We live in the Santa Cruz mountains, and the power up there is bad (overhead lines, trees that fall down, etc.). So we tend to get power outages, particularly in the winter.

Unfortunately, consumer electronics are not designed with power outages in mind. Instead, they are often designed to come back on when power is restored. This is okay in some cases, but very bad in the case of a plasma TV, because when a static image is displayed on a plasma TV for a couple of hours, it burns the image into the TV permanently, destroying it.

We already lost one plasma TV this way!

I want to protect our new TV with a simple device that won’t send power to the TV until I press a reset button.

The device would have the following states:

* No power in house: no power to TV
* Power in house, reset button not pressed: no power to TV
* Power in house, reset button pressed: power to TV

It’s a very simple device, but I have not been able to find one off the shelf. All of the X10 power controllers I've seen (and I've called a number of vendors) restore themselves to their previous state when powered on, so if they were powering the TV when the power went out, they'll restore power to the TV when PG&E restores power to the house.

Can someone on this forum help me solve this problem using X10? I can write software (including assembly code) if that's necessary, but I would need some guidance about what programmable controller to get, etc.

I had a similar (but much less expensive) problem--anytime power went out and was restored to our home, then reading lights over our bed would turn on--even if they were off when the power failed.

I use an Ocelot controller for my X10 equipment, so I just programmed it to turn off everything that should be off when the power is restored. The reading lights still come on when the power is restored, but are now turned off by the Ocelot within about 2 seconds. Using the Ocelot, you should be able to accomplish what you want--either by using it to control an appliance module to turn the TV on and off, or by using an IR emitter to send a TV OFF code to turn the TV off (allowing it to keep power for memory, clock, etc). I'm sure there are other brands of controllers that would allow the same thing.

Thank you! I just looked at the Ocelot, and it requires programming by a computer--which is fine. But once programmed, does it need the computer connection, or will it function without the computer? Because the computer will also be off when the power comes back on, because the UPS will have shut it down.

The Ocelot runs independently. It only needs a computer to program (or monitor).

Some of the Ocelot variables are maintained without power and others are lost, so you can use this to determine whether power has just been restored and to act accordingly.

This might be a bit late on this thread, but you can create a simple latching relay box which has a reset push button. It will stay latched "ON" as long as the power is on. Only needs a normally open single pole momentary push button (RS Catalog #: 275-618 @ $2.69.) and a 120V relay (RS Catalog #: 275-217 @ $8.49) I would build it into an old metal power strip which has the cord, sockets and a fuse already included. I can draw a schematic and email it if desired.

Mike