reply to
Smarty

You know, the funny thing is that I have had both good and bad with x10. In my old house, in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago, it worked, but to a point. I couldn't have too many modules, or the signals would get swamped. I tried using the X10 amplifier/phase repeater and the results were disastrous. So I had to go with a passive phase coupler. It would continuously send out random x10 commands which were apparently triggered off noise. But, for the most part, if I "obeyed the rules" it worked. Here in the western mountains of NC, I use that amplifier/phase coupler, and it works perfectly. I am basically using 1 house code and all 16 channels. I do have a motion detector on another house code. I do occasionally see an anomaly, but they are few and far between.

Reply to
Art Todesco

I agree. Some locations everything works fine, others, not so good. I had two repeaters, a Leviton and an X-10 model and neither compared to the XTB repeater because the XTB boosts the signal to 25V whereas most X-10 gear transmits with 5V or less. Long cable runs, shoplights, UPS's and switched power supplies all eat into the X-10 signal in various ways. The XTB cuts through them all.

Jeff's XTB gear is superbly designed, thoroughly tested and flawlessly assembled. The kits he's built for me look machine soldered.

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-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

repeater/coupler/amplifiers

Not true. The XTB is far from a cosmetic fix. It's an impeccably engineered solution to a serious problem for people with a lot of X-10 gear. Once you install a powerful repeater/coupler/amp like the XTB-IIR at the panel, X-10 behaves just like it should. It just works. Read some of the reviews at Jeff's site

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or my article at Home Toys:

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I was at the point where my wife demanded all the X-10 gear be yanked because of some spectacular failures. That's when I found the XTB, the product of an American small businessman in Utah named Jeff Volp. After testing a beta version of his invention, I believed he had really hit the ball out of the park. This definitely isn't the cosmetic fix your "lipstick" comment might seem to imply. It addresses and corrects the fundamental flaw of X-10: too weak a signal to cut through the interference generated by modern electrical gear. And it fixes that problem. People with massive X-10 installations report amazing success. Just search Google Groups for unsolicited testimonials.

Since you often stress the value of small businesses and personal initiative, I would have hoped your reaction might be more than a curt one line-dismissal without any apparent serious investigation. Jeff's developed and built a great product that's been a real life-safer to 100's of X-10 owners. Dissing a hard-working small businessman with a great idea that's helped so many based on zero research? Not very American. I suppose you'd rather curse the darkness than look for a flashlight. Too bad. It's an excellent product with a very satisfied user base. If you use X-10 and don't look into the XTB line, it's definitely your loss, not mine.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

In the past I had a X 10 motion sensitive system on my pole light. Nice idea worked terrible:( temperature and noisey line unstable.

I thought about some work arounds but decided it wasnt worth it.

Has anyone tried LED lamps on X 10?

they didnt exist when I last played with it.

X 10 was wonderful for my elderly grandma it controlled so much around here:) ==================================================== You also sound like a candidate for Jeff Volp's XTB line of repeater/coupler/amplifiers:

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I have not tried LED bulbs with X-10 because I was burned as an early adopter of CFLs and the price is still too high. That's why I was interested in the hybrid bulb, to see if they behaved somewhat better under X-10 control.

Something someone just wrote about resistive inserts in the back of LED flashlights has given me an idea. CFL's confound stock X-10 devices because X-10 depends on trickle current passing through the bulbs both the power the controller module and to detect "local switching." By leaking a tiny bit of current (IIRC, about 5ma) through the filament, the circuitry was able to detect someone flipping the switch on the lamp base and thus activate the module. This trickle current does NOT pass through a CFL bulb circuitry the same way.

But what if someone made a small disk that was screwed into the socket between the CFL and the center socket pin that contained a resistor that allowed just enough current to pass to still power the module electronics and the "local sense" feature? Wouldn't that disk also prevent the current that leaks through the CFL bulb from causing it to flash or in some cases relight itself completely? Do they still sell those little "bulb life extender" disks that fit into the sockets the same way I've described?

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Bobby, I can understand how signal processing and amplification can improve the proper detection / triggering from X-10 controllers, but I can't understand how it could help reduce the false triggering from noise such as CFL-generated EMI.

If the receivers in each X-10 module have frequent false triggering from noise, as mine most certainly do whenever the fluorescent lights are turned on, they remain susceptible to false alarms / triggers even if the controller signals are amplified.

The receivers still suffer from a poorly designed X-10 signaling code design, and rely on millivolt-level amplitudes of the 125 KHz signal to threshold their detectors. In this regard, they should remain as vulnerable to noise as they were originally, despite the boost in signal strength for the controller signals they receive.

Reply to
Smarty

Howdy, fellow X10'er! Too bad we didn't meet sooner because I think I could have helped save your sizable-sounding investment in X10 gear.

