Re: fluorescent bulbs + x10

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Bill Stock" <me7@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

<stuff snipped>

> I was just going to ask about this. I'm surprised after all this time,
that
> they haven't built a better CFL bulb.

I think they are trying but they are optimizing for qualities that are not
X-10 friendly.  I assume each new generation of CFLs produces a little more
light per watt than the last and costs a little bit less to make.  I also
think that they are trying to reduce the noise which leads them to put
capacitors across the AC line and do all sorts of other things that kill
noise - and to a lighting engineer, X-10 is noise.

> I've got one socket rocket that has not worked for almost a year, but I've
> been too lazy to do any serious investigation. Although I'm pretty sure
it's
> the CFLs in the outside lights. Changing brands did not solve the problem.
> The last couple of nights the lights on one aquarium would not go off, so
> I've been turning them off with the remote when I go to bed. But tonight
> this did not work. After a little head scratching I realized that the CFL
> table lamp was still turned on. Turing off this lamp solved the problem.
The
> strange thing is that this lamp did not bother the aquarium lights in the
> past! Do these things generate more noise with age?

Our houses are really very dynamic when it comes to the wiring "network."
It took a long time for me to figure out that the occasional noise I was
seeing in one area only occured when the UPS was in its charge cycle.
Anything nearby like a power supply for a laptop or a UPS could cause the
signal to degrade.

--
Bobby G.