Re: CFL reviews?

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"random735" <random735@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1150612363.389708.220670@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> filters may be the approach I take, but right now that means 4-5 of
> those filters, so I was hoping there might be a cheaper approach.  I
> know, taking the cheap way out rarely proves satisfactory and home
> automation certainly isn't a hobby for the cheap.

At least X-10's the cheapest HA gear out there.  An X-10 meter's your best
bet.  Get one now so you don't beat yourself up for all the time you'll have
wasted trying to debug an X-10 setup without one.

Shop at Costco or Walmart to find bulbs that work and then stock up.  I
thought a two 5 packs were enough but they are all gone now.  We've switched
a lot of lights over to CFL.  I've been filtering the various lamps I had
left lying around that I know are bad with the X-10 Pro filters until I work
up the will to face Sam's Club to look for more.

I'm afraid that as the newer lamps get more sophisticated, they present more
and more problems to X-10.  I'll probably wish I had bought 50 of the bulbs
that presented no serious X-10 issues when they were available.

There's someone here who's posted a URL for a place in California, IIRC,
that sells X-10 friendly CFL's but I can't remember enough to run a Google
search.  Maybe someone else recalls the details . . .

> Any experience this this product as an alternative:
> http://www.smarthomeusa.com/Shop/Noise-Blocks-Filters/Item/XPNR/

I think it's very similar to the plug-in devices they make.  Yes, they work,
at least for the bad bulbs I have, which are both noisy AND sucks signals.
The worst of both worlds.

I'm facing another issue with X-10's: the increasing number of both CFL and
fluorescent worklights that turn themselves back on via the "current sense"
circuitry.  Since some of these are floor and table lamps, I'd hate to have
to snip the diode on the appliance module that controls them because then I
would lose local control.  Never an issue with incandescents but a royal
PITA with X-10.

You can "ballast" such lamps with a nitelight or a small power supply (I
have my PC speakers plugged into a powerstrip that the lamp is also plugged
into) but again, you lose the local turn on feature.  It's really bugging
me.   Maybe it needs another magic box from Jeff Volp!

--
Bobby G.