Unfortunately, there are wildly varying brands and designs of CFL's. GE's gave me NO end of trouble. Then Marc Hult of CHA suggested the N:Vision line of bulbs from Home Depot and suddenly, no more noise. That simple change made a world of difference. While many noisy CFL's can be cured by

5A line filters, it's much, MUCH better to switch to a brand of bulbs that isn't spewing EMI like Mt. Vesuvius during an eruption and that don't require filtration.

X10 makes switches that can confirm their position to a central controller. Zigbee has been "just around the corner" for at least 10 years now. It's a good idea - and home automation will take a quantum leap when manufacturers build automation interfaces into their appliances - but it's been a long time since the promise of Zigbee was made.

You probably do need to invest in some X-10 line filters and look at trying different bulbs. Pick up and scope an N:Vision bulb from Home Depot. I have two X-10 meters, the Monterey and the XTBM (well three, the Elk, but it is rather primitive) that allow me to read noise levels in millivolts near the AC zero crossing where the signal "resides." The worst offender was a Cellet cellphone charger that put out pseudo-X10 signals continuously, corrupting nearby transmissions and blocking far away ones. Second worst was a shoplite that had tested "OK for X10" when I installed it (no noise or signal attenuation) but that began to "sing" very loudly at 118KHz once the bulbs started darkening at the ends.

Politely beg to differ. I can't stress enough how my whole, huge and at the time entirely unreliable X-10 installation came right under control as soon as I put the XTB-IIR in at the panel. The wife gained in two ways: The X10 signals just plain worked now and since I was rearranging the panel, I was able to add three new grounded lines to the kitchen. It's as close to magic as you're likely to get. (-;

Up until I discussed the shortage of breakers in my panel with Jeff (to add the XTB-IIR coupler/repeater/amp) I did not know about "dual skinny" breakers. I got a number of those, rebalanced the panel and added four new circuits altogether. Now my wife could operate a microwave, the toaster oven and a hot plate all at the same time without blowing a breaker. Win-win!

Check it out, I am sure you're be blown away if you add one to your system. It sounds like a guy like you could even assemble your own. Jeff "kits" those DIY units even better than Heathkit so that there's no mistake, even with tiny, unmarked diodes.

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-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

If you're unfortunate enough to have really noisy CFL's and other gear, they probably need to be put behind a filter. They come in a form that looks like an appliance manual and can be had on sale from Ebay for $5 each (list $20).

I've been looking at this problem with other posters for a long, long time and I believe what you are seeing is not triggering from noise but a) either a collision that corrupts a valid X-10 signal or the very annoying tendency of the "local sense" circuitry to turn the module back on because it interprets the flashing of the CFL bulb (as the trickle current builds up in the CFL power supply caps) as someone jiggling the local switch in an attempt to turn on the light. Art T. referred to how to defeat this problem, although the cure has its downsides, some serious.

To really understand the X-10 noise problem it takes something more than a scope. You need to be able to interpret X-10 commands frame by frame. There are devices like the Monterey Powerline Analyzer,

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to see that there are noise corrupted frames from loud noise sources, but as much as I've tried to prove under laboratory conditions that an X-10 unit can read "noise" as a properly formatted X-10 command and execute it are very slim indeed. The encoding, while primitive in terms of modern electronics, makes it very difficult to generate a valid code from noise. I didn't always believe this, but smarter minds have convinced me over the years that inadvertent turning on of equipment, which does happen, has a source other than noise taking the shape of a valid X-10 command.

I've searched for the Holy Grail of the noise-created command it and have even gone so far as to purchase a Lynx meter that can dissect an X-10 frame down to the individual bits - the ones compliment level used to create an X-10 bit that is used to create the X-10 frame.

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I've been just as perplexed as you have been about where the F^CK all this noise and these spurious turn ons (and offs) were coming from. Unfortunately a scope can't easily show X-10 signals in the way that the Lynx, Monterey or XTBM meters can.

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They dissect each cycle, read the bit, read the power behind each bit, read the noise level at the time the command transmits, etc.

When I had collisions it was because I had multiple TM751 and RR501's on the line and they would not always synch. They could (and did) collide and the resulting frame could be interpreted as a valid command. But IIRC, both Jeff and I did extensive testing with noise sources and they never generated a single valid X-10 command. I looked for weeks creating a special test bench to "listen" to the noise that the Cellet charger (Bruce Robin of CHA found the tiny Cellet, a legendary imp from X-10 hell - the charger, not Bruce!) . Isolated from the rest of the house by triple filtering, I let the Cellet sing and sing its X10-like noise. Nada. Only when I put an X-10 transmitter on that test circuit did I see fragments of legitimate commands - but still no true "phantom" commands. When I put a second transmitter in the circuit I began to see what looked like phantom codes, created out of noise but were really two signals collided and being corrupted with noise at the same time.

Noise can interfere with commands but it can't create them. X-10 expert and creator of several landmark X-10 devices and software, Dave Houston in CHA explained it to me several times before I began to understand it. I'll try to Google up what he wrote back then about the X-10 encoding methods and the creation of spurious yet valid commands from noise.

