Very strange. The front porch light comes on every night at 840pm. I thought it might be a neighbor causing it, so I switched the house code. No help. Based on what I've read here, I guess it could be electrical noise, but at the same time every night? How is that possible? Is there anything else I should check?

What kind of interface? Is it programmed to come on at any time? What is the time set to in the interface?

What type of controllers do you have it the house? This really sounds like a programming error or a problem with a controller with internal clock.

I'm not sure what you mean by interface. I have a PAT01 transceiver and an IR543 transceiver. I also have a PHT02 mini-timer, but the porch light isn't set to come on at any time. Also, its unit code is not one that the mini-timer will control. In fact, I had a problem with the light coming on before I ever got the mini-timer.

Unplug the PHT02 mini-timer and see if the problem goes away. If that doesn't work then unplug the PAT01 and try again. Lastly, unplug the IR543.

If the light still comes on when *ALL* of your transmitters and transceivers are unplugged then you've confirmed an interference problem. If the problem goes away then you can narrow it down to the offending transmitter.

Update:

Last night, I unplugged the PAT01 transceiver (leaving the IR543 and mini-timer plugged in). The light DID NOT come on. Any suggestions as to what would be sending a signal to the transceiver every night at 840pm.

Haunted in Orlando? :-)

I don't know. Could be a bad PAT01. I've never heard of an RF transceiver responding to RF interferance.

Maybe Bill E. will have some ideas.

RF does travel far and I am not that far from Orlando, but I don't do anything that consistently, so it’s not me. It could be an outside RF source, stranger things have happened, but I have never heard of anything like this. The PAT01 is a top quality unit in the X10 scheme of things, I doubt it is happening on it's own with that sort of precision. One thing you might try is setting the antenna at 30CM which tightens up it's bandwidth reception to the desired 310MHz (more or less).

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

Hmmm... Maybe a neighbor with a Hawkeye motion sensor, sending out the plus one code at dusk??

John Galvin

John,

Can't be that, he changed the housecode and it still happens.

What a weird scenario, I'm going to stick around and am interested in what the final culprit ends up being.


Thank you,

www.RRDeals.com

I can't figure out the cause of the problem, but I have solved it. The reason I wanted an X10-controlled front porch light was so I could add an outdoor motion detector. However, I could never get the outdoor motion detector to work (to far away from the transceiver I guess) so I had put it away.

To solve the problem, I plugged in a TM751 transceiver (located close to the front door switch) and then set it and the switch to a different house code. Next, I installed the motion detector. So far, the motion detector is working perfectly and the front porch light hasn't come on unexpectedly.

Of course, now my tv backlight has started popping on. Sigh.

Chris,

What do you mean by "tv backlight"?

I have a 6500k florescent light sitting behind my center speaker. I use this light when we have company and don't want a pitch black theater.