My newly installed x10 system seems to have a mind of its own. Lights are coming on and going off randomly. It could be that I have signals coming in from neighbors' systems.

Is there any way to block incoming commands other than the Leviton whole house thing?
[Link: smarthome.com]
I don't think that approach will work for me. I have a 3 phase system with two breaker boxes. Huge wires come from the pole to a box that splits both the A and B phases out to two main lines. One of these main lines goes to one circuit breaker box and the other one goes to the other circuit breaker box. The "high leg" runs over to an air conditioner compressor and nowhere else.

I don't want to get into the box with the huge wires. Even if I did, I think the wires are too big to go through the hole in the whole house blocker. I could put it on the wires coming into each of the circuit breakers, but my guess is that the blocker would block the signals coming in from the other breaker box, and I need the signals to units on both boxes.

Anyone have any ideas on how to solve this?

Have you verified that your lights are responding to signals from outside of your home?

Hobs, I've seen this same setup in older homes with central air. What you have is called an "open delta" configuration. Just like a single-phase system, you have a center-tapped 120-240 volt main panel, with the "high leg" third phase added just for the AC compressor. It's called the high leg because the voltage is higher to the neutral than from the other two legs.

Three phase electricity is a very efficient way to power motors, and provides more torque with a smaller current load. You can consider the rest of your home to be a single-phase load, so don't let that throw you. Treat it just like you would any normal 120-240-volt electrical service.

However, to address your question, try changing the house code away from the current setting by several letters. You have discovered one of the reasons there are multiple house codes. The odds are that, as you surmised, you have an X-10-using neighbor sharing the same utility transformer.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Larry

>>Have you verified that your lights are responding to signals from outside of your home?<<

Is there a way to test this Larry?

Hobson, I was having the same problem with a couple of lights too. Religiously, every morning I would come downstairs to find my basement, livingroom, concession stand lights on. I changed from the X-10 brand switches to Leviton. I also changed my software from ActiveHome to HomeSeer (HomeSeer.com) as ActiveHome doesn't support the extended code required for the Leviton switches. I no longer have this problem of lights going on by themselves.

This is not to say however that I still don't problems, I just have a different set of problems now! ( not related to the Levitons)

Glenn

Sure. Knock on your neighbor's door and ask them if they have any remote control lights. If you find a neighbor that does, try to control your lights from his house.

Don't throw money at a problem until you've first verified that you have identified the real cause of the problem.

Thanks to all of you.

I have not verified that the signal source is from a neighbor. I'm just at a loss to figure out why lights would change on their own.

Since my house backs up to a condominium complex, knocking on doors is not an ideal solution. I was hoping to find a simple way to exclude neighbors' signals as the source of my problem.

For now I think I will go with Larry's suggestion of just changing the codes and hoping for the best.

Glenn,
Do you have a theory as to why your problem went away when you changed software and brand of switch? I mostly have Switchlinc and Leviton switches, but I have a few x10 and PCS switches also [that's a long story]. I haven't tried to isolate the problem to a particular brand of switch; but I will.

Thanks again.

Hobson