When the X-10 signal is decoded and boosted by the XTB-IIR it put onto both phases at 25V through the use of enormous capacitors in the repeater that you just can't fit into wall modulers. With that sort of signal, EM interference becomes mostly a non issue. I'm betting that with a little detective work, an XTB-IIR and *maybe* some plug-in filters for the really bad noise sources, your system will work like it was designed to.

There are some insanely noisy devices that transmit noise right at 120KHz and they have to be eliminated or filtered if they are plugged into an outlet that's very close to the circuit panel. I'm guessing (based on what everyone else who's tried one reports) that you'll see almost all the problems you've noted drop away when any stragglers go behind filters, which you can get in bulk on Ebay for $5 each. Those filters, on your worst noisemakers, could significantly improve the performance of your other line carrier devices, too.

X-10 is like any other home enhancement endeavor. There are tricks, tools and tips that can make the difference between a hack job and a pro installation. XTB's, filters and an X-10 signal meter are now what it takes to be a player. It's just like CAT5 and CCTV work needs good crimpers, tools, testers, different meters, pliers, testers, etc. There's a minimum ante to get into the big game. X-10 is *mostly* plug-and-play but changes to the nature of home electrical equipment have required some adaptation. I am just incredibly glad I didn't have to ditch $1K plus of X-10 gear and have to select a new protocol and rewrite all the code that enables security lighting, motion detection, etc. Gawd, the amount of work the XTB saved me is just frikkin' enormous. The reliability it has returned to the system makes it now a 99.9 sort of proposition when it was almost 50/50 before the XTB. Would a command make it thru? No one could say for sure. Now, it just works. Every time.

Whenever I buy anything new that plugs into the line, I check it out on my X-10 meters to see if it's a serious noise emitter. Usual suspects are UPS's, cheap plug-in chargers, laser printers and of course, CFL's. If it's outrageously bad I take it back because all the noise usually equals "bad or cheap design."

Second tier offenders are dimmers, shoplites, LCD TV's and a few other oddball items here and there. But there has not been anything I couldn't second source in a quieter model, from UPS's (avoid APS and Belkin) and CFLs (The N:vision brand from Home Depot are cheap, come in several color temps and have withstood the test of time. The GE spirals did not.)

I've got an enormous X-10 installation and being able to extend its life for a few hundred bucks has turned out to be a very good investment seeing how slowly other HA protocols are evolving. I have lots of lines of code in my automation controller I'd be loathe to rewrite for some other language. I have X-10 modules and capacities that are yet to be duplicated by any other protocol. And most important, no other protocol comes close to X-10's price point.

I can't speak for Jeff but I'll bet he'd take back a unit if it didn't work out for you. For anyone teetering on the brink of yanking their X-10 because of reliability problems, this is something they owe it to themselves to try.

Sorry to sound like such a salesman but I've seen poster after poster in Comp.Home.Automation get one and go "WOW! This changed everything!" If you're X-10 is flaking out, you owe it to yourself to at least give it a try. Seeing is believing. My wife, a saint for putting up with X-10's devilish nature for 10 years made this remark: "It just works." Anyone with a flaky system knows how important that is to spouses who don't necessarily share our love for gadgets. Well, mine anyway!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Thanks Bobby for your great insights and elaboration regarding X-10.

At one time quite a few years ago, long before fluorescent lighting and other issues degraded my X-10 system, I had a very workable arrangement here, and used it without complaints for perhaps 2 decades or longer.

Over the course of the last few years, I have moved a lot of my branch circuits over to a transfer panel for a standby generator, removed the phase couplers and amplifiers and some filters I had added, and essentially removed most of my X-10 components except those within very close proximity to one another.

I have no doubts whatsoever that proper filters, additional amplifiers, careful removal of the worst offending noise sources, etc. could tame my system. I just no longer have an interest in doing any of this, and I do have many hard-wired Ethernet devices doing the specific things I need to do with little or no problems.

I've had commercial and ham FCC licenses since the 1950s, and have built

35 Heathkits in total, as well as spent most of my professional career as an electrical / electronics engineer, so the technical aspects are comfortable and familiar. I attended classes with Irv Reed, who (quite famously) co-developed the Reed Solomon coding methods (at MIT / Lincoln Labs) still used prominently to mitigate bit errors in communication channels, and still feel up to the task of analyzing and designing such things. In the case of my own X-10 EMI as well as the more troublesome wideband EMI that compromises my shortwave and AM reception, I have learned to live with it. Even if I am willing to invest the time and effort and money, my neighbors still create a lot of powerline and near DC to 20 MHz trash as well.

I entirely agree that Zigbee has been far too long in coming although there are some devices out there. Hardly a replacement for X-10 at this point. And Insteon appears to have gained enough traction and solved enough problems to be the real contender at this stage.

Reply to
Smarty

However, many X-10 modules and switches are susceptible to spikes. X-10 even notes this in some of their online documentation. Usually, the spikes turn things on but I had an old fluorescent fixture that nearly always turned one of my lights off whenever the fluorescent was switched on. You could see arcing in the fluorescent switch each time as well. I replaced it with an Insteon switch which handled it with no apparent problems.

