Good to hear it's working for you. The only problem I have seen is the outdoor motion sensor needed new batteries once and then failed at about 2 years. You could see that moisture rusted the battery connections. But, given that they only cost $10 or so, still OK by me. Also, only have experience with the one, other ones may last longer. I used double sided velcro tape to mount it so it's easy to remove to change batteries, etc.
Yeah, the one thing I noticed about the motion sensors is the little rubber plug over the delay setting screw.
If this were to disappear or lose its flexibilty and no longer seal the opening, I can imagine the device failing soon after. *Maybe* they've accounted for that but I doubt it, especially at < $10.
Nope. I screwed up. I was comparing the appliance and lamp modules and thought I had an appliance module (which can handle 15A) in my test box when in fact, it was a lamp module which is limited to 300W. Interestingly, there's different wattage rating for incandescent and resistive loads on appliance modules due to the inrush current of incandescent lamps compared to the load presented by a space heater.
Fortunately, every "X-10 Super Deal" I have ever bought into came with free lamp modules, so it wasn't an expensive mistake, just an impressive one. The plastic melted around the internal components and smoked quite a bit, but did not catch fire. I was surprised that the module didn't have a fuse in it and melted down, but at the price they charge for lamp modules, a fuse would probably be overkill.
I recall at the time there was a lot of discussion in Comp.Home.Automation about how dimming modules had to be "derated" if run in the same wall box and I was curious to see just how much heat the modules generated. I can see why X-10 (and probably the NEC) doesn't want dimming switches controlling switched wall outlets. Too easy to do what I did by accident with a vacuum cleaner or some other high wattage load.
-- Bobby G.
Yes and no. It doesn't indicate fractional watts so you need to use the kWh mode and measure over a long time frame. I measured several X10 modules this way for ~100 hour periods. See...
In-line amperage measurements are worse than useless with non-linear loads like these. The Kill-A-Watt takes thousands of instantaneous readings of both voltage and curreny each second and then averages them to get a very accurate reading. The kWh mode has 30ppm accuracy.
I've neen dealing with major health issues (and have additional surgery scheduled). As for my measurements, I did exactly the opposite, refuting numerous people who were claiming X10 modules used 5-10W based on ammeter readings.
Don't waste your time - this method is, as noted above, worse than useless - worse because it is extremely misleading.
Yes, senility strikes again. But I demand half credit - I remembered that it happened and that you were involved and believe me, like the Langoliers, things out beyond a certain distance are getting all dark and hazy and a little bit scary.
I did recall the most important result of your research to me, at least concerning the Kill-a-Watt. For low end reading to be accurate, low power loads needed to be measured over time and there was a reason that you couldn't just take the Kill-a-Watt's low current, instant readings as gospel. Thanks for correcting my "holey" memory. One hole filled means something else just leaked out, though.
The amount of trickle current - do you think it varies in some way with the nature of the load connected to it? Does the current that causes CFL's to flash also heat a tungsten filament slightly or does the differing nature of the load affect how much current is passing?
I get some pretty serious flashing of two hi-eff 34W fluorescent tubes in the workshop - enough to see by if you move very slowly (-; It would be easy enough to first to compare an appliance module's power consumption without such a load and then with. In about 200 hours or about 8 days from now. (-:
So, 100 hours reading an appliance module, no load v. 100 hours reading appliance module with the two bulb shoplite that flashes more brightly than any other fluorescent in the house. I can even supplement those with readings of an appliance module with a small CFL and another with a 100W tungsten bulb. I also want to see what it costs to run a 7W nitelight with a CFL load since it's now X-10's tech support recommendation to cure the flashing problem. No wires monsters, no lights in boxes - it should get safety approval.
The issue I ran into was the limit imposed on the plug in outlet on Jeff's XTB. It's got a wattage limit for plug in devices, I believe it's either 10 or 15W, but I could be wrong. I measured the devices with a Kill-a-Watt (2 Maxi's, 1 ControlLinc Maxi, 1 Mini controller and a Mini Timer that uses a wall wart transformer and not the standard X-10 type power supply). The Kill-a-Watt gave me a very low number that was below the limit imposed by the XTB, and so I plugged them all into one unit and it worked. I did not measure it using the accumulation kWh mode because waiting around for 100 hours to get a reading is not very practical, but alas, seems necessary when dealing with low wattage items using the Kill-a-Watt. FWIW, the ControlincMaxi's nameplate lists 100mA, the X-10 lamp and appliances modules list no wattage information, and the X-10 Mini lists 2 watts.
