Noisey Strip lights causing errors?

I can watch the error count on my line increase when I turn on strip lights, I presume that starters emit some EM which affects the ADSL, is there any way to suppress this noise? Can you get a breaker with electrical filtering built in?

You can, but it will not do too much. The RFI is both radiated/transmitted and conducted.

The conducted RFI will go back through the mains cable and have some attenuation there. The power supply you use for the modem will take out significantly more.

The radiated RFI will be picked up by the telephony wiring and that is where the problem is. Switch to incandescant lights - that is one solution. Shield the lights fully - but that will reduce light output.

Shield the modem - a nice Faraday cage and also screen the cables ...

What about installing a ferrite core around the BT cable where it comes in?

It will more than likely be the ballasts causing this EMI things you can do,replace any telephone extensions with a good quality twisted pair wire, better still use the adsl shielded stuff, and don't allow it to run near the light fittings or power cable's, if that doesn't help then replace the fluorescent lighting ballasts with ones that are shielded, filters such as those power surge protectors may have a limited effect depending how much emi is being generated from the lights

i experience a similar issue, but they are not my lights that are the problem but those of a shop near to my home,being induced into bt's wonderful outdated nertwork

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 15-Sep-10 11:06:57)

Think about it.

The noise that is causing a problem is doing so because it is in the same frequency bands as the ASDL signal. If you use a ferrite ring to attenuate the noise then you will also attenuate the wanted signal in certain parts of the band. Not really what you want!

The BT cable does indeed run next to the electrical cables for these lights but it's the black cable so I can't touch that.

What is the ballast, is that the starter?

I thought a ferrite ring prevented induction into the cable.

info on ballasts
A ballast

the ballast is inside the light fitting it's self, the starter is on the outside ,
you can always move the power cables away, or you could do the same with the bt cable there is only 2 wires connected to the master socket ,don't replace the wire just move it and any power cables away from each other,

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 15-Sep-10 11:21:31)

Tried wrapping the area of cable near the light fitting with tinfoil?

Might work.

No, it effectively creates a low pass filter in the cable.

From your other comments having the light power wires near to the phone wire there are a couple of possibles.

1. Add a ferrite core to the light cable - as near to the light as possible.

2. Try to separate the 'phone and power cables - 150mm or more.

3. Create a T section piece of cardboard, cover in aluminium foil and place that on between the cables using top of the "T" to fix it in place and even extend it under the phone cable.

It really will be a case of play around and see what works - EMI/RFI is a black art and most problems are solved by trying several different methods until a cure is found.