Wanted: X10 whole-house filter

[dmb0058]

I'm having some work done on the consumer units in my house, and want to have an X10 filter fitted at the same time. I'm looking for the 200A unit like either of the ones below, not the FD10 DIN rail style or the FM10U plug-in filters.



Nobody seems to stock them in the UK anymore, but before ordering one in from California at exhorbitant postage rates I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone knows any stockists in the UK ?

[silver12]

Can I ask why you're fitting one?

[silver12]

http://www.letsautomate.com/10218.cfm?

[dmb0058]

Great, thanks. Don't know how I missed that one, but got one on order from there now.

I'm fitting it because I'm getting random sequences of X10 commands every so often. A typical sequence would be A1 Off, A2 off, A3 off, right down to A16 off - more likely to be alien transmissions than random noise I reckon ! I also changed the house code a while back to see if that would work, within a day had a sixteen unit D1-D16 Off sequence ... on the new house code. I also occasionally get other odd events such as lamps coming on in the middle of the night or random switch offs of individual units. These don't correlate with any other electrical activity in the house, e.g. other lights or devices being switched on or off, either manually or automatically.

I've taken every device that I have that's capable of sending X10 off my setup (e.g. CM11, alarm system, TM13), but I'm still getting these spurious commands coming through. I still have a couple of things to sort out, e.g. I have a bunch of servers in the attic running off an unfiltered UPS, and am waiting for a FM10U filter to close these off.

One main reason for going ahead is that I'm about to have two consumer units merged into one and a few new sockets fitted. I figure that it'll be cheaper to buy a whole-house filter, have it fitted at the same time as the other work and then find that it wasn't an external problem after all, compared to later deciding that it must be an external problem and having to call out the sparky for a second job.

[silver12]

I've ordered from them before and they're pretty decent - always seem to take a while to reply to emails but that seems to be the norm. these days.

Do you use X10 for all your automation? I wasn't really aware it was still widely supported.

[dmb0058]

Yep, use it for lots of stuff. Usual remote operation of lights around the house, both plug-in lamps and landing/porch/shed lighting. Our security system can also send X10 commands when sensors are tripped, and can run multiple scedules per device.

Control-wise we use RF remotes around the house, and either web (linux server running Domus.link/Apache/Heyu to a CM11U), DTMF or SMS commands (the security system has PSTN and GSM to X10 capability) to query status or switch stuff when we're away. The server sends X10 to turn devices on and off as required, and also receives X10 events (e.g. motion sensor alerts) to do things like record off IP cameras, send SMS alerts, email notifications etc.

There's loads of X10 gear still in production, both the original style X10 company stuff and later versions like the Domia kit. I guess it just refuses to die !

edit: meant Domia, not Domotica, but googling Domotica threw up this site: http://www.bwired.nl. This guy is an automation fanatic !!!

[homeautonutter]

Originally Posted by dmb0058

I'm looking for the 200A unit like either of the ones below, not the FD10 DIN rail style or the FM10U plug-in filters.

Can I ask what made you steer away from the FD10 installation?

[dmb0058]

I didn't go for the FD10 because it would have been wired between the main isolator switch and the consumer unit ahead of the whole-house mains supply. The incoming supply is physically connected through the FD10, whereas the TF678 filter is inductive so not actually connected to the main phase.

While it would be fine for an individual spur in a radially wired house, I figured that sitting it ahead of the whole house circuit makes the FD10 a 63A fuse ! I'm not confident that I won't want to draw over 63A across the ring main/lighting circuits some time in the future so went for the 200A filter.

[benwillcox]

Originally Posted by dmb0058

Great, thanks. Don't know how I missed that one, but got one on order from there now.

I'm fitting it because I'm getting random sequences of X10 commands every so often. A typical sequence would be A1 Off, A2 off, A3 off, right down to A16 off - more likely to be alien transmissions than random noise I reckon ! I also changed the house code a while back to see if that would work, within a day had a sixteen unit D1-D16 Off sequence ... on the new house code. I also occasionally get other odd events such as lamps coming on in the middle of the night or random switch offs of individual units. These don't correlate with any other electrical activity in the house, e.g. other lights or devices being switched on or off, either manually or automatically.

Have you checked that its not some other electrical device causing this? I had a strange problem where a laptop PSU was causing some lamps to come on at random times, but weirdly it was always the same lamps which had let me to believe it was an X10 device doing it. But unplugging the laptop PSU caused the problem to go away.

Ben