12v RF Switch Weird Range Issue

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gbwelly

1243 posts

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#245465 5-Feb-2019 12:05

An acquaintance has informed me of a weird issue he is having with a 12v wireless switch he has installed in their horse shed which is about 50 metres line of sight from the house. The lights are connected to this switch. They can always turn the lights on with the single button remote, but turning them off requires walking about 25 metres closer to the shed.

So, they ordered another unit with a remote with discreet on/off buttons.... this one also has the same problem.

Can anyone make an educated guess as to what is happening here?

trig42

5812 posts

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#2173375 5-Feb-2019 12:12

Maybe that when the lights are on, they are emitting RF and interfering?

Are all the bulbs the same brand?

Can they remove all bulbs bar one, and check, adding one bulb at a time until it stops working?

Aredwood

3885 posts

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#2173382 5-Feb-2019 12:19

trig42:
Maybe that when the lights are on, they are emitting RF and interfering?

Are all the bulbs the same brand?

Can they remove all bulbs bar one, and check, adding one bulb at a time until it stops working?

If they are using LED or any kind of fluro bulbs. Tell them to change to incandescent bulbs for testing.

If their controller has both NO and NC relay terminals, tell them to temporarily try using the NC terminals. This will mean that the on button is now the off button. Does the problem remain with turning the lights off? Or are they now easy to turn off but difficult to turn on?

gbwelly

1243 posts

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#2173416 5-Feb-2019 13:04

Gosh that is so logical, I was way over-complicating it trying to figure out if one sequence of codes would be more reliably received over distance than another etc..

tripper1000

1617 posts

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#2173437 5-Feb-2019 14:10

Sounds likely that the lights are producing interference, which isn't an altogether uncommon issue. Cheap LED's are notorious for it, sometimes being quite sever, and floro's can produce noise. Incandescent lights bulbs are squeaky clean and quite, hence the suggestion above.

12v power supplies can also do it - if the NC/NO swap also swaps the symptoms, get an old school power supply. I have had similar trouble. In initial testing (using a 12v battery) the range was decent, but dropped by about 30% once the switch was connected to the mains switch mode power supply.

Edit: Old School = Transformer power supply - easily identifiable by their weight as they have metal inside them, and in their specs they are generally not 110v to 240v compatible like a switchmode.

neb

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#2173526 5-Feb-2019 15:29

tripper1000:
Sounds likely that the lights are producing interference, which isn't an altogether uncommon issue. Cheap LED's are notorious for it, sometimes being quite sever

Yup, the noise they produce can severe the communications link to the controller.