Beeps from alarm system - helps!

Jul 15, 2004 12 Replies

I just moved to a new house that has what appears to be a functioning alarm system installed (managed to set and unset it, and it seem to work).



Now, after living in the house for a few weeks, a little plastic box that has a wire coming out of it that goes into the main alarm box started making (quite faint) beeps every few minutes.



Does anyone have an idea what this part of the alarm is? I put a couple of photos here:



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any idea what to do about the beeps?



Many TIA,



J.


I would take a wild guess that it's indicating that the battery inside said box (not looked, assuming it's large enough) has failed, and needs to be replaced. They are typically lead-acid, and not expensive.

Need a better URL (one that works) for the pictures.

You seriously expect someone to sign up just to see your pics?

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 15:25:14 +0100, "JoeJoe" strung together this:

viewing of photo's.

Nope, I have no idea what you've got. It's probably the battery, although it depends. It could be anything really, you haven't been moving\dismantling any other bits of alarm equipment whilst decorating have you?

In message , JoeJoe writes

Yeah, put the photos up where I don't have to log in

Oops! Sorry - I didn't realised that the daily traffic there was capped.

Photos are now available here:

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I have now dismantled the box and it appears to contain the alarm buzzer. I now suspect that the cause for the beeps could be in the main alarm control box.

Do they generally hold batteries (rechargeable or others) that are there to keep the system working in case of a power cut, etc?

Yes. Do you have a manual for the system?

It should be a plastic rectangular box, with two terminals coming off it, on push-fit connecors. It'll have details of the voltage and capacity on the side, "12V 7Ah" for example.

It's an internal siren - perhaps to scare the s**t out of burglars, ;-)

It would be usual with any siren.

goes off as it's supposed to be loud enough to be painful and disorientate you. However, the sound bombs I've had experience of were not capable of making quiet noises too.

Yes. It could be an indication of dead battery or an alarm circuit which has developed a fault (tamper detection).

It's one of these...

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trust me you don't want to be near it when it goes off!

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 23:00:29 +0100, "JoeJoe" strung together this:

Yes, that box is purely an audible device, nothing in there that does anything other than make a noise when the alarm is activated.

Yes, some where there will be a box with a battery in. Although the sounder you have above is only activated when the alarm is triggered. If the battery is knackered then I would expect the low volume internal sounder to be making a noise. First thing to check would be the battery, but you may need to investigate further to find out if it is definitely the battery at fault, although if it's over a couple of years old then it could do with changing anyway and see if that solves the problem.

Quiet piezo sounder, try 5 re-entrant horn 120dB sounders mounted/wired in parallel if you want it to hurt! Had that in an industrial unit as thr kit stored there was very high value, someone tried one night, got through the glass front door and no further. Attending the call out I could hear them from 1/2 a mile away, the external having shut off after

19 minutes some 30 minutes before, seems the police hadn't bothered until someone complained about the continuos alarm!

Niel.

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