The XTB operated quite well with 5 units plugged into the amplification outlet UNTIL I removed the Mini-timer with the wall wart. Then, it fried. When it happened, I got into a discussion with Jeff Volp who immediately went over my admittedly low altitude head with discussions of mixed reactive and inductive loads on both his circuit and the metering methods I was using to make sure I was within the wattage range specified on the XTB label. It was, as they say in the Army, above my pay grade.
Welcome back! Been a while since we last heard form you. Sorry that you're still having health issues. I hope all goes well with your medical procedure.
It seems I lost the decimal place in the fog of senility. Your figures were .4 and .5 and not 4 and 5. I hopefully still have my notes around, but I distinctly recall a metric you used was that they were much cooler to the touch than a 7W nightlight, giving a "rough" reading that said common sense dictated it had to be below 7W. That's when I decided that under careful enough controls, the relative amount of heat output between a module and a 7W night lite could be used to verify readings with meters, that for whatever reason, gave erroneous readings at the low end as when used in a typical way. (Like me!)
IIRC, and it's clear I don't "Recall Correctly" anymore, they did make the heat in a closed, insulated box rise respectfully. They were clearly drawing power that could be measured as heat output. I recall they differed from your readings, but I also recall the experiment being shut down by the resident safety engineer, Ms. Swmbo. The idea of enclosing electronic gear (especially lamps) in wooden boxes lined with Styrofoam did not pass muster, even though it was "unlikely but not impossible" to start a fire. I might e ven have the readings saved in a draft message.
I believe the modules I was running were running under load because I wanted to know the effect and size of the trickle current flow. That was when CFL's had just gone mainstream and I first noticed the flashing problem. I began delving deeper into how to measure the trickle current flow, but someone, I think it might have been Dan L. advised against it, charitably citing safety concerns but more likely having to do with the primitive equipment and skills I possess. (-:
Certainly when using X-10 modules and their linear power supplies. Am I right to assume an in-line ammeter would be much more accurate with inductive and purely resistive type loads? I would assume by the short time between the posts that Art took an instantaneous measure, and not an averaged one. But I'm Often Wrong, so only he say for sure.
At least all this is what I recall when I insisted to an incredulous Jeff that the XTB had been running with no incident with all five X-10 items listed above plugged in via power strip. I am sure he'll be around to correct me shortly as well. As I said, this is really outside my bubble. The XTB problem occurred AFTER I REMOVED the sole inductive load (a wall-wart powered Mini-timer) from the powerstrip with the other four components. It seems quite counterintuitive that reducing the overall load caused the XTB to burn up, but apparently the combination of inductive and linear loads on the XTB was preventing the load from burning up the XTBs input circuitry. I won't paraphrase Jeff's explanation and embarrass myself further. Maybe he can reiterate for us.
I should note that Jeff both offered to repair the unit free and changed the labels and instructions to accommodate the unusual results I discovered by flagrantly disregarding the label warning. Now, in addition to the wattage limit, he indicates that no more than two X-10 devices be plugged into the XTB's amplification outlet. I think a lot of non-engineers and techies have real problems understanding the intricacies of the different types of devices as well as other concepts, like the PF (power factor), phase angles and so on. I know I do!
If reactive and inductive loads can interact as they apparently did with the XTB, is it possible that measuring multiple modules and dividing that outcome as both you and Art did is not actually equivalent to reading a single unit? I assume you did that because reading single units that draw under a watt is problematical for the KaW, even in the kWh "accumulation" mode.
Good to here from you again, Dave, even if you're still correcting the living hell out of me and shaming my Mad Cow brain - that has to be it - Mad Cow. Anyway, that's how we learn, even if the ego gets a little burned around the edges.
And again, here's to a good surgical outcome.
P.S. to Art. Glad you asked this question, nothing at all's changed but I feel alot better that X-10's not eating 400 watts just "being there." I feel a lot worse though, about where all those extra watts are going. A while back someone suggested that the older the house wiring, the more likely substantial amount of juice are going up in heat in the wires. That would not be good. )-:
-- Bobby G.
Rather than further spaghetti-ize things by trying to respond inline to your inline comments, I'll just p*ss off all the anti-top-posters and try to respond to your major points here.
Inline ammeters only work for purely resistive loads where voltage and current always remain in phase with each other. With reactive loads (inductive or capacitive), voltage and current are 90° out of phase, requiring multiple, simultaneous measurements. Power=Voltage*Current so averaging each doesn't work. You have to average the products of the many readings.
Non-linear loads are usually those related to power suplies with diodes that tend to draw current only at certain points in the voltage sine wave. These also require multiple, simultaneous measurements.
