I *have* seen up to 8 CFLs in a clam shell. I don't think I've seen any but maybe expensive ones in anything easy to open.
I know a lot of those carbon filament bulbs I bought from Mr. Edison didn't work as well as he said they would. Every time I went to complain, they told me he was "napping". We all know what that means.
I have some. They come on immediately, turn off, on, off, and then finally stay on. They're first generation Philips CFLs with a permanent 60 Hz ballast in the base and replacable fluorescent tube. Heavy, too -- some floor lamps can't be trusted to stand up with one installed.
As for modern CFLs, I don't know what brands or models are instant-on, but I know they exist because some of them have circuit boards designed for a thermistor (temperature sensitive resistor), but the thermistor is left out (Max-lite, both original large base and newer small base models).
I thank you for your reply and wonder if any of the modern CFLs which use the circuit board you describe actually do come up to full brightness very rapidly. If you have any specifics, please provide them as I am glad to explore other options, mostly out of curiosity since I have found the hybrid GE bulbs.
It seems that heating the filament and vaporizing some mercury cannot be done instantly, despite claims to the contrary. GE's solution, using a second halogen bulb temporarily, makes a whole lot of sense to me, and illustrates the reality that a purely fluorescent lamp will take a little time to warm up.
In the past I had a X 10 motion sensitive system on my pole light. Nice idea worked terrible:( temperature and noisey line unstable.
I thought about some work arounds but decided it wasnt worth it.
Has anyone tried LED lamps on X 10?
they didnt exist when I last played with it.
X 10 was wonderful for my elderly grandma it controlled so much around here:)
Often the problem with X-10.
A common conclusion. ;-)
Good question! If there are any incandescent's on the string X-10 should work fine, though the nonlinear load might mess up the signaling even more than normal. With a pure LED load dimming might also be a problem.
X-10 is terribly unreliable. Some had good luck with it and others not so much. The technology is really poor. Too bad no one picked up the good idea and made it really workable.
You might take a look at Zigbee devices which can be mixed in a local area network. This approach uses 802.25 IEEE standard compliant devices, and in an entirely different league from X-10.
You know, the funny thing is that I have had both good and bad with x10. In my old house, in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago, it worked, but to a point. I couldn't have too many modules, or the signals would get swamped. I tried using the X10 amplifier/phase repeater and the results were disastrous. So I had to go with a passive phase coupler. It would continuously send out random x10 commands which were apparently triggered off noise. But, for the most part, if I "obeyed the rules" it worked. Here in the western mountains of NC, I use that amplifier/phase coupler, and it works perfectly. I am basically using 1 house code and all 16 channels. I do have a motion detector on another house code. I do occasionally see an anomaly, but they are few and far between.
Yes, a totally different class of devices. We'll see if Zigbee ever goes anywhere. X-10 had the marketing right but simply blew the technical aspects.
Oh, but they did! Jeff Volp designed a line of repeater/coupler/amplifiers called XTB that take the weak 5V X-10 signal emitted by stock devices and ampflies it to nearly 25V. That sort of signal strength cuts right through CFL and other EMI noise. An X-10 installation without one isn't worth a damn because of signal attenuation and signal interference in the modern home. X-10 was designed for the homes of 30+ years ago when there were no switching power supplies and no CFL's.
Only one extremely noisy fluorescent lamp (2 bulb 48") was ever able to overwhelm it at the end of a long circuit when it began emitting noise over
1 volt right at 120KHz, the X-10 transmission frequency. Jeff's designed a fancy but inexpensive XTBM meter to track down such problems by measuring X-10 voltage, line noise and lots of other X-10 related info. I have a CCTV camera from a quad cam setup focused on the XTBM so I can check the last X-10 transmission easily.No financial interest, just a very, VERY satisified customer!
-- Bobby G.
After you put lipstick on the pig, it's still a pig.
I agree. Some locations everything works fine, others, not so good. I had two repeaters, a Leviton and an X-10 model and neither compared to the XTB repeater because the XTB boosts the signal to 25V whereas most X-10 gear transmits with 5V or less. Long cable runs, shoplights, UPS's and switched power supplies all eat into the X-10 signal in various ways. The XTB cuts through them all.
Jeff's XTB gear is superbly designed, thoroughly tested and flawlessly assembled. The kits he's built for me look machine soldered.
