Eugene's DIY Den

So should it specify zone number, name, followed by type of alarm triggering event? I'll check if this actually does happen and report back. If it doesn't, does it mean I have detailed alarm event reporting turned off in the menu somewhere?

Something in the shed triggered my alarm last night. I'm thinking warm air currents in front of sensors or tamper contacts stick/slipping in this heat because of expansion/contraction or maybe bats. Does this panel differentiate between an alarm triggered by a sensor in a loop on a zone or the alarm triggered by a tamper going o/c on that zone? The panel just says a"Alarm" with the zone name. These false triggers are infrequent, maybe one or two a year, but always seem to happen in really hot weather.

If remanence is the cause it should be possible to demagnetise using a hand held demagnetising tool.

I replaced three contacts which didn't reliably open every time a window was opened during a test. Tapping some of the contacts worked and they'd open a few times, but would then get sticky again. I'll probably have to replace them in another few years again, that's as long as they last. All contacts that give trouble are on windows that never open. Two theories as to why. One: The few mA of current flows when contacts are closed for months or years causes a build up of material that permanently causes the contacts to grip together. Even if they have stuck together and tapping releases, there's still a locking effect. Two: Contacts become permanently magnetised just like a screwdriver when held shut for long periods, causing them to stick. Opening and closing regularly demagnetises them. The material they're mad from should have a low magnetic remanence, but maybe it's just enough to cause stickiness.

No, they're just simple reed switches with magnets. Problem is I have 16 of them wired in series, so identifying which one triggered would be a problem. However I have a radiator located under a window behind curtains and if heat was trapped and caused a large temperature increase, this may be the issue if the magnet/contact spacing is too great and the magnet is weakening at that contact. However all the 16 sensors have a gap of a cm or so, but the alarm is installed 4 years and this is the first time I've had a false alarm on this zone.

My HKC10W70 panel activated at 2.30 am and sent me three SMS messages. The first was the the alarm zone activated, the next was "alarm gross" and the third told me I had unset the alarm. What does "alarm gross" mean. I don't think I've ever seen that before on alarm activation. The cause of the alarm activating was a contact opening. Usually I have lots of trouble with these sticking on windows I never open rather than opening spontaneously, even if I replace with new ones.

Managed to get the mobile company to give me a temporary password this morning to login to my account. An agent from the skeleton staff they had on late last night didn't know this was possible and insisted I had to take the SIM out and put it in a handset.

If for instance I had to power down the board and disconnect the panel battery, or trigger an alarm by activating a sensor.

You mean hot plugging the GSM board? What about the the contacts on the SIM being misaligned during insertion?

Quick question. I asked over a year ago about disabling the external sounder when I'm working on the alarm and you told me that this isn't an option in the engineer's menu, but I can just program the ext. bell to be something different. How do I do this? (I can probably figure it out from the diagram in the installation guide, but you guys are familiar with this stuff).

Ok, thanks will try that. Yes, it's an Irish one.

Is it possible for this unit to display codes sent to it by SMS on the alarm panel's LCD or get them relayed to a second handset to avoid this issue?

So I forgot the password for logging into my the online account for my mobile number (I wanted to check credit) and I did "forgot password" which unfortunately sends a validation code to my SIM which is in the GSM unit. So I'm going to have to take it out and put it into a handset to get the code to change the password online. Really frustrating. When I installed the GSM unit after installing my alarm, I think I put the SIM in before I powered the GSM unit up or even the alarm board. Question is can I just pull the SIM out now with the GSM unit powered up or could it cause damage? Is it sufficient to just disable the GSM board from the engineer's menu? (9222 Disable GSM)

So basically this message is normal and not a fault?

So I'm still getting an "entry fault" SMS message when I open my back door and allow the entry delay to time out and the panel to activate an alarm. Is this a normal message, or due to a real fault caused by e.g. bouncing contacts and not a single clean opening of the reed switch? Wiring is good. I get three messages, "Alarm", "Entry fault", "Unset". I only expect two of these. Sometimes I get the problem with my front door too. The door and jamb are stuck and I have to shake the door to get it open, so the reed switch would alternatively open and close multiple times. I think maybe this is just a not very appropriate choice of words for the message (it's not really a "fault"). Can I turn this message off while still keeping normal reporting of faults (e.g. mains failure) in the settings for the communication board? A message about the alarm and the zone it's on and a second SMS to tell me that the alarm has been unset is sufficient.

There's no movement of the sensors though, they're well fixed. What I'm wondering is what exactly "entry fault" means.

Connections are perfect, I always spend ages making them. No corrosion. Fault wasn't a tamper fault.

I notice I get an error fault sometimes when I open my front door and the alarm goes off. The frame is swollen with all the rain so the door takes a lot of tugging and pushing to pull it open. Could this be due to the contacts being repeatedly opened and closed, sending multiple pulses to the panel instead of a single open signal?

In case you're a burglar and hack in and remotely control the panel in the future? I presume that's what they're worried about.

I haven't had any false alarms since I installed mine last year. Previously I noticed that the old panel triggered when a mains plug was pulled out. Individual tampers probably also helps. The original tamper went all over the place, out to sheds and my workshop.

The panel I used is a pro version, I was lucky enough to get it from my electrical suppler. Apparently it's only supposed to be supplied to professional , not sure of the logic of this? Maybe they're afraid of reverse engineering?

I thought I was a young dude too, lol! Are you interesting in joining the Facebook group?

Not sure what you mean. The zone type for the internal door is "alarm" and the zone option is "inhibit".

The door isn't in the entry route and I want it to trigger the alarm immediately when opened, so is inhibit the correct option? The other options are access, excl from part set A, excl from part set B, double knock, soak, chime, 24 hour, perimeter and remote test.

Checked all the zone types. All "alarm" except a panic zone and entry/exit door zone. However the zone options are "inhibit". I thought this function on a zone was for allowing the panel to be armed even if the zone is active?