I'll leave it to Jeff Volt to explain why you had the problem with the XTB.
CFLs have non-linear power supplies which cause (small) surges, triggering the X10 flashes.
You really don't need the closed box. Just put your hand on the 7W nightlight. It should be hot enough to be quite uncomfortable. IIRC, I used
3W which was still uncomfortable. X10 modules (with no load) have to dissipate the heat associated with the idle load they represent. They never get too warm to touch (unless defective) so this is a quick and dirty sanity check whenever some>> >The Kill-A-Watt is notorious for not measuring very low wattage devices
Just to set it straight, I did an instantaneous reading on the Kill-A-Watt ... I didn't even know there was a long term read .... engineers never read the manuals ... I'm not even sure where it is. As to "heat in the wires", what do you mean? And, how did you measure the
400 watts? 400 watts is just under 4 amps and that's a lot. My guess would be that you have something connected and using power that is "hidden".
Most inexpensive X10 devices have transformerless power supplies, which use a capacitor to drop the line voltage to the low level needed by their electronic circuitry. The charging current is reactive, which is not in-phase with the applied voltage. The Kill-a-Watt has two ways to measure power consumption - watts and VA.
Watts is the "real" power that you pay the electric company for. VA (volt amperes) is the average of the real-time multiplication of voltage and current over the entire AC cycle. Purely reactive loads will draw current charging up at one point in the AC cycle, and dump that energy back to the poweline elsewhere in the cycle, resulting in no "net" power consumption. However significant current can be drawn during the charge and discharge.
The amount that VA differs from watts is a function of the power factor of the device. When the power factor is 1.0, the VA and watts will be essentially the same. At lower power factors, the numbers can differ by large amount. For a Maxi Controller, the Kill-a-Watt reads 1.0 and 10 for watts and VA respectively. Even though the Maxi Controller label says it only consumes 2.5W, the low pass filter in the XTB must deliver the same current as if a 10W load was plugged in.
You can think about this in another way. If you stick a big capacitor - say
2.2uF - into an AC socket, it will pull about the same current as a 1200 ohm resistor. If that were "real" power (watts), the capacitor would dissipate about 12 watts. However, the capacitor won't even warm up because the current is "imaginary" (90 degrees out of phase with the applied voltage). I just verified this with my own Kill-a-Watt. It measured 0 for watts, and 11 for VA with a 2.2uF capacitor.The power supply in a X10 transmitter functions a lot like that capacitor. The only "real power" that the Kill-a-Watt measures is that actually consumed by the module electronics.
It the case cited earlier wherein the XTB low pass filter was overloading by removing one of the 5 loads, that one load had a power transformer. So, its "imaginary" inductive current was opposite that of the other X10 transmitters, partially canceling out their effect. When that load was removed, the current pulled by the 4 remaining capacitive loads (about 40VA) exceeded the rating on the XTB low-pass filter inductors. This is similar to the issue that the power company deals with by placing capacitors in their distribution network to balance out the inductive reactance from the various motor loads.
I realize that this may be a difficult concept for some. Hopefully, the capacitor example above will help you understand the issue.
Jeff
Which is why the power companies charge industrial and other customers, with large reactive loads, a premium. They have to supply (and have the infrastructure for) the higher current even though it does no work.
It is also why CFLs may not bring about as big a reduction in power usage as claimed by those who foisted them on us. Instead of merely banning (effectively) incandescents, they should also have mandated that CFLs have a high power factor or, at least, require the manufacturers to put the PF on the package.
I'll see your top-posting and raise you one. It's amazing how the net was really like Camelot. For a little while it really did represent an amalgam of viewpoints and information from across the world, a real roundtable of ideas. Then came the commercial corruption. And netcopping and lots of other "badness." IMHO, top posting is a very logical and "page down palsy" free way of reading a thread. Obviously not everyone agrees. I guess that's human nature.
Between the explanations both you and Jeff have offered, I understand better what some of the issues are and why it's difficult to read the power consumption of X-10 modules with garden variety meters.
I agree the hand method is clearly the best sanity check. IIRC, I was trying to determine the amount of heat generated by a lamp module in the dimmed state, where they do tend to heat up quite a bit more than an appliance module because of heat generated by the triac. When I went to look up the phrase "Why do triacs get so hot" one of the first 10 Google hits confirms my contention that the old WWW ain't what she used to be:
How Can I Become Hot? - GirlsAskGuys.com I wanna be hot because then I will feel good about myself and get more attention. The question is: what should I do? I was kind of a tomboy growing up so I ...
How does something like that come back in a search that includes the word triac?