-- Bobby G.
repeater/coupler/amplifiers
Not true. The XTB is far from a cosmetic fix. It's an impeccably engineered solution to a serious problem for people with a lot of X-10 gear. Once you install a powerful repeater/coupler/amp like the XTB-IIR at the panel, X-10 behaves just like it should. It just works. Read some of the reviews at Jeff's site
Since you often stress the value of small businesses and personal initiative, I would have hoped your reaction might be more than a curt one line-dismissal without any apparent serious investigation. Jeff's developed and built a great product that's been a real life-safer to 100's of X-10 owners. Dissing a hard-working small businessman with a great idea that's helped so many based on zero research? Not very American. I suppose you'd rather curse the darkness than look for a flashlight. Too bad. It's an excellent product with a very satisfied user base. If you use X-10 and don't look into the XTB line, it's definitely your loss, not mine.
-- Bobby G.
In the past I had a X 10 motion sensitive system on my pole light. Nice idea worked terrible:( temperature and noisey line unstable.
I thought about some work arounds but decided it wasnt worth it.
Has anyone tried LED lamps on X 10?
they didnt exist when I last played with it.
X 10 was wonderful for my elderly grandma it controlled so much around here:) ==================================================== You also sound like a candidate for Jeff Volp's XTB line of repeater/coupler/amplifiers:
Something someone just wrote about resistive inserts in the back of LED flashlights has given me an idea. CFL's confound stock X-10 devices because X-10 depends on trickle current passing through the bulbs both the power the controller module and to detect "local switching." By leaking a tiny bit of current (IIRC, about 5ma) through the filament, the circuitry was able to detect someone flipping the switch on the lamp base and thus activate the module. This trickle current does NOT pass through a CFL bulb circuitry the same way.
But what if someone made a small disk that was screwed into the socket between the CFL and the center socket pin that contained a resistor that allowed just enough current to pass to still power the module electronics and the "local sense" feature? Wouldn't that disk also prevent the current that leaks through the CFL bulb from causing it to flash or in some cases relight itself completely? Do they still sell those little "bulb life extender" disks that fit into the sockets the same way I've described?
-- Bobby G.
Bobby, I can understand how signal processing and amplification can improve the proper detection / triggering from X-10 controllers, but I can't understand how it could help reduce the false triggering from noise such as CFL-generated EMI.
If the receivers in each X-10 module have frequent false triggering from noise, as mine most certainly do whenever the fluorescent lights are turned on, they remain susceptible to false alarms / triggers even if the controller signals are amplified.
The receivers still suffer from a poorly designed X-10 signaling code design, and rely on millivolt-level amplitudes of the 125 KHz signal to threshold their detectors. In this regard, they should remain as vulnerable to noise as they were originally, despite the boost in signal strength for the controller signals they receive.
Howdy, fellow X10'er! Too bad we didn't meet sooner because I think I could have helped save your sizable-sounding investment in X10 gear.
Unfortunately, there are wildly varying brands and designs of CFL's. GE's gave me NO end of trouble. Then Marc Hult of CHA suggested the N:Vision line of bulbs from Home Depot and suddenly, no more noise. That simple change made a world of difference. While many noisy CFL's can be cured by
5A line filters, it's much, MUCH better to switch to a brand of bulbs that isn't spewing EMI like Mt. Vesuvius during an eruption and that don't require filtration.X10 makes switches that can confirm their position to a central controller. Zigbee has been "just around the corner" for at least 10 years now. It's a good idea - and home automation will take a quantum leap when manufacturers build automation interfaces into their appliances - but it's been a long time since the promise of Zigbee was made.
You probably do need to invest in some X-10 line filters and look at trying different bulbs. Pick up and scope an N:Vision bulb from Home Depot. I have two X-10 meters, the Monterey and the XTBM (well three, the Elk, but it is rather primitive) that allow me to read noise levels in millivolts near the AC zero crossing where the signal "resides." The worst offender was a Cellet cellphone charger that put out pseudo-X10 signals continuously, corrupting nearby transmissions and blocking far away ones. Second worst was a shoplite that had tested "OK for X10" when I installed it (no noise or signal attenuation) but that began to "sing" very loudly at 118KHz once the bulbs started darkening at the ends.
Politely beg to differ. I can't stress enough how my whole, huge and at the time entirely unreliable X-10 installation came right under control as soon as I put the XTB-IIR in at the panel. The wife gained in two ways: The X10 signals just plain worked now and since I was rearranging the panel, I was able to add three new grounded lines to the kitchen. It's as close to magic as you're likely to get. (-;
Up until I discussed the shortage of breakers in my panel with Jeff (to add the XTB-IIR coupler/repeater/amp) I did not know about "dual skinny" breakers. I got a number of those, rebalanced the panel and added four new circuits altogether. Now my wife could operate a microwave, the toaster oven and a hot plate all at the same time without blowing a breaker. Win-win!
