[Coco] further adventures with plug'n'power/x10

[Steve Batson]

I haven't played with the CoCo PnP or x10 for a while, but as you 
mentioned, it could be non CoCo related, it could be the controller or one 
of your outlets. I've had a few problems with X10 in the past.

First, it very well could be the outlet or module. I've had a number of the 
wall outlets go bad and just stop responding to the controller. I have no 
idea why the high failure rate, but it's happend enough times that I don't 
like to use the outlets anymore. The modules seem a bit more rugged.

Second, I've seen many issues where the signal isn't strong enough to go to 
some parts of the house if it's big and spread out. 

Third and finally, I've had situations where the the signal got blocked 
because the controller was on one leg of the power coming into the house 
and the module on the other. This can sometimes be tested by turning on an 
appliance such as a dryer that uses 240V, when it comes on, it acts like a 
bridge and the signal jumps the transformer in the appliance.

You might want to use a powerstrip to test the controller/module to see if 
the signal can get there with everything on the same circuit over a short 
distance. If you can manually controller the devices on the strip but 
software doesn't, you know it's with the software or some timing issue as 
mentioned earlier. If everything works on the strip but not in the orignal 
locations, it's probably the second or third issue I mentioned above.

If you have a problem with controller being on a different leg of the power 
than the outlet/module, you can get bridges that can be installed in the 
breaker box or make something up. I'd be careful though, you don't want to 
cause shorts and possibly a fire by doing some type of home brew project 
unless you are very familiar with working with electrical circuits. I know 
they have or used to have exntenders or repeaters for X10 signals to go 
longer distances.

I think X10 stuff is cool in how it works and how easy it can be to setup. 
I don't do much with anymore though because the reliability isn't very good 
for some of the things I mentioned above. It is cool to have the computer 
control devices, but I ended up buying a clock/controller at Radio Shack 
years ago and used it for a while. Plus they have these controller pads 
that you can manually turn things on and off without needing mess with the 
computer.

Hopefully this helps.

Have Fun.

Steve

----------------------------------------

From: "Aaron Wolfe" <aawolfe at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 5:08 PM
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Subject: Re: [Coco] further adventures with plug'n'power/x10 

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 1:49 PM, Darren A wrote:
> On 9/22/10, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>> The x10 outlets I ordered finally showed up, so I tried some things
>> with the CoCo today.
>>
>> 
>>
>> I assembled the OS9 tool (which is what I'd prefer to use in the end)
>> and it appears to run fine under nitros9.  It behaves much like the
>> DECB program, except that the data light turns back off after the
>> command is sent.  So it's off, I send a command and it flashes a bit,
>> and then its back off.  This seems likely to be what should be
>> happening, but I'm just guessing.
>>
>> 
>>
>> The test coco is a coco 3 with a 6309 running nitros9 l2 (or just 
DECB).
>> ...
>
> ----
>
> One thing to consider when using the OS9 tool is that any timing
> critical code may be a problem when running the 6309 in native mode
> under nitros9.  Also, does the tool support OS9 Level 2  (i.e. will it
> function at 2Mhz)?
>

Good points. I will dig out the 6809 coco 3 and see if that makes any
difference. Does L1 run at half speed even if on a CoCo 3? I'll give
that a shot as well.

> Darren
>
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