I assume there's some resistance in the triac and some of the current passing through it is dissipated as heat, and the more current the more heat. I am only curious because the lamp module I melted by running 1000W through it still works. It just looks like it's part of that Dali painting with the distorted clock faces. I assume the issue is that while the circuit can handle the wattage, the case design can't dump the heat fast enough to keep it from melting.
-- Bobby G.
Not to further the off-topic but...
I totally agree with the reference material as an attachment (below)
The advancement to threading newsreaders has obsoleted the need to bottom post and / or even attach reference materials, at all, except when the previous post being responded to contains multiple ideas that could confuse the isolated response idea.
Threaded response posting is even worse and can only survive a few generations. It usually indicates "too much to say".
Top posting keeps the ID headers with the text they belong to. Note the bottom posting confusion here at the bottom. Multiple colours and other special reader techniques have been implemented in order to keep the bottom posting confusion from happening over the years. Why bother?
Between the explanations both you and Jeff have offered, I understand better what some of the issues are and why it's difficult to read the power consumption of X-10 modules with garden variety meters.
I agree the hand method is clearly the best sanity check. IIRC, I was trying to determine the amount of heat generated by a lamp module in the dimmed state, where they do tend to heat up quite a bit more than an appliance module because of heat generated by the triac. When I went to look up the phrase "Why do triacs get so hot" one of the first 10 Google hits confirms my contention that the old WWW ain't what she used to be:
How Can I Become Hot? - GirlsAskGuys.com I wanna be hot because then I will feel good about myself and get more attention. The question is: what should I do? I was kind of a tomboy growing up so I ...
How does something like that come back in a search that includes the word triac?
I assume there's some resistance in the triac and some of the current passing through it is dissipated as heat, and the more current the more heat. I am only curious because the lamp module I melted by running 1000W through it still works. It just looks like it's part of that Dali painting with the distorted clock faces. I assume the issue is that while the circuit can handle the wattage, the case design can't dump the heat fast enough to keep it from melting.
-- Bobby G.
Inline ammeters only work for purely resistive loads where voltage and current always remain in phase with each other. With reactive loads (inductive or capacitive), voltage and current are 90° out of phase, requiring multiple, simultaneous measurements. Power=Voltage*Current so averaging each doesn't work. You have to average the products of the many readings. Non-linear loads are usually those related to power suplies with diodes that tend to draw current only at certain points in the voltage sine wave. These also require multiple, simultaneous measurements. I'll leave it to Jeff Volt to explain why you had the problem with the XTB. CFLs have non-linear power supplies which cause (small) surges, triggering the X10 flashes.
You really don't need the closed box. Just put your hand on the 7W nightlight. It should be hot enough to be quite uncomfortable. IIRC, I used
3W which was still uncomfortable. X10 modules (with no load) have to dissipate the heat associated with the idle load they represent. They never get too warm to touch (unless defective) so this is a quick and dirty sanity check whenever someone suggests they waste significant power.
Not to further the off-topic but (I will)...
I totally agree with the reference material as an attachment (below)
The advancement to threading newsreaders has obsoleted the need to bottom post and / or even attach reference materials, at all, except when the previous post being responded to contains multiple ideas that could confuse the isolated response idea.
Threaded response posting is even worse and can only survive a few generations. It usually indicates "too much to say".
Top posting keeps the ID headers with the text they belong to. Note the bottom posting confusion here at the bottom. Multiple colours and other special reader techniques have been implemented in order to keep the bottom posting confusion from happening over the years. Why bother?
Between the explanations both you and Jeff have offered, I understand better what some of the issues are and why it's difficult to read the power consumption of X-10 modules with garden variety meters.
I agree the hand method is clearly the best sanity check. IIRC, I was trying to determine the amount of heat generated by a lamp module in the dimmed state, where they do tend to heat up quite a bit more than an appliance module because of heat generated by the triac. When I went to look up the phrase "Why do triacs get so hot" one of the first 10 Google hits confirms my contention that the old WWW ain't what she used to be:
How Can I Become Hot? - GirlsAskGuys.com I wanna be hot because then I will feel good about myself and get more attention. The question is: what should I do? I was kind of a tomboy growing up so I ...
How does something like that come back in a search that includes the word triac?
I assume there's some resistance in the triac and some of the current passing through it is dissipated as heat, and the more current the more heat. I am only curious because the lamp module I melted by running 1000W through it still works. It just looks like it's part of that Dali painting with the distorted clock faces. I assume the issue is that while the circuit can handle the wattage, the case design can't dump the heat fast enough to keep it from melting.
-- Bobby G.
