Re: Interesting ACT CR230 repeater failure mode

[jmj1492@xxxxxxx]

I use a CR230 as well Dan, so I would be very interested in whatever
you find on your defective unit.  I have few 2-way devices, but they
all seem to be reporting status properly so my CR230 must be okay.

John


Dan Lanciani wrote:
> I recently tracked down some odd behavior with my X10 equipment.  It
> turned out that my CM11a was not seeing certain status responses.  In
> particular, the response from an ACT RS104 (which normally consists
> of its own unit number followed by status_is_on/off) consistently
> contained only the unit number.  The responses from various PR511
> (status_in_on/off only) arrived intermittently.  Looking back through
> my log files I found that the problem had first appeared several months
> ago with intermittent reception of the RS104 response and eventually
> built up to consistent failure.
>
> Disabling the CR230 repeater made the problem go away.  X10 being what it
> is this isn't dispositive, so I ordered a fresh CR230 to swap in.  It
> arrived today (I was disappointed that it still doesn't carry a UL logo)
> and installing it did not cause the problem to return.  So I'm pretty sure
> this is a CR230 failure.
>
> Superficial examination of the suspect CR230 shows the characteristic
> blackening around the hot zener, but nothing obviously damaged.  (If
> I were guessing I'd say it might be the adjacent filter capacitor which
> is only an 85C part and is clearly subject to a lot of heat from the
> zener.)
>
> I tried to mail Phil Kingery but his address at ACT goes to the intercept
> that says they don't support PLC products anymore.  Is anyone interested
> in more detailed analysis?  I wouldn't normally be inclined to bother--
> especially with ACT apparently getting out of the business--but the effect
> of corrupting (apparently only) status responses seems oddly familiar.
>
> 				Dan Lanciani
> 				ddl@danlan.*com