Check it out, I am sure you're be blown away if you add one to your system. It sounds like a guy like you could even assemble your own. Jeff "kits" those DIY units even better than Heathkit so that there's no mistake, even with tiny, unmarked diodes.
-- Bobby G.
If you're unfortunate enough to have really noisy CFL's and other gear, they probably need to be put behind a filter. They come in a form that looks like an appliance manual and can be had on sale from Ebay for $5 each (list $20).
I've been looking at this problem with other posters for a long, long time and I believe what you are seeing is not triggering from noise but a) either a collision that corrupts a valid X-10 signal or the very annoying tendency of the "local sense" circuitry to turn the module back on because it interprets the flashing of the CFL bulb (as the trickle current builds up in the CFL power supply caps) as someone jiggling the local switch in an attempt to turn on the light. Art T. referred to how to defeat this problem, although the cure has its downsides, some serious.
To really understand the X-10 noise problem it takes something more than a scope. You need to be able to interpret X-10 commands frame by frame. There are devices like the Monterey Powerline Analyzer,
I've searched for the Holy Grail of the noise-created command it and have even gone so far as to purchase a Lynx meter that can dissect an X-10 frame down to the individual bits - the ones compliment level used to create an X-10 bit that is used to create the X-10 frame.
When I had collisions it was because I had multiple TM751 and RR501's on the line and they would not always synch. They could (and did) collide and the resulting frame could be interpreted as a valid command. But IIRC, both Jeff and I did extensive testing with noise sources and they never generated a single valid X-10 command. I looked for weeks creating a special test bench to "listen" to the noise that the Cellet charger (Bruce Robin of CHA found the tiny Cellet, a legendary imp from X-10 hell - the charger, not Bruce!) . Isolated from the rest of the house by triple filtering, I let the Cellet sing and sing its X10-like noise. Nada. Only when I put an X-10 transmitter on that test circuit did I see fragments of legitimate commands - but still no true "phantom" commands. When I put a second transmitter in the circuit I began to see what looked like phantom codes, created out of noise but were really two signals collided and being corrupted with noise at the same time.
Noise can interfere with commands but it can't create them. X-10 expert and creator of several landmark X-10 devices and software, Dave Houston in CHA explained it to me several times before I began to understand it. I'll try to Google up what he wrote back then about the X-10 encoding methods and the creation of spurious yet valid commands from noise.
When the X-10 signal is decoded and boosted by the XTB-IIR it put onto both phases at 25V through the use of enormous capacitors in the repeater that you just can't fit into wall modulers. With that sort of signal, EM interference becomes mostly a non issue. I'm betting that with a little detective work, an XTB-IIR and *maybe* some plug-in filters for the really bad noise sources, your system will work like it was designed to.
There are some insanely noisy devices that transmit noise right at 120KHz and they have to be eliminated or filtered if they are plugged into an outlet that's very close to the circuit panel. I'm guessing (based on what everyone else who's tried one reports) that you'll see almost all the problems you've noted drop away when any stragglers go behind filters, which you can get in bulk on Ebay for $5 each. Those filters, on your worst noisemakers, could significantly improve the performance of your other line carrier devices, too.
X-10 is like any other home enhancement endeavor. There are tricks, tools and tips that can make the difference between a hack job and a pro installation. XTB's, filters and an X-10 signal meter are now what it takes to be a player. It's just like CAT5 and CCTV work needs good crimpers, tools, testers, different meters, pliers, testers, etc. There's a minimum ante to get into the big game. X-10 is *mostly* plug-and-play but changes to the nature of home electrical equipment have required some adaptation. I am just incredibly glad I didn't have to ditch $1K plus of X-10 gear and have to select a new protocol and rewrite all the code that enables security lighting, motion detection, etc. Gawd, the amount of work the XTB saved me is just frikkin' enormous. The reliability it has returned to the system makes it now a 99.9 sort of proposition when it was almost 50/50 before the XTB. Would a command make it thru? No one could say for sure. Now, it just works. Every time.
Whenever I buy anything new that plugs into the line, I check it out on my X-10 meters to see if it's a serious noise emitter. Usual suspects are UPS's, cheap plug-in chargers, laser printers and of course, CFL's. If it's outrageously bad I take it back because all the noise usually equals "bad or cheap design."