Inline ammeters only work for purely resistive loads where voltage and current always remain in phase with each other. With reactive loads (inductive or capacitive), voltage and current are 90° out of phase, requiring multiple, simultaneous measurements. Power=Voltage*Current so averaging each doesn't work. You have to average the products of the many readings. Non-linear loads are usually those related to power suplies with diodes that tend to draw current only at certain points in the voltage sine wave. These also require multiple, simultaneous measurements. I'll leave it to Jeff Volt to explain why you had the problem with the XTB. CFLs have non-linear power supplies which cause (small) surges, triggering the X10 flashes.
You really don't need the closed box. Just put your hand on the 7W nightlight. It should be hot enough to be quite uncomfortable. IIRC, I used
3W which was still uncomfortable. X10 modules (with no load) have to dissipate the heat associated with the idle load they represent. They never get too warm to touch (unless defective) so this is a quick and dirty sanity check whenever someone suggests they waste significant power.
I measured one LM485 lamp module with the 100W incandescent load fully dimmed using the Kill-A-Watt in kWh mode. The total power used was about
2.5W. Again, not enough to generate much heat.Appliance modules with locking mechanical relays dissipate only slightly less power when idle than idle lamp modules - 0.4W vs 0.5W. I think that's an indication that it's the power supplies that account for most of the idle power. I cited this as well as the fully dimmed load on the web page I mentioned earlier in the thread.
I don't recall the details but Charles Sullivan and I both measured the RMS output of a lamp module at various dim levels. I used both the Kill-A-Watt and a true RMS meter. I don't recall the details (these days I have trouble recalling what I had for breakfast or even whether I had anything) but the readings were the basis of the data given in this link...
Thanks for the detailed explanation. It's actually quite suprising how much I've learned about the X-10 transmission process just following this group.
-- Bobby G.
I find it pretty annoying to page down 10 times in a message to find someone added only the words "I agree" to the thread. (-: Better to be able to see that's all that's been added with a single glance.
-- Bobby G.
immediately
"accumulation"
It's the last button on the right that reads kWh.
It's not really a lot consider I have about 6 PCs and a whole 16 camera CCTV setup with active monitors in many of the rooms in the house going along with all the X-10 gear and at least 10 UPS's protecting various gear as well as an alarm system.
I measured it by shutting off the fridge, the lights and any other large loads and watching the meter outside go round and round. I don't know about your house, but with all the wall warts I have plugged in, along with all the AV gear that never really shuts off (so they can be IR controlled) a
400W standby load is embarrassingly quite possible.Since the house is over 70 years old with the original cloth insulated wiring, I am sure at least some of those watts are "wire heat" ones but I am not curious enough to unplug everything in the house to determine that. Simply shutting off the breakers won't give a true read of the loss caused by the old wiring. If I remember when I move, I'll try to check the meter once the house is empty. That should give me a read on the wiring loss.
After reviewing Dave's data, it's clear it's not the X-10 gear that's drawing all those amps, but in looking around, I realized that there was more than enough "always on" equipment to account for a large standby power consumption level.
Sadly a lot of electronic gear can't be turned off completely without having to reprogram, reset it or otherwise fuss with it. That's why so I have so many UPSs scattered around the house (each sucking watts). The biggest savings I achieved recently was in retiring all the desktop PC's and replacing them with used laptops that draw a maximum of 17 watts each, compared to the old units that ranged from 50 watts to over 200. The power company quickly raised my rates to compensate. (-:
-- Bobby G.
I normally go to another message if there's no original content on the first screenful.
BTW, If you do top-post, be sure your sig seperator (use the correct one, it's hyphen-hyphen-space on a line by itself) and sig are at the bottom. This is important for newsreaders that leave it out of quoting.
Also, snip most of that stuff.
[snip]Many of the bottom posting advocate /trolls state you can jump to the bottom with one keystroke however...
I find it even more annoying to page down 10 times only to have to page back two and half pages to find the beginning (top) of the latest posting text. How stupid is that?
-- Bobby G.
What I find much more annoying is people that don't trim anything and quote the entire message to add their very measley .00002 cents. You can tell those posts pretty easily because they are usually "cat fights" where the insults (and the nested >'s) just go on forever:
I hardly ever bother reading any post where the >>>>'s are greater than two or three deep. The thread's almost always drifted away from the question at hand by then and has usually degenerated into some microscopic dick swinging contest. Though I hate Google as a newsreader, I have to give them some credit for collapsing multiply repeated blocks of text and adding a button to "show quoted text" if for some reason you need to refer to the original comments.
-- Bobby G.
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