I went a bit crazy and have way too many 2-way devices. As could be predicted, I'm having the usual reliability problems.
However, In addition to the 'lost command' problem, I've run into something serious that my switchlinc devices seem to be implicated in.
In a nutshell, everything is working fine, and suddenly there is extreme 120KHz noise being spewed onto the line, totally hosing all X10 communication.
If I walk around the house, and turn on and off each switchlinc and watch what happens, I'll find the culprit.
A caveat.. I've had an X10 RF receiver device be the apparent culprit too. But for the most part, it seems to be the switchlincs. It is happening roughly once or twice every two to three days.
Usually, the culprit is one of the devices that I issue commands at specific times via a CM11A. But not always. Usually, it is one of the devices with the built-in repeater turned on, but again, not always.
At this point I'll rewind and give some more background info.
At the breaker box, I have a leviton 2-phase coupler/repeater. Yes, the $60 one that seems to get some folks here so excited - the HCA02). I also have a smarthome 3-prong dryer coupler/repeater to try out, but have not done so yet - I dont have the room for it behind the dryer :-(
Most of the devices are on one phase, with some on the other phase. Some circuits are seriously overloaded with X10 transmitters.
Specifically, I have on each circuit:
Phase 1: 8 transmitters (including computer controllers). There are a lot of computers on this circuit, all behind X10 noise filters.
Phase 1: 10 transmitters. Half of master bedroom, hall, bathroom. one fluro light with an instant-on electronic ballast (no filter on its ballast yet, but I have them ready). It is on a switchlinc relay controller.
Phase 1: 3 transmitters. garage/bedroom
Phase 1: 8 transmitters. other half of master bedroom, tv room lights, kitchen lights (!). 6 fluro lights, using switchlinc relay controllers.
Phase 1: 1 transmitter (an appliancelinc for a fishtank with fluro lights)
Phase 1: 1 transmitter (another fishtank with fluro lights and appliancelinc, and a whole bunch of tv electronics behind an x10 noise filter/block).
Phase 2: 4 transmitters (2 fluro lights on switchlinc relays, two regular switchlincs). Another stack of computer gear behind a noise block.
Phase 2: 8 transmitters. (includes a wgldesigns wireless RF receiver, and about 30 fish tanks, all with fluro lights. the lights are on appliancelincs, I have noise blocks but have not installed them yet).
That list is slightly out of date, there are a couple of other 2-way devices scattered around as well. But today, there are 37 transmitters on phase 1, and 13 on phase 2.
For the most part, I get signal across the house. Having the fluro lights on or off doesn't seem to make much difference, so I don't think they are destroying too much signal. Under normal circumstances, there is very little 120khz noise. According to my testerlinc's 120khz activity log, there are 1 or 2 cycles of 120khz that blip every couple of seconds or so. It is generally fairly quiet. Mind you, I do have a lot of transmitters to suck in any noise....
If I poll all the devices (they all respond to status requests), I'll usually get a response to all, except one of the fishtanks which is on the end of a very long run with 9 other transmitters between it and the breaker box. In this case, very long means that it literally travels from the breaker box on one corner to the house, around the edge, to the diagonal corner where the tank is, with two other local transmitters. It then has a long run, and hits 7 others that are fairly close to the breakers. I'm not suprised I'm having trouble with that one.
Anyway.. besides the expected signal attenuation problems, I am having occasional problems with locked up modules. Appliancelinc and lamplinc in particular. Their local control stops, and they ignore commands, even when sent locally by a test controller plugged into the same outlet. They have reset to A1 several times now. I had two spare appliancelincs, and swapped out the ones that kept resetting to A1 and it seems to have stopped. Bah. I now send A1 status requests every few hours to see if anything arrives unexpectedly.. so far so good.
And then there is the X10 "system deadlock".
All of a sudden, X10 commands stop working. The software driving my CM11A (danlan.com's x10d) reports "unexpected poll 55" or the like. If I fire up my smarthome testerlinc, it reports BBK and BSC (bad block and bad start code) with a "quality" of 120+. If I look at the leviton coupler, it has a status light.. It's 'error' light is blinking once every second. While I'm in the garage at the breaker box, I usually isolate the coupler at this point.
