Talk:X10 (industry standard)

Clarity on X10 transmission rates and bursts
In the main article the first paragraph states:

"This digital data is encoded onto a 120 kHz carrier which is transmitted as bursts during the relatively quiet zero crossings of the 50 or 60 Hz AC alternating current waveform. One bit is transmitted at each zero crossing."

This is confusing to me. Would a knowledgeable person please edit the main article to clarify.

Which is it: "a burst" of just "one bit" sent at each zero-crossing?. If just one bit, than would the "carrier" have to be synchronized with the AC, and therefore be just 120Hz? Should the carrier on 50Hz AC be 100Hz?

Potion (talk) 16:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

3-Phase houses in Europe?
In Europe, are houses actually wired with three-phase power? Given the additional copper or aluminium needed in the distribution circuits and service drops and the more-expensive panelboards required, combined with the limited utility of three-phase power in a residential setting, this seems like a tremendous waste to me.

Atlant 11:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Every house and every flat in Sweden has three-phase power which is split out at the distribution board (panelboard). Normal outlets are 1-phase (230 V), but high load appliances such as stoves, water heaters, pumps, tumble dryers have 3-phase power (400 V). I think this goes for most of mainland Europe and I don't believe this is more wasteful than split-phase systems, probably less. It is disadvantageous in X10 installations, though. Storpilot 11:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow! You lucky guys! Can I move to Switzerland? This would surely have made the installation of my air compressor better! (Then again, so would inherent 230 VAC, rather than our 120 VAC.) Well, there are a lot of good reasons to move to Switzerland, but that adds one more. ;-)


 * Atlant 13:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Most houses in Europe that are wired for 3-phase 380V (that is 220V phase-to-neutral)* get 40A (that's 8.8kVA) per phase, which is 26.4kVA in total. This is usually delivered on 4-core (3 phases + neutral) cable. To deliver the same power to 110V single-phase installation requires a current of 240A on a 2-core cable.  The current is directly proportional to the diameter of the copper (or aluminum) in the cable. The 110V needs only two cores (versus four), but each is six times thicker!  It follows that 110V 1-Phase needs 3 times the quantity of copper to deliver the same power as 380V 3-Phase; not wasteful at all, Atlant!


 * * Note: Nominally 220V/380v; depending on country and/or supply utility this could actually be in the range 210-250V/365-435V


 * Potion (talk) 16:30, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Photos
I've uploaded a bunch of photos per 84.12.176.217's request.

Atlant 23:32, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Powerline protocol physical-layer details
What does the term "0-o" mean? -- Beland 14:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Many edits ago, it used to almost say 0°, but not quite, and that not-quite-correct character apparently got "fixed" into "-o". I'll fix the article now -- thanks for calling it to folks' attention!


 * Atlant 15:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

American RF frequency
I thought that the frequency in the U.S. was 315 MHz, not 310 MHz. Any comments?

ZuperB 02:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Someone check the FCC database of registered devices...


 * Atlant 03:15, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the FCC has searching of their data base turned off for "security" reasons, but there are enough breadcrumbs and Google caches left around to strongly suggest that 310 MHz is the correct value for America.


 * Atlant 03:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Power drain
Does an X-10 module draw power when idle? Particularly, does it consume any power when the device plugged into it is off? — Epastore 02:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, the receiver portion of each module is certainly powered at all times. But the modules don't get very warm and the power conversion circuitry is pretty puny so I think the power consumption is probably a watt or so.


 * Atlant 13:04, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I found this web page where somebody had measured several X-10 modules with a Kill a Watt. http://davehouston.net/x10-power.htm  Also found this discussion, http://www.techmall.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1082 SwitchLinc V2 dimmer 0.06A, 1W, 8VA. Which suggests that the power factors of these modules may be fairly low, and that modules from different makers may vary significantly in efficiency  draws. Zodon (talk) 03:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * X10 wireless RF receivers consume about 8 watts on idle. I measured two X10 RF receivers: an IBM Home Director (large type) and an X10 PowerHouse (small type) and they range between 6 watts and 10 watts on idle.  They also generate a fair amount of heat.  --KJRehberg (talk) 14:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Powerline vs power-line vs power line
All three of these spellings are used in this article. I can't find powerline in any dictionary. The article Universal powerline bus uses this spelling, but it is a trade name for the UPB protocol. If nobody objects, I would like to standardize on power line except for things like UPB. CosineKitty (talk) 18:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good eye and excellent suggestion. —EncMstr (talk) 19:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I went ahead and made the change.  CosineKitty (talk) 22:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

X10 Firecracker merge proposal
There's a merge proposal tag on X10 Firecracker (from 2012, doh!). Proposes merging the (relatively brief) article into the X10 (industry standard) article. Seems sensible to me. Anyone else? --Kevjonesin (talk) 03:49, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge. --Cornellier (talk) 12:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Support - I don't know how much of X10 Firecracker will be usable due to WP:UNDUE considerations, but the content can be merged into the second-to-last paragraph of X10_(industry_standard). It certainly doesn't appear that X10 Firecracker meets standalone notability requirements and I have tagged it as such. ~Kvng (talk) 14:06, 12 March 2016 (UTC)