Reply to
dlh

Many of the problems they have solved have been of their own creation. Most, if not all, of their switches, modules, computer interfaces, etc. are now on the third or fourth iteration since Insteon started, with many of the newer features and fixes making older ones obsolete.

Reply to
dlh

I'm worse that a reformed smoker when it comes to preaching XTB. I really was just about to dump a lot of time and effort spent with X-10, CPUXA, HomeVision, etc. because the signal propagation became so unreliable. Even WITH couplers, repeaters and every other thing I threw at it, eventually including a futile "feudal" system of RF transcievers control items local to them (electrically speaking) because that was the only way to counter the horrendous amounts of line noise besides filters, and even then the "Did Not Turn On" events were getting to be the norm. Totally unacceptable.

That makes you, as I suspected "an early adopter" who likes to keep up with current technology. Lots of vendors were selling X-10 gear in the 1980s. It also makes you vulnerable to having some of the noisiest "first edition" gear out there, as was the case with so many CFL bulbs and the parallel electronic ballast technology for fluorescent tubes. The early CFL lamps were very X-10 unfriendly. The very early CFLs I bought, Chinese-made "Lights of America" $10 bulbs were like miniature broadcast stations, they were so noisy they could pass beyond a normal X-10 filter with ease.

You are not alone in describing the devolution of your X-10 system. There used to be only two defenses to the problems X-10 experienced with its new neighbors (switched power supplies, mostly) on the home powerline:

One was extensive filtering which gets a little tiring after the tenth one is installed. Filters comes with as many problems as it solves. )-:

The other was decentralizing - the feudal approach. The constant failing of remote signaling leads to disconnection, module by module. I call it the feudal approach because it parallels the way the Vandals sacked Rome and destroyed the remarkable lines of communication and commerce of the Empire from the outside in. Far reaching outposts are abandoned and central command devolves into local "stronghold" garrisons that are situated and act in a way favorable to staying alive. But I digress . . .

Then you're probably NOT a candidate for the XTB. The optimum point seems to be in the first stages of X-10 disconnection, where you stop using it for things that are going to piss you off like outside lights that burn all day because X-10 signals are iffy. You've moved into the next stage: you've converted critical (I assume) functions that used to be X-10 into hardwired Ethernet devices, inherently more reliable and manageable but IIRC, orders of magnitude more expensive than X-10. Has that changed?

I've gone all out and attached an XTB to my all-housecode transciever and to some other critical transmitting gear so I could indeed go back to "plug and play." That's more than most people would do - for them an XTB coupler repeater might suffice but I'm a PC builder and there's a lot of EMI running around my house and I wanted the lights to just work. And for PLC, the commands always get through now. It's just like it used to be in 1985 when I pulled all the light switches and converted them to X-10.

I apologize if it sounded like I was impugning your CV. It's infinitely superior to mine. In getting to know Jeff and several other designer/builders of X-10 gear I've realized that it does take highly specialized gear to make sense of the X-10 signal. You obviously know that the X-10 signal is not just an bit train without any error correction whatsoever. It's primitive but it's there and it seems to be enough. Take a look at Jeff's pages - you'll be able to appreciate the quality of the units, the thought that went into building them and his ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

Obviously. (-:

I'm sure you have the IQ, but even the smartest guys who design and still maintain X-10 systems for a living own X-10 specific meters and analyzers. From what I was told a long time ago (hence very unreliable!) you need a scope with digital storage and even then you'd have to count hex to decode what you were seeing. Analyzers like the Monterey do all that grunt work (alas with no easy recordabilty until now for me*) and present a decoded (or not) human understandable display of what commands were sent and, depending on the meter, a lot more. You can read the strength of each bit in a single frame. The noise level at different "windows" of the AC cycles, the frequency of that noise, whether the frame you were measuring was the first frame, the second frame, or a repeater-enhanced second frame. Why would you care? Well, when two transmitters collide, a bit by bit voltage map will show that and give you a relative idea how far from the meter each device is. Meters can detect many other conditions that the best ham radio operator in the world would have to laboriously decode manually. That's why the X-10 meter has been invented over and over again in so many different formats!

What I am trying to say is that unless you have some pretty specialized tools in your radio shack, investigating serious X-10 problems isn't very easy with a scope, even if only you need to drag it to a few different outlets or get 100' long extension cords.

Well, you're clearly out of my league. (-: Maybe Jeff will chime in and talk about all the troublesome installations he's tamed. I realize you've taken another path with Ethernet and I believe that some form or wireless Ethernet home automation solution will dominate the market - the "highway" is already built and is usually power-failure protected and standalone (no PC required). Until X-10 for Ethernet appears, I'm going to stick with X-10 for lights, fans and other non-critical appliances. For the rest of the stuff, I've got a HomeVision expansion board with relay and sensor chain channels. Not quite as plug and play as the Ethernet but sufficient to monitor and execute criminal (oops, I meant critical!) functions in the house. Since Ethernet is workable world-wide, it's going to overtake any proprietary protocol. Why build another highway when so many layers of the OSI network are already built, usually with enormous overcapacity (at least

1GB nets in the house, anyway)?

