Ghosts

I haven't read through every part of this thread. But I have had issues like this. Expect issues with the generic X10 devices. They are just cheaply built. Since putting in SwitchLincs in my house I don't have these problems.

If you do have a little bit of a signal getting through, enough to trigger the switches but not enough for the software to see, it migh be becasue you have some "signal suckers" in your house. I had to put filters on all my TVs becasue signals couldn't get through the house.

Well, we switched the house codes of the lights in the bedroom to J, and about 2 minutes after we got into bed, the bathroom light turned on, so that's not the problem either.

However, while messing with the lights, I noticed that the bedroom light has an audible buzzing when the light is on (which sounds suspiciously like the buzzing on the phone.) We tested to see if there were any other devices in our apartment that may be contributing to the noise by turning off ALL the circuit breakers in the apartment, and lo and behold, the buzzing continued on the phone!

My guess is that there is some noise on the line from when the power guys were messing around (about the same time all this started), and the X10 lights happen to be amplifying the signal when the light is on.

As for the audible buzzing at the switch, do you think that's a defective switch and may be adding to the problem, or do you think it's an effect of the existing line noise?

I've called the apartment to have them come out and complain about the noise. Hopefully that will fix our "ghosts". Thanks for all the help.

[matt (support)]

As for the audible buzzing at the switch, do you think that's a defective switch and may be adding to the problem, or do you think it's an effect of the existing line noise?

X10 brand switches tend to buzz worse than other switches. Even the same identical switch model can buzz differently from switch to switch. I read on comp.home.automation that the power cutoff slide switch is manufactured poorly, which contributes to the worse buzz on these switches.

That said, just about all of the dimmer switches will buzz a little when the light is not at 100%. The filament in the bulb itself can also buzz when not at 100% (it is worst at 50%) -- more heavy duty bulbs can help dampen the noise. I've never heard of this buzz causing X10 interference on the powerline, however.

Are you hearing the buzz at 100% brightness on that switch? It sounds like you still heard the buzz on the phone line even when you had the power off to all circuits, including the light that had the bad buzz, so as you mentioned it doesn't sound like the dimmer itself is the cause of the noise.

regards,
matt

Are you hearing the buzz at 100% brightness on that switch?

Yes.

Hopefully I can have someone come out and check the power line tomorrow. I think I'll try replacing the buzzing switch and double checking the installation of both switches. I'll keep you posted after that. Thanks.

Well, things have gotten even worse in the last 48 hours. Now the signal is affecting even lamp modules (it only affected switches before and never modules). Someone's coming out today so hopefully he can get rid of the underlying noise and hopefully that will stop it.

The apartment maintenance people came out yesterday and stated that the noise on the phone line was a combination of the dimmer switches and a broken phone, and given the evidence, I was forced to agree. However the apartment maintenance guys stuck around after for a while and told me that the electricity was flaky for the whole street (traffic lights going out all the time, other problems in houses and apartments on the street).

The odd thing is, they took out one of the dimmer switches to test something and then reinstalled it, and since then, the buzzing at the switch has been less and I haven't noticed any random happenings since this happened (it had been getting progressively worse, with the office lights turning off every 5 minutes on Tuesday!) I wonder if some wires got crossed or something during the installation of the dimmer switch that was causing feedback or something on the line. Lately I've been using the kill switches to ensure that the bedroom lights don't turn on while I'm sleeping, but last night I left the bathroom light and it didn't turn on until morning when Indigo sent the command! I'll be checking the bedroom light tonight.

It does seem that some signals are not being transmitted fully (sometimes only one light turns on when indigo sends a command for 2 lights to come on), but this is a welcome inconvenience compared to random actions; the failure to respond is infinitely preferable to unprovoked actions.

So it seems like the problem may have been fixed, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. If anyone has any further insight, I'd like to hear it.

On the XTension list they are always recommending soldering connections instead of using the twisty-nuts. Connections alone can cause problems. (sorry for the mention of the competition.)