Alarm Suggestions?

[Slickdonkey]

Over the weekend I hooked up two alarms up using the same X-10 address. Works great!

 

[Cathy8424]

That's good to know.

 

[hawkeye31657]

i not only am having x10 being put on my controller i also have it thouugh my house and if you have a problem you can get a coupler that will aid you with the problem of the house being on two circuts just look here
http://cgi.ebay.com/SignaLinc-Plug-...hZ011QQcategoryZ50587QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/SignaLinc-Plug-...hZ011QQcategoryZ50587QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
i think the repeater works better but i only have the coupler and it is fine

 

[Cathy8424]

I put in one of these.

The Repeater is also supposed to boost the signal.

 

[jnarowe]

Cathy,

How did you install that?

 

[Cathy8424]

Jnarowe,

I installed it into my electrical panel. I inserted a 2 pole 15 amp breaker and attached the leads to the breaker. It was very easy.

<img src="http://www.high-velocity.org/saltcity/album_pic.php?pic_id=354"><br><br>

The black box on the right of the panel is the X10 Couple/Boster. The box on the left is 220 for our generator.

You won't have to cut the wall out just to put in the one device. We cut the wall out to add all the circuits for the fish room. It will pached with an access panel so if we ever need in there for any thing else we will have easy access.

 

[jnarowe]

So how did it conect to the Neptune system? Sorry, I am having difficulty understanding what you did. I have a sub-panel in my tank room with the five 20amp circuits that run my system. We have two 200amp panels running the house and the sub-panel is hooked into one of those on a 125amp breaker.

Do you think hooking this booster to the sub-panel would be sufficient?

 

[CJ69]

Yes, it would work fine hooking

 

[Cathy8424]

Yes, it would work fine hooking it to the sub-panel. It doesn't hook to the controller at all. It just makes a bridge in the panel so the single can cross on either A or B phases of the panel. How it does that, I don't know. I also don't know how it works to amplify the signal.

If some one knows the answer to those questions, I would be interested in knowing too. I can only guess there is some sort of transponder inside that is amplifies the signal from the controller using the current from the breaker the device is attached to?

 

[jnarowe]

I see. I guess putting it in the sub-panel would not create a "bridge" though since its source is just on one side of one 200amp panel. In theory then my sub-panel would only cover about 1/4 of the house circuits. That wouldn't be too bad though as I could just attach the alarms on those circuits.

 

[Cathy8424]

Are you sure that only one leg feeds that 125 amp panel? Most panels have 2 buss bars to attach two hot wires to making all the post hot. If only one was attched, only every other breaker slot would be hot.

And even if that is so, you could still put it in your main panel. That should cover the other panels.

 

[jnarowe]

I see what you mean about putting it in one of the main panels and yes, my sub-panel has two hot leads like all that I have seen. But if I "bridge" at that point, it will only bridge the 5 circuits in the tank room and possibly one side of one of the main panels. (I think)

 

[Cathy8424]

I am pretty sure it won't matter which panel you put it on, it should bridge all of them. They are most likely all tied together. We know for sure that at least two of them are tied together. Even if they are tied together at the meter can, it should still work.

However, it may work better on the panel most central? I am not positive on this, it just seems logical to me. It seems to me that if we need to boost a signal in a large house, that it would loose some strenght at the end points of the runs.

 

[jnarowe]

OK. I'll play around with it. That is exactly my problem...long runs. My tank room is over 100 feet from my main panel.