From: archjeb <jr...@gm...> - 2012-02-09 03:19:12
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Folks, As I've been migrating from X10 to Insteon for better network reliability, I thought I'd share what I posted over at Smarthome's wiki page. I'm using Misterhouse on my Linux server and sending all commands to it via the PLM interface and let mh do all the work on running scripts, sending other Insteon commands (to turn on lights, etc.). But given the noise on the Power Line, the X10 commands were not reliably getting to the PLM interface - I probably had around 60% loss at times. The solution I came up with that is working well is posted here: http://wiki.smarthome.com/index.php?title=X10_to_Insteon_Conversion I had some devices that (My alarm panel in particular) that only supported X10. I was already invested in the panel and accessories, and didn't want to rip and replace for something like an Elk panel. So I needed to create a stub network that was reliable to convert X10 commands to Insteon. I ended up with the following solution. Hope my findings is valuable to any in the same situation. -J --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copy below from wiki. X10 to Insteon Conversion ------------------------------- Perhaps you have only X10 devices and there is no option to upgrade them to Insteon. But you'd like to migrate the rest of your network to Insteon. I had this issue with my existing GE/Caddx Alarm panel. It talks only X10 via the NX-507 Relay Expander and the PSC04 interface. This is not only to send X10 commands when various Alarm events occur (such as Arm/disarm/trip, etc), but I also can also send X10 commands via the alarm keypad (NX-148E). The challenge I had was I had so much noise on the Power Line that only about 60-80% of X10 commands would get through. Not a good thing if your alarm trips and you want some 'Heyu' script to send a text/email message...because you'd never get the message :-O So if I could convert this to Insteon we'd get near 100% delivery of commands. One option was to move everything over to a different alarm panel like the Elk which has Insteon support. I didn't want to do that; had too much invested in my GE panel. So I looked at using another product to provide the X10 -> Insteon command conversation by the alarm panel. I decided to use the Simplehomenet EZX10RF Wireless Sensor Receiver. This product allows you to set up X10 to Insteon commands. It allows you to take an X10 Command and then Map that to a specific destination Insteon Address and group number. You can map up to 20 X10 commands to Insteon link destinations. Since I'm using a PLM interface with Misterhouse to deal with all of the Insteon messages and perl scripts, I setup a link from the EZX10RF to my PLM and defined each group as it relates to the X10 commands. Excerpt from insteon.mht file on misterhouse: EZX10RF Sensor Receiver IPLL, 19.BA.21:01, nx_alarm_armed, controllers, PLM, 0003 IPLL, 19.BA.21:02, nx_front_flood, controllers, PLM, I then have a perl script that runs to check on these various nx_ commands being set to OFF or ON. So the only place I have X10 traffic is on the outlet that the PSC04 and EZX10RF modules are plugged in. Interestingly, after I got this installed I still had some X10 commands that were not making it from the PSC04 module to the EZX10RF module even though they were plugged into the same outlet!! I attributed this to noise on the powerline from who knows what. I have an oscilloscope that I connected with an attenuated adapter I made to see what noise I had. I didn't want to spend hours of time trying to track down noise because as I would find one device causing noise, there would be another one to track down a week later (its been my experience with X10 for the last 6 years at my house; my wife plugs in a device and all of a sudden X10 doesn't work reliably). So all I needed was to make sure I filtered all the noise in the 120KHz range from the house to the specific outlet/powerstrip I had the PSC04 & EZ10RF module plugged into. I didn't care if X10 commands made it across the house, all I cared about was to make sure X10 commands made it on the same outlet/powerstrip so the PSC04 and EZX10RF could talk. So I borrowed an idea posted at this location to build a filter from an old X10 lamp module I had laying around. http://davehouston.org/noise.htm Towards the bottom of this page, they used an old lamp module, removed everything from the circuit board and just used the inductor to bridge the source neutral wire to the bottom plug-in. This would attenuate noise in the 120Khz range. Granted, I would reduce the X10 single but I'd also reduce the other garbage that was interfering - I'd guess at least 70%. I modified the old lamp module accordingly, I have the powerstrip plugged into this and then my two modules (EZX10RF and the PSC04) are plugged into the power strip behind the filter. After doing this, I now have 100% X10 to Insteon conversion successfully occurring. Granted, I don't see the X10 commands ever making it to my PLM, but I don't really care as the EZX10RF module is converting them to Insteon which is all I care about. I've got 5 wireless Insteon APs to make sure I have great Insteon coverage across the house and have seen 100% ACKs on each Insteon command! Smarthome sells this module here for reference; http://www.smarthome.com/31276/INSTEON-X10-RF-Wireless-Sensor-Receiver-EZX10RF/p.aspx -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/X10-to-Insteon-solution-that-is-working-tp33289635p33289635.html Sent from the Misterhouse - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. |