When I walk around the house, looking at the status lights, they are generally either all off, or blinking once every second (or every half second). It is regular, with no variation.
If I press a button on a keypadlinc, its light flashes for quite some time while it tries to transmit the codes. They give up.
At this point, I start pressing the 'off' side of the rocker on each switchlinc and watch the lights or the testerlinc. Eventually I'll get to a switchlinc and when I press the rocker, suddenly the X10 status light changes behavior and the BSC/BBK stops on the testerlinc.
Next comes a whole stream of X10 commands that have been backlogged. HCA fires off a bunch, lights change according to delayed schedules etc.
So far, the "culprit" has been:
Switchlinc relay: three times (Phase 1, fluro light, master bedroom, booster mode enabled)
Switchlinc relay: twice (Phase 1, fluro light, kitchen, booster mode enabled, same circuit as the one above)
Switchlinc dimmer: once (Phase 2, regular light bulb, on the 8 transmitter circuit including my mountain fish tanks)
Switchlinc dimmer: once (Phase 1, regular light bulb, in an otherwise unused room. this switch is quiescent 99.999% of the time, does not send or receive commands)
X10 RF receiver (Phase 1, master bedroom, same circuit as the first two in this list.. unplugging it caused the system to unjam)
Keypadlinc-6: once (Phase 1, in my son's computer room, on the same circuit as the computer controllers (8 transmitters total))
At first, I thought it might have been the 'boosterlinc' feature they recently added. As near as I can tell, this is just a single-phase repeater that detects the first of the repeated commands and retransmits over the second of the repeat.
But, that doesn't seem to be it, because it has turned up on devices without boosterlinc mode.
And the X10 RF receiver really messes up my theories too.
Now, I do have multiple repeaters, in addition to leviton HCA02 at the breaker box.
Smarthome say that their boosterlinc stuff is safe to use on multiple devices. I've been lucky to have devices on one long run where it was convenient to turn the repeater on at about 1/3 of the distance from the breaker to the end, and again at 2/3 of the way to the end.
In some of smarthome's examples, they give examples of using multiple freestanding boosterlinc modules along with a passive coupler at the breaker box. They say to get them in an outlet as close as possible to the breaker box.
However, I'm beginning to doubt the safety of this. I'm starting to wonder if I'm seeing a repeater loop storm or the like.
I don't recall for sure which devices have the integrated boosterlinc featuer enabled. I'm just about ready to go through and reprogram every single device that has the capability to make sure it is off. Then plug in the freestanding devices at outlets. What this enables me to do is to yank all the repeaters (and isolate the leviton HCA02 at the breaker box) and see for sure if it is a repeater storm or not.
Oh, that reminds me.. I noticed something very curious on the X10 log right after breaking the last logjam.. The first few commands that my computer saw was something like... "M16 P16 O16". This is highly suspicous.. I *know* that I have nothing in the house that generates those codes. And, I've just realized that the smartlinc devices use codes like this for programming them! What the heck? Perhaps the jammed device is reporting some sort of diagnostic code? I'll write it down if it happens again.
The other thing that I am wondering is whether the repeaters are implicated in getting one (or more) of the devices initially into a loop but are not needed to maintain the chaos. Having the repeaters entirely isolatable would probably answer this.
Anyway... I can deal with the signal attenuation problems. I can have extra circuits run to get the number of transmitters right down, etc etc. But the 120khz storm is driving me insane. Actually, it is driving my wife insane - I'm getting frustrated to the point that I was seriously considering giving the UPB system a road test and ripping all of the X10 devices out for one hell of a fire sale.
Does this 120khz storm problem ring bells for anybody? Is the HCA02 a pile of junk? Does it sound like I've triggered a repeater storm? Should I try out the ACT coupler/repeaters instead? (eg: CR-234) Is it worth investigating something else?
I ran across the lightolier compose firewalls.. they look like a pretty extreme solution, but would probably work.. or at least isolate the problem to a single circuit. I don't think I'm quite desperate enough to try this yet.
Any other ideas or pointers?
BTW: I ran across the insteon stuff today for the first time. Aargh! If I'd known that was coming, I might have waited. Or maybe not.. I read what happened with switchlinc's when they were first introduced...
