Brad Knowles <[email protected]> writes: > I've tried that kind of thing, repeatedly. It has never once worked > well, if at all. [...] each circuit in the house was isolated from all > the others, My experience is with X10 home automation, but I imagine the concepts will apply here.
Most US home wiring comes in as two 120V legs out of phase with each other so that the potential between them can be 240. usually, about half of the standard wall circuits (120V) are on one leg, and the remainder are on the other. The signal pulse sent out at the AC zero crossing doesn't always travel between the two legs. > There are expensive "bridge" devices you're supposed to be able to get > and install in your main breaker box that are designed to allow > devices on different circuits to talk to each other indirectly, but > I've never seen them myself. The expensive bridge device used in X10 is a $0.25 capacitor which is often installed in one of your 240 reciprocals. That said, Inductive loads, flourescent lighting, and surge protectors often attenuate or degrade the signal as well. An easy test might be to buy/borrow a transmitter/receiver for X10 and see if it works between your receptacles. or, just go with the wireless bridge... it's proven and much less flakey. -- flip When you see beyond yourself then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there. --George Harrison _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
