Re: X-10 Broadcast Storm Detector (was Re: XTB-II Enhanced Repeater)

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Jeff Volp" <JeffVolp@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gJlsi.391089$p47.130297@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> With as many remotes as you have, I can understand the problem of command
> storms.  I don't think we have had one ourselves since the CM11A beta test
> ended.

The next to the last "storm" was caused by a BSR-era maxicontroller finally
giving up the ghost after 20 years.  No stuck button - it just transmitted
an endless stream of X-10 garbage.  I have a number of others of the same
vintage and I suspect that they, too, will start to fail at some point.

> I would suggest trying to mod an existing X10 module to be a storm
monitor.
> Candidates would be the X10 chime and universal modules.  It might be
> possible to replace the custom IC in one of these modules with a PIC
> programmed to act as a storm monitor.

It might be possible for *you* (and many of the others here) but I assure
you that even if the entire world depended on me swap-soldering a PIC in and
out of an X-10 module - well, bye bye world.  (-:   The very best I could
hope for is cracking open an ESM1 and figuring out how to interface a simple
timer/latching relay circuit to the signal diodes.  Since it flashes for
both X-10 "good" and noise signals, it would do the job.

I do agree that something like the chime or universal module would make a
good platform for the job.  If anyone *else* figures out how to do it within
a reasonable cost, I would be happy to fork over some money to them for a
broadcast storm detector.  With all those new Palmpads in play it's only a
matter of time to the next stuck button.

> The XTB-II LED monitors 120KHz gate drive to the power stage, and only
> flashes when the transmitter is active.  It doesn't light in response to
> powerline activity unless the repeater is enabled.

So much for that idea!  I guess I'll wait and see how your efforts work out
before I ruin a perfectly good ESM1.  (-:

> The fact that the XTB-IIR drives with so much power is the reason why I
want > to inhibit its output in response to a command storm.

That's true.  Before, when I had lots of TM751's on different branch
circuits in an attempt to work around the overall low X-10 signal strength,
it was pretty easy to find a stuck button because the event was fairly
localized to the nearest X-10 transmitter device.  A TM751 in endless dim
mode in the kitchen would only effect switches on that branch.  With the
XTB, a stuck transmitter can reach nearly everywhere so tracking it down is
not as easy as it was!

--
Bobby G.