Re: X10 Manual Control

[Keith Doxey <keith.doxey@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Raymond,

I would be extremely surprised if something that can be bought for 10
dollars in the states was immune to crashing ;-)))

At work we have a 6 year old LUTRON lighting system that was 25K when it
was installed. Twice during the last week thunderstorms have caused power
glitches that shut down the switch mode power supply in the controller
leaving us without control although the dimmers do return to their previous
setting. We have also had all the lifts knocked out for several hours until
they can be reset :-((

I dont know if 20W is below the threshold for local control, I would have
thought not, but until the lamp strikes it doesnt draw any significant
power. The high value resistor in the appliance module which trickles
current for the sensing probably doesnt pass enough current for the
electronics in the ballast to kick into action thereby not causing the
sensing to operate and the light stays off. Try putting a normal bulb of
about 15W in there and see if that works. Thats my theory anyway....of
course it could be complete rubbish :-))

Keith

Keith Doxey
http://www.btinternet.com/~krazy.keith
Krazy Keith's World of DIY Home Automation

-----Original Message-----
From:	Raymond [SMTP:Reb.barnett@xxxxxxx]
Sent:	Friday, August 20, 1999 1:23 PM
To:	'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
Subject:	[ukha_d] Re: X10 Manual Control

Hi Keith, thanks for the reply.

> What are you trying to control it with?
Comfort. The command it was sending was ALL UNITS OFF which is triggered
when we go to bed, and does not consider the state of any modules. It
had been working fine for quite some time.

The reason that I had to turn the lamp on manually was because it had
failed to come on automatically when I walk into the room. This
occasionally happens during heavy rain because the light sensor's LDR
isn't perfectly insulated (and I'm too lazy to get the ladders out to
fix it). However it was dry last night so perhaps the module had already
stopped responding to X10 commands before I manually switched it on. Do
X10 modules crash and need resetting? This is the same module that used
to run a 300W uplighter before I spotted it was unreliable at certain
dim settings - so despite it running fine on it's 60W lamp for the past
few months, could I have damaged the module in some way to make it
unreliable (nb it was working OK this morning after I 'reset' it).

> What appliance have you got in the appliance module?
> If it still draws ANY power whilst apparently switched off then the
> appliance module will not detect the change on the output of
> the mdule to
> indicate that you want to override it. The same may also
> apply if the load
> draws too little current in its ON state.

The appliance module is used to control a table lamp with one of the
so-called environmentally friendly low-power bulbs. I forget how many
watts it is rated at, but it is likely to be no more than 20W. Is this
below the threshold for local control?

Cheers.

Ray.

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