I have learned a ton here. I need advice on the use of the PCS LCP16 and LM4 on new home construction vs individual PCS Smartswitches. I am looking at approx. 52 circuits. Would I be nuts to sink this amount of money into a system that will probably have many X-10 glitches??

Hi,

This has been covered before, but even though I sell the LM4's I would not recommend them. The reason for this is with the individual PCS switches you wire the house in a normal manner, which any electrician can handle. The LM4 on the other hand is wired uniquely. With the individual switches you could change out brands anytime in the life of the home with a multitude of other brands and technologies. With the LM4 you have boxed yourself into a bit of a corner.

I don't think anyone is nuts using high end X10, I routinely supply products for multi million dollar homes. High end X10, with scenes creates amazing affects that greatly enhance the value of these homes.

X10 is very reliable if proper attention is paid to phase coupling and noise control. Also the better X10 products have a much greater tolerance for system problems.

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

Thanks Bill. That is what I thought.

Just finished building a 4000 sq foot home with about 40 PCS switches. Followed Bill's advice and had electrician add a Leviton surge protector and phase coupler/amplifier at the main breaker panel. Everything works great. Your electrician will probably be mystified by the whole X10 thing, mine was. In addition to making sure there is a neutral in every box (which is talked about often in these forums) you need to have power in every box as well. The slave switches will not work without a power and a neutral. Tell your electrician this everytime you see him. I didn't tell mine enough, as when it came time to install the PCS switches they were fishing power up to most of the slave switches.

Tim,

You shouldn't have to fish power to the slave box's, just reverse the location of the master and slave as shown in this schematic:

[Link: ir-x10.how.to]

Well, guess it's too late now. :)

Larry in TN, I don't know if it's just me, but the above link is a no go, I get a message from @home asking me to notify the owner, 'best I can do..

Must have been a temporary server problem. The link is correct and it's working now. (@Home is the web host, FWIW)

Larry, my appologies, the problem is with my Netscape, IE5 works, but I hate MS products.

thanks for checking it though.

That's weird. What does Netscape do?