I'm amazed they survived the recession. Lots of similar "modern living" stores folded during that time. I've been stranded by companies going out of business before. Their proprietary nature gives me pause. But I agree, they seem to be the only contender out of many that appeared around the year

2000, except for hoary old CeBuS (cough) that still has defenders throughout the world but that never lived up to the hype.

Sorry if I offended you. My proselytizing is better aimed at people who haven't yet converted away from X-10. Maybe that number is shrinking because a lot of people have disconnected back to ground zero or who just use a minitimer to control some lights when they are away

-- Bobby G.

*I've set my XTBM meter up in front of a small, focusable B&W minicam (less than $20) that is recorded on the fourth channel of my CCTV recorder. This way I can call up the video and play it in slo mo, reviewing all the commands received in the last week. I can also see real-time readings of X-10 from any TV in the house.
Reply to
Robert Green

"Deal roach?" Sounds like a three-position switch based on the Monty "Hall" effect." (-"

I assume from the context that should be "dead roach" because the pins of the IC are face up like a dead bug. Guys like you and Dan Lanciani are better technicians than I'll ever be. I've seen some of the added IC modifications and while they are neat, and while I certainly can think of some mods that need doing, it's not in my skill set. Palmpads, in particular, should be prevented from sending more than 10 seconds worth of commands so that when a button gets stuck, it doesn't jam the RF until you find the miscreant transmitter.

I've done a number of the mods, some work, some don't. Most are based on the older X-10 module designs. I've sadly found that one of the "hacks" kills local control but NOT current leakage. X-10 definitely should create a CFL-friendly module with either a slide switch or a programmable way to defeat "local on/current sense." I'm pretty reluctant to modify these modules (or anything else that's line powered) because if a fire starts for any reason, I've left myself exposed to an investigator citing my mods as the problem (however slim).

In any event, some of the appliance modules I have (RCA, Magnavox, Stanley and other gotten at deep discounts when they abandoned the lines) don't have circuits that match the ones shown in the mods. I'll have to search again to see if the newer circuit boards have been researched and modified, too. I hate disabling local sense - so much so I'll put a small resistive load on the same circuit to absorb the trickle current. Some of the newer, larger wattage CFL's seem to be able to relight themselves even with other electrical devices plugged into the same controller module. It's a problem the X-10 has to fix on their end with a module more compatible with CFLs. The new Federal efficiency law may force their hand, at least if they don't want to answer the same question every day on their support lines.

Plus, it's a pain in the butt to do anymore than open and snip the diode (the fix that doesn't work!) or cap a EagleEye CDS cell with a piece of heat shrink tubing (does work to control the +1 beast. In looking over the X-10 site for a CFL friendly module I see that finally, X-10 has made the +1 code activation a programmable selection and not one that had to be cured with heat shrink tubing. Maybe they've got something in the works because I'd bet half the tech calls they receive are related to fluorescent lighting, one way or another. Thanks for your input, Art.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

This was the same stage I reached Bobby, but with less effort on my part to really solve the problem. I just "gave up" and concluded that the X-10 hardware was better suited for a different era.

A lot of X-10 hardware I added to my system came from the X-10 web site and their many enticing offers. They often sold "buy this and get that free" or "buy two and we will give you two more" types of deals and I am a total sucker for discounts, rebates, etc. I wound up buying and installing at least 20 more X-10 items during that period, most of which worked fine until the fluorescent lighting and switched power supplies began to multiply in my home.

I particularly began to experience severe signal attenuation as I began using power strips, or otherwise loading my branch circuits. I attributed this to shunt capacitance but may not be correct in this assumption. I briefly played with different power strips, but as I got less control of distant devices, my solution also became more localized (and thus less useful).

I am really beyond an X-10 line carrier solution. I have also unsuccessfully tried other power line carrier devices, including intercoms, CCTV surveillance cameras, and Ethernet extenders, and not a single device I have tried works reliably when my fluorescent lighting is turned on. Some of it does not work even when the fluorescent lighting is turned off.

No apologies needed Bobby, and I was merely trying to make the point that I am not over my head with this stuff, and have spent a lot of hours with logic analyzers, DSOs, spectrum analyzers, and much home built RF gear, and find the X-10 problem to be much better solved with other methods rather than X-10. I sincerely do believe that all the false triggering of my lights whenever the CFLs are turned on is entirely a noise issue, and that a longer code or better protected code would minimize or prevent this problem entirely. There are no collisions of actual X-10 in this situation since no deliberate X-10 transmissions are being sent. The X-10 receivers are totally responding to the noise and interpreting it as if it were X-10, and my lights come on all over the place with regularity and relatively annoying frequency within seconds or minutes after certain CFLs are switched on manually in other parts of the house.