Second tier offenders are dimmers, shoplites, LCD TV's and a few other oddball items here and there. But there has not been anything I couldn't second source in a quieter model, from UPS's (avoid APS and Belkin) and CFLs (The N:vision brand from Home Depot are cheap, come in several color temps and have withstood the test of time. The GE spirals did not.)
I've got an enormous X-10 installation and being able to extend its life for a few hundred bucks has turned out to be a very good investment seeing how slowly other HA protocols are evolving. I have lots of lines of code in my automation controller I'd be loathe to rewrite for some other language. I have X-10 modules and capacities that are yet to be duplicated by any other protocol. And most important, no other protocol comes close to X-10's price point.
I can't speak for Jeff but I'll bet he'd take back a unit if it didn't work out for you. For anyone teetering on the brink of yanking their X-10 because of reliability problems, this is something they owe it to themselves to try.
Sorry to sound like such a salesman but I've seen poster after poster in Comp.Home.Automation get one and go "WOW! This changed everything!" If you're X-10 is flaking out, you owe it to yourself to at least give it a try. Seeing is believing. My wife, a saint for putting up with X-10's devilish nature for 10 years made this remark: "It just works." Anyone with a flaky system knows how important that is to spouses who don't necessarily share our love for gadgets. Well, mine anyway!
-- Bobby G.
Thanks Bobby for your great insights and elaboration regarding X-10.
At one time quite a few years ago, long before fluorescent lighting and other issues degraded my X-10 system, I had a very workable arrangement here, and used it without complaints for perhaps 2 decades or longer.
Over the course of the last few years, I have moved a lot of my branch circuits over to a transfer panel for a standby generator, removed the phase couplers and amplifiers and some filters I had added, and essentially removed most of my X-10 components except those within very close proximity to one another.
I have no doubts whatsoever that proper filters, additional amplifiers, careful removal of the worst offending noise sources, etc. could tame my system. I just no longer have an interest in doing any of this, and I do have many hard-wired Ethernet devices doing the specific things I need to do with little or no problems.
I've had commercial and ham FCC licenses since the 1950s, and have built
35 Heathkits in total, as well as spent most of my professional career as an electrical / electronics engineer, so the technical aspects are comfortable and familiar. I attended classes with Irv Reed, who (quite famously) co-developed the Reed Solomon coding methods (at MIT / Lincoln Labs) still used prominently to mitigate bit errors in communication channels, and still feel up to the task of analyzing and designing such things. In the case of my own X-10 EMI as well as the more troublesome wideband EMI that compromises my shortwave and AM reception, I have learned to live with it. Even if I am willing to invest the time and effort and money, my neighbors still create a lot of powerline and near DC to 20 MHz trash as well.I entirely agree that Zigbee has been far too long in coming although there are some devices out there. Hardly a replacement for X-10 at this point. And Insteon appears to have gained enough traction and solved enough problems to be the real contender at this stage.
However, many X-10 modules and switches are susceptible to spikes. X-10 even notes this in some of their online documentation. Usually, the spikes turn things on but I had an old fluorescent fixture that nearly always turned one of my lights off whenever the fluorescent was switched on. You could see arcing in the fluorescent switch each time as well. I replaced it with an Insteon switch which handled it with no apparent problems.
Many of the problems they have solved have been of their own creation. Most, if not all, of their switches, modules, computer interfaces, etc. are now on the third or fourth iteration since Insteon started, with many of the newer features and fixes making older ones obsolete.
I'm worse that a reformed smoker when it comes to preaching XTB. I really was just about to dump a lot of time and effort spent with X-10, CPUXA, HomeVision, etc. because the signal propagation became so unreliable. Even WITH couplers, repeaters and every other thing I threw at it, eventually including a futile "feudal" system of RF transcievers control items local to them (electrically speaking) because that was the only way to counter the horrendous amounts of line noise besides filters, and even then the "Did Not Turn On" events were getting to be the norm. Totally unacceptable.
That makes you, as I suspected "an early adopter" who likes to keep up with current technology. Lots of vendors were selling X-10 gear in the 1980s. It also makes you vulnerable to having some of the noisiest "first edition" gear out there, as was the case with so many CFL bulbs and the parallel electronic ballast technology for fluorescent tubes. The early CFL lamps were very X-10 unfriendly. The very early CFLs I bought, Chinese-made "Lights of America" $10 bulbs were like miniature broadcast stations, they were so noisy they could pass beyond a normal X-10 filter with ease.
