WARNING re X-10 (again) & computer-modems

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Kchdlh-at-aol-dot-com>

I'll repeat my warning about operating Tesla coils in the vicinity of X-10
lighting-control units--and also add something about computer modems:  In
short, WATCH IT!

I have about 7, X-10 wall-switches installed in my home in locations varying in
distance, from where I operate my coil, between 15 and 30 ft. or so.  For those
who don't know, X-10 units are radio-controlled triac-regulated wall switches
operating together with remote controllers.

Also, my computer is located in the room directly above my workshop, where the
coil is.  And unhappily, both mains- and phone-lines cross within the ceiling
almost directly above the coil.  Do you begin to get my drift?

Yes...both the X-10 units and the computer have been affected.  Here's what
I've experienced:

1.  All of the X-10 wall units remain operable locally, i.e. by pushing their
buttons to turn their lights on & off.

2.  None of the 5 closest X-10 wall units will any longer turn on remotely but
they may be so turned off .  Except: two of them will turn on remotely,
sometimes, but only in the evening; not during the day (and who can figure that
one out?).

3.  The closest wall-unit has additional charming problems:  When turned on
(locally), it often goes off by itself 2 or 3 times--after some minutes each
time.  Once I caught it dimming itself down to full-off, so maybe that's what
it does, when I'm not looking.  Usually this unit will not dim when others, not
seemingly affected and set to the same "address", are dimmed, but sometimes it
does.

4.  Those others--two of them--are the farthest away from the coil and seem not
to have been affected; they remain responsive to remote turning on & off and
dimming.

5.  One or two wall units, located at an intermediate distance from the coil,
will very occasionally come on all by themselves, and not when I am operating
the coil or anything else electrical, except sometimes watching the nearby TV.

6.  I employ 4 remote-controllers, all sending their signals via the power
line.  I can't be sure that they have not been affected but it seems as if the
problems lie only, or mainly, in the wall units.  But I also employed one
additional sender that was incorporated into my burglar alarm and that seems no
longer to function.

As to the computer (a PC Pentium III running W98), its modem, on the
motherboard, has malfunctioned several times.  I even had the entire
motherboard replaced, before I thought about the Tesla coil, and the new one
still malfunctioned similarly.  But the malfunction (a steady, loud, clicking
occurring during dialing) has seemingly gone away once I uninstalled, and then
re-installed, the modem in Windows.  So maybe that was some baffling kind of
software problem.  The evidence as to the coil being the source of the problem
is only circumstantial but pretty compelling.  I suspect I've been lucky,
there, in not having had worse problems with the computer.

So once again:  Everyone with X-10s and/or a computer...take great care with
them big sparks!

Ken Herrick