Is X10 the way to go?

[reefer_wannabe]

I've been through 4 timers in the past 2 months on my 75 with 440 watts of VHO. I'm looking for a RELIABLE way of controlling my lights. I've read a little about the X10 and it seems to be pretty good. Any other thoughts? I'm getting ready to go on vacation and would like to get this taken care of before I leave.

TIA

[Alice]

Hmmm...I've been using the same ol' appliance timers on my lights since I set up the tank; what have you been using?

Alice

[pcmankey]

I have X10 controlling everything on my tank including IceCap 660 ballast and 2 IceCap 175W MH ballasts with no ill effects. I did however make one slight modification to the modules.

[RWD]

I have been using a Aquacontroller system for 3-4 years now with 0 problems. The Aquacontroller uses X-10 modules to turn on and off the lights, pumps, etc. I have had no problems but there are a few people out there that have and scraped the idea. In some houses they just don't work reliably because of the wiring. There are fixes that may or may not work so I would start small before investing a ton of money.

[hamburglar]

I have used X10 timers for 2 years on my power compacts with no problems. No modification needed for these ww.ahsupply.com PC kits.

[reefer_wannabe]

Do not try and run your return pump, canopy fans, sump fan, sump light, heater and 440 watts of VHO off the same cheap Wal-Mart power strip!!!!

I plugged an old timer with my lights hooked up to it into a wall outlet and it worked fine. With the power strip, besides being a fire hazard, it just does not work!!!!

Thanks for the responses. Still considering the X-10 thing, though....

Cheers!

[Mnemic]

X-10 is good, but it can be picky if any devices are putting out signals on the line you are thinking of using.

You may need to put a noise filter on your lights, and I think I would put a noise filter on the entire Aquarium Power Supply, to isolate it from the rest of your house.

eg, Noise filter where you plug the surge protector in the wall.

This lets you use X-10 in a closed environment.

for your VHOs you would need to use an appliance Device, rated for your lights. DO NOT USE a regualar Lamp Module for aquarium lighting. They are designed for incadecent bulbs usualy upto 200 watts, and have dimming abilities that I'm sure could fry a balast if you tried to dim via this method.

Note about the applicance modules, they make a very noticalbe Clank noise when switching on/off.

For those of you unfamiliar with X-10 it more less sends on/off/dim settings using your actual powerlines.

[bill-e]

The thing with X10 is that whatever you use to control the modules, it must resend the commands to the modules every few minutes.

The x10 protocol sends out command signals on the 60 hz power line. It is very easy for the X10 module to mistake noise for these signals and take action based on that noise.

If you do have noise interference problems you can add filters to the offending appliances and even disable local control. But even with filters and even with a quiet power line, X10 is not 100% reliable and therefore you must resend the commands every few minutes. First, to insure that the module responds to the command in case it didnt the first time and second, to reset the module to the proper state in case noise caused it to change.