You are not alone in describing the devolution of your X-10 system. There used to be only two defenses to the problems X-10 experienced with its new neighbors (switched power supplies, mostly) on the home powerline:
One was extensive filtering which gets a little tiring after the tenth one is installed. Filters comes with as many problems as it solves. )-:
The other was decentralizing - the feudal approach. The constant failing of remote signaling leads to disconnection, module by module. I call it the feudal approach because it parallels the way the Vandals sacked Rome and destroyed the remarkable lines of communication and commerce of the Empire from the outside in. Far reaching outposts are abandoned and central command devolves into local "stronghold" garrisons that are situated and act in a way favorable to staying alive. But I digress . . .
Then you're probably NOT a candidate for the XTB. The optimum point seems to be in the first stages of X-10 disconnection, where you stop using it for things that are going to piss you off like outside lights that burn all day because X-10 signals are iffy. You've moved into the next stage: you've converted critical (I assume) functions that used to be X-10 into hardwired Ethernet devices, inherently more reliable and manageable but IIRC, orders of magnitude more expensive than X-10. Has that changed?
I've gone all out and attached an XTB to my all-housecode transciever and to some other critical transmitting gear so I could indeed go back to "plug and play." That's more than most people would do - for them an XTB coupler repeater might suffice but I'm a PC builder and there's a lot of EMI running around my house and I wanted the lights to just work. And for PLC, the commands always get through now. It's just like it used to be in 1985 when I pulled all the light switches and converted them to X-10.
I apologize if it sounded like I was impugning your CV. It's infinitely superior to mine. In getting to know Jeff and several other designer/builders of X-10 gear I've realized that it does take highly specialized gear to make sense of the X-10 signal. You obviously know that the X-10 signal is not just an bit train without any error correction whatsoever. It's primitive but it's there and it seems to be enough. Take a look at Jeff's pages - you'll be able to appreciate the quality of the units, the thought that went into building them and his ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.
Obviously. (-:
I'm sure you have the IQ, but even the smartest guys who design and still maintain X-10 systems for a living own X-10 specific meters and analyzers. From what I was told a long time ago (hence very unreliable!) you need a scope with digital storage and even then you'd have to count hex to decode what you were seeing. Analyzers like the Monterey do all that grunt work (alas with no easy recordabilty until now for me*) and present a decoded (or not) human understandable display of what commands were sent and, depending on the meter, a lot more. You can read the strength of each bit in a single frame. The noise level at different "windows" of the AC cycles, the frequency of that noise, whether the frame you were measuring was the first frame, the second frame, or a repeater-enhanced second frame. Why would you care? Well, when two transmitters collide, a bit by bit voltage map will show that and give you a relative idea how far from the meter each device is. Meters can detect many other conditions that the best ham radio operator in the world would have to laboriously decode manually. That's why the X-10 meter has been invented over and over again in so many different formats!
What I am trying to say is that unless you have some pretty specialized tools in your radio shack, investigating serious X-10 problems isn't very easy with a scope, even if only you need to drag it to a few different outlets or get 100' long extension cords.
Well, you're clearly out of my league. (-: Maybe Jeff will chime in and talk about all the troublesome installations he's tamed. I realize you've taken another path with Ethernet and I believe that some form or wireless Ethernet home automation solution will dominate the market - the "highway" is already built and is usually power-failure protected and standalone (no PC required). Until X-10 for Ethernet appears, I'm going to stick with X-10 for lights, fans and other non-critical appliances. For the rest of the stuff, I've got a HomeVision expansion board with relay and sensor chain channels. Not quite as plug and play as the Ethernet but sufficient to monitor and execute criminal (oops, I meant critical!) functions in the house. Since Ethernet is workable world-wide, it's going to overtake any proprietary protocol. Why build another highway when so many layers of the OSI network are already built, usually with enormous overcapacity (at least
1GB nets in the house, anyway)?
I'm amazed they survived the recession. Lots of similar "modern living" stores folded during that time. I've been stranded by companies going out of business before. Their proprietary nature gives me pause. But I agree, they seem to be the only contender out of many that appeared around the year
2000, except for hoary old CeBuS (cough) that still has defenders throughout the world but that never lived up to the hype.Sorry if I offended you. My proselytizing is better aimed at people who haven't yet converted away from X-10. Maybe that number is shrinking because a lot of people have disconnected back to ground zero or who just use a minitimer to control some lights when they are away
-- Bobby G.
*I've set my XTBM meter up in front of a small, focusable B&W minicam (less than $20) that is recorded on the fourth channel of my CCTV recorder. This way I can call up the video and play it in slo mo, reviewing all the commands received in the last week. I can also see real-time readings of X-10 from any TV in the house.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.