[ale] OT: X10 weirdness

[charriglists at bellsouth.net (Calvin Harrigan)]

On Friday 12 March 2004 02:35 pm, Chris Fowler wrote:
> I have replaced a few of the lights in the house and outside with the
> new twister bulbs.  I've noticed that when they are attached to X10 and
> I shut them off they flicker.  That is weird.  Any reason why?  I would
> expect that with them off there would be no voltage passing to them.
>

The power might be controlled via a triac.  When low voltage is applied to a 
florescent bulb it's impedance/resistance is quite high, so I would suspect 
the triac is leaking and building up a charge until the point the bulb tries 
to turn on, which in turn drains the leakage current back to nothing. 
Repeat..

Voila, Flicker!!!

I am not an EE or play one on TV, so take the idea with a boulder of salt.


Calvin...