I agree and I have never brought any big guns into this problem solving. I fundamentally say that turning on a noise source causes frequent false triggering, with no X-10 traffic, and thus I must either reduce the noise or improve the receiver / detector. Deliberate X-10 triggering is an entirely different matter, also suffering from severe probability of detection versus false alarm rate issues. In this latter case, SNR is indeed an issue, and power density per bit, SNR across bits, frames, etc. would be meaningful to measure and talk about, but my most severe issues were entirely false triggering with no X-10 traffic present. This is what prompted my comment regard code design / code length / protection bits / etc. in the common situation I experience where random lights turned on very often but only when CFLs where pumping out noise.

Bobby, your comments and suggestions regarding X-10 are very insightful, and no offense of any kind is taken. I also hope my comments are not seen as offensive in any way. My lack of enthusiasm has mostly to do with the timing of any X-10 improvements, which for me would have made sense perhaps a year or two ago, but now seem pretty irrelevant. I have disconnected and removed many devices, and still own and use a few localized X-10 systems where they continue to work reliably.

This is a very ingenious and inexpensive alternative to a DSO or logic analyzer. What a clever approach!

Reply to
Smarty

Thanx for all your insight RG! You have a lot of experience and I sit in the same ballpark with X10 as Smarty. I have moved and not even attempted to make more than a few units work. After going through about six different motion detectors wired into standard light switches (not X10) I have realized I may be beating a dead horse to make any X10 units work off any single circuit breaker run. The AC noise here is just brutal and I will need to resolve a lot of it before more attempts are futile.

Once more of my major home construction winds up, hopefully this year, I will want to get these, and more, devices working reliably.

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I'm worse that a reformed smoker when it comes to preaching XTB. I really was just about to dump a lot of time and effort spent with X-10, CPUXA, HomeVision, etc. because the signal propagation became so unreliable. Even WITH couplers, repeaters and every other thing I threw at it, eventually including a futile "feudal" system of RF transcievers control items local to them (electrically speaking) because that was the only way to counter the horrendous amounts of line noise besides filters, and even then the "Did Not Turn On" events were getting to be the norm. Totally unacceptable.

That makes you, as I suspected "an early adopter" who likes to keep up with current technology. Lots of vendors were selling X-10 gear in the 1980s. It also makes you vulnerable to having some of the noisiest "first edition" gear out there, as was the case with so many CFL bulbs and the parallel electronic ballast technology for fluorescent tubes. The early CFL lamps were very X-10 unfriendly. The very early CFLs I bought, Chinese-made "Lights of America" $10 bulbs were like miniature broadcast stations, they were so noisy they could pass beyond a normal X-10 filter with ease.

You are not alone in describing the devolution of your X-10 system. There used to be only two defenses to the problems X-10 experienced with its new neighbors (switched power supplies, mostly) on the home powerline:

One was extensive filtering which gets a little tiring after the tenth one is installed. Filters comes with as many problems as it solves. )-:

The other was decentralizing - the feudal approach. The constant failing of remote signaling leads to disconnection, module by module. I call it the feudal approach because it parallels the way the Vandals sacked Rome and destroyed the remarkable lines of communication and commerce of the Empire from the outside in. Far reaching outposts are abandoned and central command devolves into local "stronghold" garrisons that are situated and act in a way favorable to staying alive. But I digress . . . Then you're probably NOT a candidate for the XTB. The optimum point seems to be in the first stages of X-10 disconnection, where you stop using it for things that are going to piss you off like outside lights that burn all day because X-10 signals are iffy. You've moved into the next stage: you've converted critical (I assume) functions that used to be X-10 into hardwired Ethernet devices, inherently more reliable and manageable but IIRC, orders of magnitude more expensive than X-10. Has that changed?

I've gone all out and attached an XTB to my all-housecode transciever and to some other critical transmitting gear so I could indeed go back to "plug and play." That's more than most people would do - for them an XTB coupler repeater might suffice but I'm a PC builder and there's a lot of EMI running around my house and I wanted the lights to just work. And for PLC, the commands always get through now. It's just like it used to be in 1985 when I pulled all the light switches and converted them to X-10.

I apologize if it sounded like I was impugning your CV. It's infinitely superior to mine. In getting to know Jeff and several other designer/builders of X-10 gear I've realized that it does take highly specialized gear to make sense of the X-10 signal. You obviously know that the X-10 signal is not just an bit train without any error correction whatsoever. It's primitive but it's there and it seems to be enough. Take a look at Jeff's pages - you'll be able to appreciate the quality of the units, the thought that went into building them and his ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

Obviously. (-:

I'm sure you have the IQ, but even the smartest guys who design and still maintain X-10 systems for a living own X-10 specific meters and analyzers. From what I was told a long time ago (hence very unreliable!) you need a scope with digital storage and even then you'd have to count hex to decode what you were seeing. Analyzers like the Monterey do all that grunt work (alas with no easy recordabilty until now for me*) and present a decoded (or not) human understandable display of what commands were sent and, depending on the meter, a lot more. You can read the strength of each bit in a single frame. The noise level at different "windows" of the AC cycles, the frequency of that noise, whether the frame you were measuring was the first frame, the second frame, or a repeater-enhanced second frame. Why would you care? Well, when two transmitters collide, a bit by bit voltage map will show that and give you a relative idea how far from the meter each device is. Meters can detect many other conditions that the best ham radio operator in the world would have to laboriously decode manually. That's why the X-10 meter has been invented over and over again in so many different formats!