However, In addition to the 'lost command' problem, I've run into something serious that my switchlinc devices seem to be implicated in.
In a nutshell, everything is working fine, and suddenly there is extreme 120KHz noise being spewed onto the line, totally hosing all X10 communication.
If I walk around the house, and turn on and off each switchlinc and watch what happens, I'll find the culprit.
A caveat.. I've had an X10 RF receiver device be the apparent culprit too. But for the most part, it seems to be the switchlincs. It is happening roughly once or twice every two to three days.
Usually, the culprit is one of the devices that I issue commands at specific times via a CM11A. But not always. Usually, it is one of the devices with the built-in repeater turned on, but again, not always.
At this point I'll rewind and give some more background info.
At the breaker box, I have a leviton 2-phase coupler/repeater. Yes, the $60 one that seems to get some folks here so excited - the HCA02). I also have a smarthome 3-prong dryer coupler/repeater to try out, but have not done so yet - I dont have the room for it behind the dryer :-(
Most of the devices are on one phase, with some on the other phase. Some circuits are seriously overloaded with X10 transmitters.
Specifically, I have on each circuit:
Phase 1: 8 transmitters (including computer controllers). There are a lot of computers on this circuit, all behind X10 noise filters.
Phase 1: 10 transmitters. Half of master bedroom, hall, bathroom. one fluro light with an instant-on electronic ballast (no filter on its ballast yet, but I have them ready). It is on a switchlinc relay controller.
Phase 1: 3 transmitters. garage/bedroom
Phase 1: 8 transmitters. other half of master bedroom, tv room lights, kitchen lights (!). 6 fluro lights, using switchlinc relay controllers.
Phase 1: 1 transmitter (an appliancelinc for a fishtank with fluro lights)
Phase 1: 1 transmitter (another fishtank with fluro lights and appliancelinc, and a whole bunch of tv electronics behind an x10 noise filter/block).
Phase 2: 4 transmitters (2 fluro lights on switchlinc relays, two regular switchlincs). Another stack of computer gear behind a noise block.
Phase 2: 8 transmitters. (includes a wgldesigns wireless RF receiver, and about 30 fish tanks, all with fluro lights. the lights are on appliancelincs, I have noise blocks but have not installed them yet).
That list is slightly out of date, there are a couple of other 2-way devices scattered around as well. But today, there are 37 transmitters on phase 1, and 13 on phase 2.
For the most part, I get signal across the house. Having the fluro lights on or off doesn't seem to make much difference, so I don't think they are destroying too much signal. Under normal circumstances, there is very little 120khz noise. According to my testerlinc's 120khz activity log, there are 1 or 2 cycles of 120khz that blip every couple of seconds or so. It is generally fairly quiet. Mind you, I do have a lot of transmitters to suck in any noise....
If I poll all the devices (they all respond to status requests), I'll usually get a response to all, except one of the fishtanks which is on the end of a very long run with 9 other transmitters between it and the breaker box. In this case, very long means that it literally travels from the breaker box on one corner to the house, around the edge, to the diagonal corner where the tank is, with two other local transmitters. It then has a long run, and hits 7 others that are fairly close to the breakers. I'm not suprised I'm having trouble with that one.
Anyway.. besides the expected signal attenuation problems, I am having occasional problems with locked up modules. Appliancelinc and lamplinc in particular. Their local control stops, and they ignore commands, even when sent locally by a test controller plugged into the same outlet. They have reset to A1 several times now. I had two spare appliancelincs, and swapped out the ones that kept resetting to A1 and it seems to have stopped. Bah. I now send A1 status requests every few hours to see if anything arrives unexpectedly.. so far so good.
And then there is the X10 "system deadlock".
All of a sudden, X10 commands stop working. The software driving my CM11A (danlan.com's x10d) reports "unexpected poll 55" or the like. If I fire up my smarthome testerlinc, it reports BBK and BSC (bad block and bad start code) with a "quality" of 120+. If I look at the leviton coupler, it has a status light.. It's 'error' light is blinking once every second. While I'm in the garage at the breaker box, I usually isolate the coupler at this point.
