need help wireing x10s

[thepollock]

i need help wireing my x10s and i know vary little about wiring. can ne one help?

thanx

[morty]

I've got more experience with getting X10 to finally work right than I care to admit. What are you trying to wire? (Note -- X10 is very sensitive to the electrical interference created by most electronic ballasts. You will probably need some of the X10 filter modules to get everything to work right.)

[thepollock]

iam looking at putting sevral of them in a box and then pulg the box in to the wall.i just dont know how to wire them and how meany i can wire together.

[morty]

I guess I would still need more info from you to be of any real help. I'll assume you are using one of the aquarium controllers that is X10-ready. So generic answer is: X10 uses modules (http://www.smarthome.com/2002.html) that "listen" for signals that are sent thru the house wiring to turn on or off. They have little dials on them that you use to set each module to its own address. You can have as many as 256 X10 devices on a single home circuit. You also need a power line interface (http://www.x10.com/automation/x10_pl513.htm) to get the control signals from the controller to the house wiring. It connects to the controller with a phone cord and plugs into the wall or powerstrip.

Note that the modules make a click when turning on or off so it can be annoying if you use these to control powerheads for a wavemaker. (There is a way to mod them to make them silent, but it's a PITA and costs about $15 each mod.) And if you are using electronic ballasts you will need X10 filters (http://www.x10.com/pro/automation/xppf.htm) between the contol module and the ballast. (Even if you're not controlling the ballasts with X10, you will still need the filter on them because the local interference they create screws up the X10s.)

[thepollock]

iam using the x10s with my aqua jr. for my tank. i have some modules that just plug in and some i have to wire. what iam looking for is a way to make a box that holds the ones i have to wire ( like a houes plugin). iam runing a icecap 660 for my vho's will that interfear with it?

[morty]

The Icecap will probably interfere with the X10 so I would get a filter to be safe. This one (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2104173&cp=&sr=1&origkw=filter&kw=filter&parentPage=search) from Radio Shack is another one that would probably work.

This diagram (http://www.x10pro.com/pro/pdf/xpfm.pdf) shows how to connect the wire-in modules I think you might have. There was a reply to you on TRT by aka_bigred that showed one way of building a box with outlets connected to X10 modules. That would probably work for you.

[thepollock]

thanx for all the help.