Re: Lamp Module Dimming (Reliability)

["Mark Boyce" <mark@xxxxxxx>]

On Thursday, December 12, 2002 9:11 AM Ian Lowe wrote:

> Yeah,
> 
> I am getting close to ripping a lot of the X-10 stuff out, and
going
> home build. it's just too damn unreliable. :
> 
> That being said, perhaps I need to get my mains checked. I know
the
> X-10 range I get at the moment is apalling.


Sorry to hear you're having problems Ian, I know what a PITA
it can be trying to debug these things.  There appears to be lots
of
US kit for line monitoring but next to nothing for the UK market.

Anyway ... thought I just throw in a note to say, X10 does work,
mostly.

Current installation looks like this ;

3 phase mains in + UPS + generator, presented to the house as 4 phases
which are all filtered and then X10 interlinked.  The house itself is
15 rooms spread over 3 floors.

A number of problem pieces of kit have been fitted with their own
personal
X10 filters ;

- Fridge
- Laser Printers
- Laptops (This one caught us by surprise)
- Jacuzzi / Pool / Sauna heaters & pumps

We now have standard X10 running round the house/garden/BBQ/etc
perfectly. X10 extended codes still cause us a problem when sent in
batches of 5(ish) or more. We're still working on this one :-(

Other than that the only real caveat is that X10 is not guaranteed
delivery
and has no collision detection for signals. So if two people press dim
at
the same time on different devices both will get nothing.

... and just for fun ... kit list so far is (ish) ;
60 x AW/LW11's  (Wall mounts - work fine, ugly though)
40 x AD/LD10's    (Din Rails Mounts)
16 x SW10G's      (Shutter controllers - wouldn't
buy these again)
6 x Universal Modules
10 x Axis Cameras
2 x CM11s
1 x Ocelot (+6 I/O units)
2 x Maxi controllers
5 x Mini Controllers
1 x 48 hour @ 3 phase generator :)
2 x Fujitsu touch pad (beware of ukha_buy it will cost you :)
2 x Dell MP3 players 
3 x Wireless access points
and some X10 RF stuff that I'm really not impressed with :-(


That said, with extra finances and the ability to recable the place
I think I would probably have used hard wired lighting units with serial
control, such as the dimtek. (That is not a recommendation for Dimtek,
just a unit I've used in the past).  The serial control from these
could 
then be added to our control PC/gateway which could  forward X10
commands to the Dimtek if X10 control was still required.


Hope my ramblings helped a little .....


Good luck

Mark Boyce.



http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
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