Omnicron alarm

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Have a fairly ancient Omnicron 9000 burglar alarm I installed - bought from TLC. With a flush mounting remote keyboard at the front door. Recently bought a new SLA battery for it too.

The remote panel has stopped working - or at least the numbers part of it. The reset button still produces a beep and triggers its LED.

The panel on the alarm itself still works normally. They are both the early type of touch screen, not proper push buttons

Any guesses?

The chances of finding another new alarm with a remote panel of the same size (to avoid re-decoration etc) I'd guess is slight.

[DerbyBorn]

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I had a switchplate sized remote panel and the conductive rubber membrane was the cause of my problem. A strip and a clean of the contact board and I think I rubbed a soft pencil on the back of the membrane. It then worked again for years.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - it's that sort of keypad. Thing is it worked perfectly until a day or so ago. Then noticed one number needed couple of goes to enter. Two days later, no number key works at all. Would that happen so suddenly?

[DerbyBorn]

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Easy to strip - but be aware it has a tamper switch.It could be that the internal resistance has just reached a treshold and it has given up.

[Brian-Gaff]

Get one with raised bits for the figures or no blind person could get in! Brian

[Lee]

Used any solvents in the vicinity recently?

[DerbyBorn]

Lee wrote in news:U1sux.51938$ [e-mail]:

The contacts on the circuit board could be a little oxidised. Try polishing those first - then see the video.

[Dave Liquorice]

What do you mean by "touch screen". Rubber bobbly buttons like a TV remote that do depress. Smooth plastic, with printed numbers, slight indentation for the active area, essentially no movement but still requiring a definate push to enter a number. Or touch screen as in mobile phone?

I'd carefully remove it from the wall and check for a loose/corroded connection into the cable back to the panel. If it's the flat membrane type, it might be a sealed unit or might just be a flexi folded onto itself. The latter will be cleanable but be careful of any tracks that cross the fold and that might be where the fault is. If everything looks OK, try it on a short bit of cable direct into the panel, maybe you have had a little grey or brown furry visitor...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

This one. Think it may be called a membrane type - but couldn't think of the name when I first posted.

I've not yet looked at the instructions, but think it uses a three pair telephone cable to link to the panel. So at least part of it is multiplexed? All the LEDs on it seem to work ok and some of the function buttons but none of the number ones. Every button should beep when you touch it - now only those function ones do.

Next step is to remove it and have a look. ;-) ISRT having to add a supplied IC to the main PCB when fitting the remote.

[DerbyBorn]

I seem to recall with mine that it was necessary to programme the main panel to accept code from the remote. Could it have lost its setting and need the code sequence re-entering?

[Dave Liquorice]

Probably "alarm cable", looks from the outside like CW1308 but inside is just a bundle of stranded wires in plain colours (red, black, green, white, yellow and blue for 6 core). They aren't arranged in pairs.

The beep from the function keys implies it has power and is (half) working. Do the function keys do what they are supposed to do with the panel as well as beep or just beep?

If the function keys are fully working that implies the comms keypad panel is OK. That just leaves the numbers membrane at fault. The fuction keys may well be handled seperately as far as the sets of buttons are concerned, even if they are all on the same membrane unit.

Doesn't fit with just one number pad failing then all of them. Was the initial failure just one number or a row/column of numbers, ie 4

5 6 or 3 6 9 #?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The '8' seemed to give trouble first - other rows not. But very quickly (a day or so) followed by all of them.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Removed the keyboard and managed to separate it. Here are some scans.

Front

Base

[Dave Liquorice]

The front looks OK but where has all that kak come from on the base?

If you are lucky simply cleaning the switch pad areas may get it working again. Otherwise *carefully* remove the clear separator from the base, maybe soaking off rather than dry prying, clean up, water should do, and look for cracked/damaged tracks. Conductive paint is probably the better way to effect any required repairs.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think it's just cleaning fluid between the layers.

[Dave Liquorice]

Ah good 'ole Brasso and PO316's again... B-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Well, decided it's fooked. After cleaning the keypad, nothing now works at all from it. But the mimic LEDs still work, so it's not a simple fault like the power supply. And the LEDs go through their start up self test.

[Dave Liquorice]

Aw, that's a shame. Do any of the "buttons" work if you stick an ohmeter across the appropiate pads for the X/Y cordinates of a given button?

YHM BTW.

[Dave Liquorice]

Well you would if it wasn't stuck in my mail queue for some reason.

"@4000000055c215f6154a0514 delivery 631: deferral:

Sorry,_I_wasn't_able_to_establish_an_SMTP_connection._(#4.4.1) /"

The DNS doesn't return an MX record...

Do the obvious to my address above. I have a box doing nothing...