What I am trying to say is that unless you have some pretty specialized tools in your radio shack, investigating serious X-10 problems isn't very easy with a scope, even if only you need to drag it to a few different outlets or get 100' long extension cords.

Well, you're clearly out of my league. (-: Maybe Jeff will chime in and talk about all the troublesome installations he's tamed. I realize you've taken another path with Ethernet and I believe that some form or wireless Ethernet home automation solution will dominate the market - the "highway" is already built and is usually power-failure protected and standalone (no PC required). Until X-10 for Ethernet appears, I'm going to stick with X-10 for lights, fans and other non-critical appliances. For the rest of the stuff, I've got a HomeVision expansion board with relay and sensor chain channels. Not quite as plug and play as the Ethernet but sufficient to monitor and execute criminal (oops, I meant critical!) functions in the house. Since Ethernet is workable world-wide, it's going to overtake any proprietary protocol. Why build another highway when so many layers of the OSI network are already built, usually with enormous overcapacity (at least

1GB nets in the house, anyway)?

I'm amazed they survived the recession. Lots of similar "modern living" stores folded during that time. I've been stranded by companies going out of business before. Their proprietary nature gives me pause. But I agree, they seem to be the only contender out of many that appeared around the year

2000, except for hoary old CeBuS (cough) that still has defenders throughout the world but that never lived up to the hype.

Sorry if I offended you. My proselytizing is better aimed at people who haven't yet converted away from X-10. Maybe that number is shrinking because a lot of people have disconnected back to ground zero or who just use a minitimer to control some lights when they are away

-- Bobby G.

*I've set my XTBM meter up in front of a small, focusable B&W minicam (less than $20) that is recorded on the fourth channel of my CCTV recorder. This way I can call up the video and play it in slo mo, reviewing all the commands received in the last week. I can also see real-time readings of X-10 from any TV in the house.
Reply to
Josepi

It's certainly true that X-10 didn't age very gracefully. But there's not much in the world that even COULD make the transition to a different "electronic" era. AM/FM radios still work, but not TVs. Think of all the dead audio and video formats (I have *both* kinds of "video disc" players I'm keeping for antique value). X-10's design is remarkable in a number of ways and uses some pretty clever techniques to do its magic.

Many of its problems come from features other HA systems don't even have, like local sensing when a user turns a lamp switch on. I suspect that's the circuitry that's most vulnerable to line noise and spikes. Some even come from its biggest "feature" - its low cost. People who didn't know what X-10 was were buying it because of their early voucher deals. Rather than pay the programmer who developed their obnoxious pop-under ads, they basically gave away their inventory as a loss-leader. Or so some wags in the industry say. I once calculated from some of their filings that there are up to 2

*million* X-10 users (or should I say owners of X-10 equipment?) out there. People found out the hard way that it didn't "scale up" well in a quite insidious way. Every transmitter is also a signal sucker so the more X-10 devices you have, the more signal degradation you experience. Reminds me of some government projects I worked on. (-:

That's a predictable pattern. As offensive as their ads were, they were effective. Who didn't have one or two lights that had switches at the far end of the house or in inconvenient places? Who wouldn't risk the very little money it took to get one starter kit and see that the stuff was, indeed, close to magic for some intractable electrical problems? From there, X-10 just took over the house because they kept sending me vouchers that basically rained nearly free equipment for almost a year.

I began using X-10 when there were still photographic darkrooms. I had the room lights hooked up to two appliance modules, one B1, the other B4. With a belt RF transmitter, I had to press the two buttons in sequence to get the lights to turn on. Very handy and because it was so cheap, piggybacking two (or even more) modules to make a "security code" of sorts prevented someone in another room from accidentally activating the lights when the paper safe was open. Also extremely useful in preventing "spike ons" - I've never had a spike turn on two piggybacked modules and unfortunately, after a storm, it's a crapshoot what's going to come on by itself. HomeVision now supervises restarts after a power blip, but I still piggyback critical items ever since I came home to find the X-10'ed vacuum cleaner had been running all day. )-: What a stink - the bag, of course, was almost full for maximum stenchability.

Yep. I had a bunch of power strips that very, very ironically were labeled X-Ten that completely absorbed X-10 signals. Stopped 'em dead unless the controller/transmitter was plugged into the same outlet or the power strip was plugged into an appliance module. It took an enormous amount of detective work (and shelling out $320 for a Monterey analyzer) to finally figure things out.

