After many years of almost no problem except some transmitters or receivers giving out, everything seems to be going crazy.

My system consists of a number of MS13a motion detectors, HR12a controllers, wall switches (2 way and 3 way) appliance and lamp modules. I am using E & F house codes

I have one MS13a set to turn on or off 3 sets of lamps. Now only 2 will go on or off and not always the same two.

In one room, the MS13a won't turn on the light but will turn it off at the specified time. Some MS13a will not work at all. Tonight all the lights on both codes turned themselves on.

I do have a device on my circuit breakers.

Does anyone have a clue to what has happned to cause this erratic actions suddenly?

Mogur2

Do you have a RF transceiver anywhere in the house? If so, a neighbor might have started using X10 and your same house code. Change all your devices to a new house code and see if the problems go away.

DBrown

I thought of that but the MS13a just are erratic. Some turn on lights but not turn them off. Others won't turn them on but do turn them off.

Also the HR12a works the same way. A few light modules will turn off from the switch but neither the HR12 nor the MS13a work them.

I don't see any real pattern here.

just got some eagle eyes in. I don't put too much faith in x10 rf, so this should be interesting. must be from all of the reports from the satisfied xcam owners. I did see a picture of an rf unit (like the eagle eye or active eyes here) from the UK. it had an antenna on it. perhaps x10 should contract out with those guys who developed those vhf antennas that were in the ads in the back of the popular science mags. the one where you could just plug the rf cable in, and turn all your house wiring into an antenna. if it works for ntsc isn't it bound to work for x10? seriously, I'm wondering if this isn't a problem of signal strength, either that or signal collisions. are you using more than 1 x10 rf receiver? and is your "breaker box device" a simple cap, a phase coupler or a coupler amp? it's going to be interesting to see how battery discharge affects both the eagle eyes motion detection range and rf strength

Mogur2

Did you fix your problem or figure it out. I have about the same crazy problem since a few days. What's wierd, is it's erratic and spans numerous housecodes. I have a whole house line filter, incoming blocker, and phasecoupler. I live near an international airport. Could it be radio frequency interferance as basement modules have not gone bonkers yet?? HANS

Hhaannss,

Do you live in the North East? Since the BIG power outage my stuff is doing the same!!?? It has been reliable for the past 2 years and I just installed 2 BoosterLinc with no improvement.

no solution, but if misery loves company you should be pleased - like WinTech I had a stable system for several years and then have had your problem since the power outage. I have swapped out X10 modules, changed housecodes, unplugged devices, etc., but am also getting ghost signals and can' isolate cause. Interestingly it will calm down for a few days (I have HomeSeer so can check the log), and then acts up again - often with wet weather (had a bunch this early AM from the tail end of Isabel).

Several of my devices started acting up a few weeks ago. Nothing in my system had changed. It finally got so bad that I couldn't stand it, the light here in the computer room was going on and off several times per hour by itself. Other lights in the house would not respond to their commands, but a light on a different address would respond instead. One of my PCS wall switches was continuously blinking red meaning that it was recieving a signal for another address. I went through the house and started unplugging things and watching for the light to stop blinking. It came down to an old 486 PC that I use to program eproms. I clicked the power strip off and the weirdness stopped. I can't figure out why this just started, that PC has been running for nearly two years. Maybe the power supply is going bad. I've ordered some 15 amp plug-in filters for both PCs and my A/V gear.

I still have one light on a cheap X10 switch that turns on by itself every day between 4:00 and 6:00. It started doing this about the same time the power company (PPL) installed a new electricity usage meter, one of the ones that sends them a signal over the powerlines so they don't need to come out and look at it every month. I'm not sure if there's a connection. I have a PCS switch to replace the X10 switch, I'm pretty confident that will take care of the problem so I haven't looked into the actual cause.

Rockcrawl,

Just for fun, change the house and unit code of that one cheap X10 switch and see if it still comes on between 4 and 6.

Wintech
Yes, but the system only went haywire anout two weeks ago. I need a tester. Was told that Monteray made a good one. Where can I get one?

Don't get the Monterey, I had one and it's very limited in functionality. If you are thinking along those lines invest in the AT004, now that ACT has dropped the price $100 it cant be beat, especially since SH is charging $349 for the Monterey.
Here is the link:
[Link: homeautomationnet.com]

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

And I thought it was just me....

I have two lights in my hallway that are X-10 cotrolled via switches. One is the ceiling can lights (on a three-way swtich) and one is a pair of sconces (on a single switch). For the last several months these lights have been turning on at random times during the night (the only way to prevent it seems to be to use the tiny "hard off" switch that's under tha main rocker bar).

A few months ago, I had installed two UPSs, and I thought that might be the problem; however I plugged both of those into filters this weekend, and I am still having the problem.

Any idea what might be causing it? (Or how I could figure it out?). The standard "unplug stuff and try things" won't work because I *can* turn on those lights whenever I want via remote; however, they also apparently are capable of turning themselves on.

As far as I can remember, I haven't added any other big power-things to the system... no new fridges or computers...

Ideas?

Thanks,

Gina

Gina,

I don’t believe the standard unplug things wont work to some extent. If you unplug a lot of the more likely items and it stops happening you will eventually get a clue to what is causing your problem. Some software programs like Homeseer log signal data so you can see what is being sent or what the system thinks is being sent. It could be a neighbor, but I doubt it, it doesn’t happen that often.

The one reason I like a good signal analyzer like the AT004 mentioned above is that you can get a picture of your noise/signal strength situation fairly quick, the unit can also log signals or noise levels for 24 hours. I know it’s still not an inexpensive item but it sure beats paying for some of the other lighting technologies out there.

I know a lot of people with X10 were hoping that this was perfect system but it's just not, despite what X10.com tries to tell folks. I have found reliability, 99.8% of the time boils down to low noise levels and good signal strength. If your guessing at what those two things are you may get lucky, but you may also go nuts trying to figure out why things happen or don't happen when you just want a light you can control with ease. I am glad for those that put X10 in with no coupler repeaters and filters and have things work, but it’s just luck. When we sell X10 to installers we try to explain the basics and get them to do it right from the start, guys that make their living at this can’t have lights coming on in the middle of the night at their customers homes. Hobbyist can put up with it, but they must realize that they are just paying the price for cutting corners. I am not saying you cut any corners, but I find most people with problems do.

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

just had my x10 front porch light go on/off full bright at night only, several times each night. (computer/timer had it dimmed to 30%) traced the problem to a hardwired x10 motion detector. 2 sets of lights were set to go on with motion +2 & +3. +1 & +4 were set to off, as were +5 thru +8 dusk/on-dawn off. turns out the "this unit" switch, those round screwdriver set 1 to 16 switch which was set to 4 was actually reading 3 (this setting hasn't been changed for a couple of years and was set correctly to 4 when examined) the front porch light was going on with one of the back yard motion detectors. a few quick turns with a screw driver cleaned or realigned this switch. don't really understand how these read another setting, maybe oxidation. if you have x10 going nuts and have any of these wired motion detectors on board, a suggestion would be to cut power to them for a couple of days and see if the problem stops. I definitely wouldn't put any x10 hard wired motion detector in without some sort of on/off switch in front of it.