burglar alarm tripping on power cut

Just bought a house with Eurosec CP8L LCD burglar alarm system, new built i n 2003 along with a handful of matching ones down the road. Whenever there is a power cut, most of the alarms go off together, making a horrendous ra cket. The local installation/maintenance firm seems to be no longer functioning.

Is this likely to be a back-up battery problem, and something I can fix. W hen there is a power cut the little LCD display at the front door goes blan k and doesn't respond to any entries to try to stop it. The main box insid e, which I think houses the battery, runs pretty warm. If I take the front off it might set the alarm off!

Reply to
therustyone
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Sounds like the battery in the panel has outlived the battery in the bell-box, just like most of the alarms around here :-(

If you haven't got the engineers code, it'll go off when you open it and probably refuse to reset afterwards.

There are various webforums dealing with alarm systems, but the inhabitants tend to be somewhat cagey about giving out help ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

Sorry ... vice-versa, but you get the picture ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

in 2003 along with a handful of matching ones down the road. Whenever the re is a power cut, most of the alarms go off together, making a horrendous racket.

When there is a power cut the little LCD display at the front door goes bl ank and doesn't respond to any entries to try to stop it. The main box ins ide, which I think houses the battery, runs pretty warm. If I take the fro nt off it might set the alarm off!

Probably dead lead acids.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Alarms on business premises need to have their batteries changed after 5 years. Yours would seem to be about 11 years old. Almost certainly a replacement battery is needed. When I used to maintain my own alarm, I always disconnected the battery in the external bell first. It made for a quieter life.

Reply to
charles

So just out of the NHBC "guarantee" though I suspect that is hardly worth the paper it is written on, always assuming it covered things like alarms in the first place.

Every indication that the panels backup battery is dead but the one in the bell box isn't. When the power goes the "hold off" sent from the panel disappears, as the bell box has volts from its battery it sounds from that.

Physically replacing the battery is a POP, open up, see the size (volts and AHr), get one, fit. The hard bit will be the fact you don't have the engineer code, so when you open it the tamper will be triggered and the alarm sound. It may well then refuse to do anything until you reset the tamper for which you need the engineer code...

I'd have a dig about the net and see if you can find the installation manual and/or a proceedure for a factory reset. Read and digest, try the defaults for access codes, etc. Try to get as much of the current setup out of the thing, as a download or manually stepping through all the menus/settings and writing each one down, before proceeding into the below.

At some point you are almost certainly going to trigger the alarm and/or tamper. Can you get to the bell box? If you have a copy of the installation manual and factory reset method, I think I'd open up the bell box, which will trigger the tamper, disconnect the bell boxe's battery and the +V supply from the panel (don't go by wire colour, look at circuit board markings, that should shut the thing up. You will be doing this right next to the sounder going off, it will be

*LOUD*, earplugs/deafenders might be a Good Idea.

Now you have disabled the sounder you can factory reset the panel and fiddle reprogramming it (hence the need to get as much setup info as possible before the reset) without setting the sounder off.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Thanks for the confirmation. I did take the front off the box and found a lead-acid battery, after resetting the internal house alarm set off by a PC board switch. It says 12v 3AH but it only reads 3v on charge so I guess its past its best. Seems to be a Maplin standard item dimension-wise so I'll get one there.

rusty

Reply to
therustyone

Write the installation date on the battery (and maybe a label on the outside of the panel too).

If you don't have a lead acid battery capacity tester (they aren't cheap), change the battery every 5 years as a matter of routine.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

If it's a small box then it may be running pretty hot in there and frying the battery prematurely. In a similar spot I have drilled a few small holes in the sides to increase ventilation and it has worked wonders on battery longevity. I decided the reduction in security by having a few holes in the case was minimal.

CPC would be good if you wanted to do a bulk buy for the street but I imagine that could be more trouble than it's worth.

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Reply to
fred

I'd also go to the other houses and find out if anyone has more info and if needed get a number of the batteries at once as it might be cheaper for everyone concerned. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

In my experience replace every 2/3 years, Even if the battery still has a terminal voltage of around 12V after a couple of years they seem incapable of supplying the instantaneous power require at the point that the mains voltage fails. The power supply in the control panel will "glitch" and the alarm will go off.

Reply to
alan

You might want to check the float voltage is 13.8V. Any more than this will shorten the battery life.

My alarm is programmed to run from the battery for 2 minutes every day, so the fault you have would get picked up. What normally happens is that the capacity steadily drops over the life of the battery, so the 7Ahr batterieshave dropped to 4-5Ahr after 5 years.

I have tried using them for other purposes after retiring them from alarm use, but I found they quickly die when you are no longer keeping them on float (continuous) charge - I get only a couple more years use with cyclic charging (which is probably not surprising as alarm batteries are for float use, not cyclic).

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

after resetting the internal house alarm set off by a PC board switch. It says 12v 3AH but it only reads 3v on charge so I guess its past its best.

Try Tayna for a much better price.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

Installation manual at

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User manual at:

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Peter

Reply to
Peter Andrews

All good points. I found the installation manual online and the code that 's in the user manual seems to quell it on a power cut. So I might be OK t o just change the battery as I don't see how it can differentiate between l ow volts on a power cut and low/high volts on a different battery. (Famous last words)

5 or 6 alarms went off during the power cut, presumably all have the identi cal installations from new in 2003. That doesn't seem to happen at my norma l house (just here on holiday) so none of the tightwad neighbours around he re have had their alarms serviced for some years apparently.

Thanks for all the other comments. I can't sort them as I'm using Google g roups.

rusty

Reply to
therustyone

at's in the user manual seems to quell it on a power cut. So I might be OK to just change the battery as I don't see how it can differentiate between low volts on a power cut and low/high volts on a different battery. (Famo us last words)

tical installations from new in 2003. That doesn't seem to happen at my nor mal house (just here on holiday) so none of the tightwad neighbours around here have had their alarms serviced for some years apparently.

Yes, that went well, new battery installed without any problems, apart from triggering a tamper alarm on opening the case again. No alarm when the ma ins is tripped off now, and the LCD display by the front door now continues to work with mains off. Old battery only reads 0.8 volts on a DVM when it came out. The charging c ircuit is delivering 12.8 off-load so that seems OK. The outside bell battery can wait a bit as it works fine for the moment, in deed too well.

thanks to everyone for all the help.

rusty

Reply to
therustyone

Or VPS

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satisfied customer only. VPS have had the best price for the last couple of battery replacements for my UPS. Worth a check as Maplin prices are generally rather inflated.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

And, as I found out a couple of days ago, you still need to find a legal way of disposing of the old one, as they do not take back WEEE stuff, even if it's a like-for-like (In this case identical) item.

Their only plus side is if you need it *now*, they may have one in stock at a store not too far from you.

Reply to
John Williamson

More likely ignoramouses who don't realise that alarm systems do need the batteries changing every few years. And also don't realise that the alarm sounding on a power cut is a fault, not just an indication that the power has failed. After all, all the alarms in the area are all acting the same way so it must be normal...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

lead batteries not worth weighing in?

If I've only had one or two, I've left them with the local battery shed when I've bought replacements from them, they seemed happy enough to take them.

Reply to
Andy Burns

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