It also takes a known monomaniac like me to *care* enough to run down the intermittent problems that plagued me. I learned how many things can affect X-10 transmission. One of my favorites was the CFL you could turn on, but not off (because the noise it emitted on blocked any remote commands). That's why there are so many sites that list the potential X-10 problems. I wouldn't recommend it for non-techies. It looks easy but isn't. But I can set up systems for people who need it and don't care at all how it works. It's *very* useful for people with disabilities.

I can assume from your radio operations that you may have a level of EMI that's beyond what most of us see. A long time ago when I was a police reporter, the *thing* to have was a Bearcat programmable police scanner (at a time when the Regency 10 channel crystal unit was king). I brought my new toy over to my ham friend, we programmed in all the local channels. Worked fine. We programmed one channel to match his new handheld VHF portable. Every time he keyed that stinking radio up near the Bearcat, it lost all its programming. Reprogrammed, it worked fine, but if he was just a few feet away, whap! All gone. From that experience and from hearing my girlfriend's radio, TV, telephone AND record player all emitting signals from the three HUGE AM radio towers across the street even when turned off, I realized radios can do some strange things when near by.

In a perverse way I am glad so many people have given up on X-10. I've been able to buy huge assortments of modules on FeeBay for 10 cents or less on the dollar. More for me!

I'm relieved. I can be *very* insulting when I try. (-:

There's no doubt that hardwiring is preferable to X-10 control wherever it's possible. I've switched over things to HomeVision's relay controllers if the item's critical. With all the problem paths on the X-10 troubleshooting tree I'd certainly be tempted to go in another direction if I were starting over. Some things that X-10 did weren't really suitable for such a slow protocol. Temperature sensing was one and motion detection another. Those two functions put too many commands on the line and collisions became inevitable. However, for straight up load control, nothing comes close to the price range and assortment of available gear. There's no fear with X-10 that the company might sink and drag its protocol down with it. It's in the public domain now, which is GOOD for standards, at least IMHO.

I'd love to see what an analyzer says is going on. Do you have any two way modules? What kind of transmitters/controllers are you using? Live anywhere near the DC area? (-:

Did I mention monomania? Every hinky X-10 installation calls to me and my faithful meter, Tonto. Watched too much TV growing up growing up, I guess. Hi, ho, Silver!

You realize this is torture for a self-taught X-10 detective. (-: Hearing the gruesome details of a crime but not being able to apply my "forensic" tool kit to the crime scene makes me twitch. Actually, you've probably removed all of the offenders of interest by now, so you've reached a sort of "move along, there's nothing to see" point.

I totally understand. The time to involve the XTB is before switching over to other solutions but I still think if you've got any X-10 running at all, that you really benefit by boosting the repeated signal from 5 to 25V in almost every case. It's sometimes simply being able to "muscle through" the mire of EMI that wins the day.

While I've never used any of the many firmware features of the XTB-IIR repeater, I know that Jeff has taken great care to eliminate noise issues and make the XTB configurable to various problem installations. In that respect, his XTBM meter shows both the current noise level and the frequency of the transmission, noise or not. That's why I selected it for my CCTV "channel four" - it gives, in a single screen, information that you have to wander around the Monterey's many menu options to see.

It only took ten years to come up with it! I could have done it with the Monterey much sooner but several things stopped me. For one, the Monterey shows less useful information on the screen at one time, and that's a serious consideration for "televising" the data. I can't push the Monterey scroll button when I am looking at the signal display on the downstairs TV. Also, at $320 for a device that appears out of production (but still in stock in some places) I wasn't willing to risk the Monterey's existence leaving it on all the time. It's still the best portable diagnostic X-10 tool on the market because of all its functions but Jeff's meter is what I would recommend to anyone but a monomaniac like me. There have been times when knowing the exact strength of each bit of the X-10 frame has been useful in figuring out what was wrong.

As nice as the playback capacity is, I would much rather have a meter that could log all the X-10 related "stuff" (noise, legit commands, collisions, fragments, etc) to a text file for search. I tried fooling around with OCR's the video but OCR is hinky enough without trying to read characters from an NTSC source using CCTV resolution. Oh well.

When the XTBM came out, I convinced Jeff to add a backlight option so that it would be easily readable via camera and bought one of the first assembled units. Since the XTBM is much cheaper and much more easily repaired, I thought it would be the perfect device to leave on 24x7. So far, so good. (-:

Now I have to convince him to build something to "sniff" X-10 RF signals because on occasion I've been badly tripped up by the little rubber buttons on the PalmPad series of transmitters sliding under the edge of the button hole and getting stuck ON. The missing tool from my X-10 detection kit is something that could determine where a rogue X-10 RF transmission was coming from. Someone recently suggest that Dave Houston's DIY all housecode transceiver was able to read RF signal strength and could be repurposed as an X-10 specific RF meter, but it's outside my skillset to modify something like that to be an RF sniffer.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

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