Gardtec 350+

[Tony111]

A bit of history first, alarm system is a Gardtec 300 series and looks like the control panel on the 350+ pdf file I have downloaded from a link on this site. It was installed around 96/97 we think and within a few months the Zone 1 alarm kept going off which is upstairs on the bedroom landing. As we have a cat and a dog, we have taken to always disabling zone 1 when setting alarm as they would trigger it anyway even without that fault (probably wiring and it didnt seem particularly important to fix since we disabled it most of the time anyway). All was well until 2005 when the alarm started to sound the chime in the house even when it wasnt set, we found a local alarm engineer who came out and he found damp wires under the sink where we had a minor tap leak and the wiring was shorting, but before he got to that point he replaced the back up battery with a new one as it might have been that causing the intermittent alarm (once the new battery fitted then he knew it wasnt that as he had to come back). All was well until 2 weeks ago and the chimer went off again even though it wasnt set, entered code and all seemed OK. Yesterday it started doing it intermittently and the Power LED looked a bit dimmer than I remember it, I have replaced with a new back up battery to be on safe side and also replaced the 800ma QB fuse that blew last time we changed a battery too and now I am at the problem point.

The tamper light stays on, I have read the forums here searching for similar problems. I have checked the tamper switch seems to be operating as I can feel a positive click as I press it in and out, I have stretched the spring slightly to ensure that closing the lid will press the switch. No matter what I do the tamper light stays on. OK, once it went off, for about 10 minutes then I got a chime even though alarm isnt set and had to go enter the code again after which the tamper light stays on again. The last engineer from 2005 seems to be not available at his old number and for now I am hoping its something silly or simple I can just do and solve myself - if not then I will need to call someone out in the Leeds area.

Any suggestions first of all on what i can try myself please

[Guest anguscanplay]

bad news - it could be anything (and a nightmare to find)

you might want to try an engineer but I`d be saying you might as well have a newer panel too, at least you`d then know why it`s going into tamper

[mikethecamera]

A bit of history first, alarm system is a Gardtec 300 series and looks like the control panel on the 350+ pdf file I have downloaded from a link on this site. It was installed around 96/97 we think and within a few months the Zone 1 alarm kept going off which is upstairs on the bedroom landing. As we have a cat and a dog, we have taken to always disabling zone 1 when setting alarm as they would trigger it anyway even without that fault (probably wiring and it didnt seem particularly important to fix since we disabled it most of the time anyway). All was well until 2005 when the alarm started to sound the chime in the house even when it wasnt set, we found a local alarm engineer who came out and he found damp wires under the sink where we had a minor tap leak and the wiring was shorting, but before he got to that point he replaced the back up battery with a new one as it might have been that causing the intermittent alarm (once the new battery fitted then he knew it wasnt that as he had to come back). All was well until 2 weeks ago and the chimer went off again even though it wasnt set, entered code and all seemed OK. Yesterday it started doing it intermittently and the Power LED looked a bit dimmer than I remember it, I have replaced with a new back up battery to be on safe side and also replaced the 800ma QB fuse that blew last time we changed a battery too and now I am at the problem point.

The tamper light stays on, I have read the forums here searching for similar problems. I have checked the tamper switch seems to be operating as I can feel a positive click as I press it in and out, I have stretched the spring slightly to ensure that closing the lid will press the switch. No matter what I do the tamper light stays on. OK, once it went off, for about 10 minutes then I got a chime even though alarm isnt set and had to go enter the code again after which the tamper light stays on again. The last engineer from 2005 seems to be not available at his old number and for now I am hoping its something silly or simple I can just do and solve myself - if not then I will need to call someone out in the Leeds area.

Any suggestions first of all on what i can try myself please

Hi Tony

When you changed the battery I suspect you caught the wires for the global or bell tamper.

Check the wires going into the screw terminals on pcb board labeled A/T, or tamper, failing this check all connections in control panel ( not connected to pcb), they should be in connector block or soldered and heat shrunk, but I've seen lots od 'dodgy' twist 'n tape jobs in my time that are just waiting to come apart.

Good Luck

Mike

[Alarm Protection]

Tony i would check the damp wiring underneath the sink first as it might be damp corroded again.

