I just built a garage seperate from my house, about 75-100 ft apart, w/o direct line of sight. The garage has a seperate power meter. I want to be able to control the outdoor lighting on the front and back of the garage via long range remote control. What is X-10 capable of? Please help me.
Thanks Al

Does the garage have a separate meter from the utility or a separate panel? If it's a meter then you probably wont get X10 to travel over the power lines but it might it’s worth a try.

Buy a PAT01 transceiver an appliance module and a palm pad remote. First plug in the module in the garage and the PAT01 in the house (try getting it on the same phase) send a command with the Palm Pad and see if it works. If not plug the PAT01 in the garage you should just be able to get 75 feet, if not you can modify the PAT01 for a bit better range using tips found here [Link: geocities.com] modifications PAT01 is the same as RR501.

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

It's not the physical distance, nor the fact that you have a separate meter that may cause problems. What will be the deciding factor is whether the house and the garage are supplied by the same utility transformer, and whether the X-10 sender and receiver are on the same "phase" or side of the 120/240 circuit, and also the distance the wires run from your house to where they connect to the wires that run from your garage. In other words the length of wire cable the signals have to travel through.

Both house and garage should be fed from the same transformer. The house circuit and garage circuit should be on the same "phase" or side of the utility feed. The cable run from the sending unit to the receiving unit should be as short as possible.

I have had, in the past, had problems with my neighbour's X-10 turning off my X-10 when they use the "all off" button. There is quite a long cable feed between our houses and the utility line. The only way to stop it was when they changed some codes on their unit. But your own experiences may vary according to local situations.