Ghosts in the house, games turn on by themselves...

john2654

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Ghosts in the house, games turn on by themselves...

Not really, but I have the X10 system installed on all my games. Every once in a great while, one or a couple will turn on by themselves. The system works really nice, but I just don't like that they can turn on by themselves. I'd rather not have to flip the breaker or unplug the surge strips as that was the whole point of the X10 system.

Today, I am at work and get a message, "Your damn racing games turned on again."
I keep the basement locked to keep the kids and others from going down there so now they will be on for 8+ hours until I get home.

A couple weeks ago the Rush games turned on by themselves when I was sleeping. All of a sudden I woke up and I could here the sirens from the Rush the Rock demo.

About a week after that, all my other games turned on by themselves except the Rush games.
WTF, ghosts wanting to play or just f'd up X10 units???

This is incident #3 for about a year now since I installed the X10's.
 
I think the most likely answer is that yes, you have ghosts in your house. However the second most likely answer is that the X10 things are dangerous. No way in hell I'd have something like that on my stuff if it'll... oh, just randomly apply power to things. Driving games have motors on them, too... all that creates heat, is very powerful, etc. I'd never leave stuff like that on when I'm not home.
 
Thanks you make me feel a lot better...
Thinking about getting ..cough.. sick.

I'm thinking I should rip the X10s out and put everything on one breaker. Only 10 games. I don't want to have to reach behind to power them on. PITA
 
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I know man, it sucks. You probably won't have any problems, but I don't leave electronics on when I'm not home that suck a lot of power. You may want to think about too leaving an extra key with your wife in case she needs to get into the basement... not trying to be critical, just giving my opinion. Good luck!
 
Thats kinda cool K3V. I could see going with the rack mount and setting up a rack with audio equipment as well. Wall mount it in a good location and have access to every machine. Now you got me thinking...
 
I think the reason they go on by themselves is the power quickly going off and on. Today I know that is the case because of severe thunderstorms.

I'm just going to get some better surge strips with longer cords so I can place them in between the games to turn 3 or 4 on at a time. Right now my surge strips have like a 3 foot cord so they are behind the machines which would make it a PITA to turn on and off.
 
This is exatly why I don't use X10 for my games. I use it for lights and other stuff around the house, but not for anything that I don't want to turn on when I'm not around.

I get "phantom signals" that turn lights on in my house every once in a while. I can live with that. I'd rather not have the games turn themselves on at random times.
 
I just had my garage wired with 20 switched outlets for games. 4 games per 15A breaker. It cost me about $600, but I like having the switches all together, and knowing that there is no power going to my games unless I flip the switch.
 
Just put your transceiver on a switched device (i.e. power strip) or somewhere you can unplug it. If your transceiver is not plugged in, your modules shouldn't be triggered.

If you're still getting random starts/stops, you should probably get in the habit of shutting off the breaker to that room when you're not using it.

My arcade runs on 2 20 amp circuits. I flip 2 switches when I leave the arcade alone for more than a few days.

I'm still not comfortable enough with my X10 setup to put my color vector (Star Wars) on it. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it can't be coincidence that when I moved it to a shared power strip with 2 other raster games, the power supply shit the bed shortly after. Damn 30 year old stuff.
 
I've been using the wireless system that Walgreens sells around Christmas time. I've never had them turn on by themselves and they don't turn back on when the power cycles during storms, etc.
 
I have been using the X-10 system for over 15 years with great success. I have had a few modules go bad over the years but never had one turn on by itself until last week. I have about 12 games on the system and one mooring last week I walked out to the game room and only one game was on. It was my Star Wars upright. No telling when it came on and how long it had been on but it was up and running with no problems. I got my X-10 remote and turned it off, let it cool down a wile and turned it back on again and the X-10 turned it on and off with no problem. So I am a little stumped as to why it only turned one game on and not the rest. Maybe something's wrong with the module so maybe I will replace it but it makes me wonder what might happen if it happened again and maybe next time it might be my SEGA Star Trek, can we say G08 monitor without supervision. :eek:
 
I'm trying unplugging my transceiver when not in use. We'll see how that does.
I really love the system, but I don't like the feeling of them doing what they want.
 
I'm trying unplugging my transceiver when not in use. We'll see how that does.
I really love the system, but I don't like the feeling of them doing what they want.

I doubt that will help.

I managed RadioShack stores throughout the 90's and half the 00's. The X-10 system works by sending an RF signal through your AC wiring to give commands to the remote units.

They are changing on/off state because of RF interference in your lines. Could be coming from the power company or it could be just the fact that long, straight wiring makes an excellent AM radio antenna. Proximity to a radio tower affects how much interference you will recieve. Perhaps you could try putting some ferrite chokes around the wiring that goes to your games (before it gets to the X-10 modules, that is).

The fact that it is succeptable to that type of interference is why some people say it works great and others have the units changing state several times a day (pretty rare). As they say with real estate, "Location, Location, Location". You seem to be pretty close to the middle with occasional random issues, but you may never be able to get rid of it unless you move.

Good luck,
Brian.
 
My arcade runs off of power strips plugged into a wall socket. ;) Never fails.
I arrange my games so that the back door or power switch are easily accessible however.
 
This! I've got these as well and have never had ANY problem with games turning on by themselves

You talking about this set? I've used it too.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-FW3000-Freewire-Outdoor/dp/B0001VO2YS

51K60S5B4QL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
 
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