Re: Laying out a new house - looking for Wiring and controller advise

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

"Jeff Volp" <JeffVolp@xxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

>Ah.  So it is the acknowledge transmitter in each Insteon device that causes
>the signal degradation.  X10 has a similar problem with their transmitters.
>Shouldn't that degrade the Insteon signals too?  It's simple to design a
>transmitter that presents a negligible load when active.  I wonder why these
>guys didn't do that.

Each Insteon unit automatically repeats all Insteon traffic until the number
of specified repeats is exhausted or they see an ACK. This tends to saturate
the "network" with Insteon signal, overcoming to some extent, the effects of
signal sinks, etc. especially as the number of Insteon devices increases.
This is the main reason that each is a transmitter. It would be simple to
add a reed relay to just enable/disable the transmitters so they do not load
the line when idle. Or they could do it with a few transistors as shown in
application notes for the TDA5051A powerline modem chip.

>> Also, Europe has limits (5Vpp) for powerline carriers so a more powerful
>> PLC transmitter is only a viable solution in N. America.
>
>Guess that means the XTB is limited to North America.  As you know, it hits
>the line with up to 20Vpp.

Yes and no. Here, manufacturers must meet the burden of regulation (FCC, UL,
etc.) but for most of Europe, the burden is on the end user so vendors are
free to sell almost anything as long as they label it "not for use in CE
countries" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).