When I walk around the house, looking at the status lights, they are generally either all off, or blinking once every second (or every half second). It is regular, with no variation.
If I press a button on a keypadlinc, its light flashes for quite some time while it tries to transmit the codes. They give up.
At this point, I start pressing the 'off' side of the rocker on each switchlinc and watch the lights or the testerlinc. Eventually I'll get to a switchlinc and when I press the rocker, suddenly the X10 status light changes behavior and the BSC/BBK stops on the testerlinc.
Next comes a whole stream of X10 commands that have been backlogged. HCA fires off a bunch, lights change according to delayed schedules etc.
So far, the "culprit" has been:
Switchlinc relay: three times (Phase 1, fluro light, master bedroom, booster mode enabled)
Switchlinc relay: twice (Phase 1, fluro light, kitchen, booster mode enabled, same circuit as the one above)
Switchlinc dimmer: once (Phase 2, regular light bulb, on the 8 transmitter circuit including my mountain fish tanks)
Switchlinc dimmer: once (Phase 1, regular light bulb, in an otherwise unused room. this switch is quiescent 99.999% of the time, does not send or receive commands)
X10 RF receiver (Phase 1, master bedroom, same circuit as the first two in this list.. unplugging it caused the system to unjam)
Keypadlinc-6: once (Phase 1, in my son's computer room, on the same circuit as the computer controllers (8 transmitters total))
At first, I thought it might have been the 'boosterlinc' feature they recently added. As near as I can tell, this is just a single-phase repeater that detects the first of the repeated commands and retransmits over the second of the repeat.
But, that doesn't seem to be it, because it has turned up on devices without boosterlinc mode.
And the X10 RF receiver really messes up my theories too.
Now, I do have multiple repeaters, in addition to leviton HCA02 at the breaker box.
Smarthome say that their boosterlinc stuff is safe to use on multiple devices. I've been lucky to have devices on one long run where it was convenient to turn the repeater on at about 1/3 of the distance from the breaker to the end, and again at 2/3 of the way to the end.
In some of smarthome's examples, they give examples of using multiple freestanding boosterlinc modules along with a passive coupler at the breaker box. They say to get them in an outlet as close as possible to the breaker box.
However, I'm beginning to doubt the safety of this. I'm starting to wonder if I'm seeing a repeater loop storm or the like.
I don't recall for sure which devices have the integrated boosterlinc featuer enabled. I'm just about ready to go through and reprogram every single device that has the capability to make sure it is off. Then plug in the freestanding devices at outlets. What this enables me to do is to yank all the repeaters (and isolate the leviton HCA02 at the breaker box) and see for sure if it is a repeater storm or not.
Oh, that reminds me.. I noticed something very curious on the X10 log right after breaking the last logjam.. The first few commands that my computer saw was something like... "M16 P16 O16". This is highly suspicous.. I *know* that I have nothing in the house that generates those codes. And, I've just realized that the smartlinc devices use codes like this for programming them! What the heck? Perhaps the jammed device is reporting some sort of diagnostic code? I'll write it down if it happens again.
The other thing that I am wondering is whether the repeaters are implicated in getting one (or more) of the devices initially into a loop but are not needed to maintain the chaos. Having the repeaters entirely isolatable would probably answer this.
Anyway... I can deal with the signal attenuation problems. I can have extra circuits run to get the number of transmitters right down, etc etc. But the 120khz storm is driving me insane. Actually, it is driving my wife insane - I'm getting frustrated to the point that I was seriously considering giving the UPB system a road test and ripping all of the X10 devices out for one hell of a fire sale.
Does this 120khz storm problem ring bells for anybody? Is the HCA02 a pile of junk? Does it sound like I've triggered a repeater storm? Should I try out the ACT coupler/repeaters instead? (eg: CR-234) Is it worth investigating something else?
I ran across the lightolier compose firewalls.. they look like a pretty extreme solution, but would probably work.. or at least isolate the problem to a single circuit. I don't think I'm quite desperate enough to try this yet.
Any other ideas or pointers?
BTW: I ran across the insteon stuff today for the first time. Aargh! If I'd known that was coming, I might have waited. Or maybe not.. I read what happened with switchlinc's when they were first introduced...
