[onehawkeye]

We are going to be building a house with a home theater in the basement, I am starting to look into some automation. I have a couple of X10 wall switches in my current house that have dim on/off features, they are controlled by a radio receiver that plugs into the wall and a remote. When I turn the lights on or off, the receiver emits a very loud click, it almost sounds like a mouse trap. Do all X10 systems work this way or do I just have a cheap piece of crap, I don't want to purchase a large amount of X10 pieces for my theater if this is the way they all work. Any information would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks

 

[Joe_M]

Here's a forum dedicated to X-10 devices. They might be of some help:

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin...c-x10/list.cgi

 

[breed1180]

You may want to check that forum, but I will tell you what I have experienced lately. Most all of my house is now X10 and at almost the same time I installed my new home theater. The switch box/remote that you have is one of the most basic entry devices into X10. It works fine, but as you noted, it can be loud. Some of the direct wall outlet and lamp fixture X10 devices can be loud as you have seen. My lamp modules are very quiet where you can almost not hear them and my wall switches and in-line modules are completely silent. It is just a matter of cost and where you get the stuff.


In my home theater, I have overhead lights, sconces, rope lighting, a/v rack lights and a fridge all on X10. I can control them through my wall keypad in the room individually or through the use of macros. For me, I have buttons on my 6 button keypad that send signals to my home automation software (the keypad could do this itself) that in turn sends out commands and sequences to my X10 devices (housewide). The "movie" button turns off the overhead lights, rack lights and fridge (keeps it quiet during the movies) while dimming the sconces and rope lighting. The "football" mode turns off the overhead and rack lights, leaves the fridge on and dims the sconces and rope lights to a higher level than the "movie" setting.


I would be happy to answer questions for you directly from what I know if you do not want to spend the time searching forums.

 

[11001011]

Be careful you can ONLY run lights off the lamp dimmer modules (the quiet ones) They are quiet and have a dimmer function because they are contain a triac circuit like a standard dimmer switch.


If you want to control any other device then you need to use the relay modules (the loud ones)

 

[breed1180]

11001011 is correct. My fridge is running on a ApplianceLinc vs a LampLinc. It does have a click but it is so quiet, you hardly hear it. The fridge turning off actually makes more noise and masks it. I will say though that this ApplianceLinc module is orders of magnitude quieter than a basic remote/switch combo pack.

 

[greighn]

I had the same concern over the loud clicking when using the RF receiver.


The clicking is caused by the relay which controls the outlet at the bottom of the RF unit (This outlet replaces the one you use for the unit itself). If you don't need that outlet to operate remotely (I didn't), you can open the unit and find one of the wires running to the relay coil and snip it off. My RF unit is now totally silent.


-Gary.