Which zones do these wires come from??

[Tony111]

Hi Guys, thanks for the suggestions so far, when I was about to go and look for loose wiring in the control panel I was then told that the tamper light had come on about a week ago and no one had mentioned it... arghhh .... so it might yet be somewhere else the problem is coming from and not neccesarily the control panel. Today I opened each of the tremble sensors on each window and they seemed to look ok, all wiring in place and secure. When you tap them very lightly you get an orange LED briefly flash and when you tap a little harder the green LED comes on for a second or so (so that sounds about right to me?). I then went into the control panel again, when the control panel door is left open the tamper light is flashing, when its closed and reset the tamper light is on permanently. I have been to the tagbar in the middle where the grey and green pairs are, and removed all of them one pair at a time (TB is labelled AZ1-AZ5 and wiring suitably labelled to put back where it came from) and then finally removed the blue and yellow pair at the bottom wired into the "tamp" part of the TB. So far the tamper light still doesnt go out so do I also have to remove the red and black pairs as well to remove the power to the switches.

My logic is eliminate the tamper lamp by removing all the possible triggers (all the switches) then add them back one at a time until the light comes back on and that will tell me where to check wiring for a fault, however removing all those wires didint get me to where I thought i wanted to be with no Tamper lamp lit.

Not sure if it lets me post pics direct here so I have uploaded them somewhere else and linked below.

http://www.jemflower.co.uk/DSCF2110.jpg

http://www.jemflower.co.uk/DSCF2111.jpg

http://www.jemflower.co.uk/DSCF2114.jpg

Do I have to now remove the red and black bunches in the top TB labelled AUX 12v + and - in order to get to this point where I have nothing connected that can cause a tamper light in order to prove its external wiring and not a PCB fault, or is there anything else I should be removing first.

As for the damp wiring under the floorboards, without doing a lot of floor lifting we are fairly sure that wont happen again as we taped all the wiring up last time, resolved the leak and made sure all the wires were placed in a safer place under the floorboards before putting them down again and then later adding laminate flooring (so lifting there is a last resort)

[mikethecamera]

Hi Guys, thanks for the suggestions so far, when I was about to go and look for loose wiring in the control panel I was then told that the tamper light had come on about a week ago and no one had mentioned it... arghhh .... so it might yet be somewhere else the problem is coming from and not neccesarily the control panel. Today I opened each of the tremble sensors on each window and they seemed to look ok, all wiring in place and secure. When you tap them very lightly you get an orange LED briefly flash and when you tap a little harder the green LED comes on for a second or so (so that sounds about right to me?). I then went into the control panel again, when the control panel door is left open the tamper light is flashing, when its closed and reset the tamper light is on permanently. I have been to the tagbar in the middle where the grey and green pairs are, and removed all of them one pair at a time (TB is labelled AZ1-AZ5 and wiring suitably labelled to put back where it came from) and then finally removed the blue and yellow pair at the bottom wired into the "tamp" part of the TB. So far the tamper light still doesnt go out so do I also have to remove the red and black pairs as well to remove the power to the switches.

My logic is eliminate the tamper lamp by removing all the possible triggers (all the switches) then add them back one at a time until the light comes back on and that will tell me where to check wiring for a fault, however removing all those wires didint get me to where I thought i wanted to be with no Tamper lamp lit.

Not sure if it lets me post pics direct here so I have uploaded them somewhere else and linked below.

http://www.jemflower.co.uk/DSCF2110.jpg

http://www.jemflower.co.uk/DSCF2111.jpg

http://www.jemflower.co.uk/DSCF2114.jpg

Do I have to now remove the red and black bunches in the top TB labelled AUX 12v + and - in order to get to this point where I have nothing connected that can cause a tamper light in order to prove its external wiring and not a PCB fault, or is there anything else I should be removing first.

As for the damp wiring under the floorboards, without doing a lot of floor lifting we are fairly sure that wont happen again as we taped all the wiring up last time, resolved the leak and made sure all the wires were placed in a safer place under the floorboards before putting them down again and then later adding laminate flooring (so lifting there is a last resort)

Alarm panels work on normally closed circuits, so removing wires alon will only exasperate any tamper faults.

You need to take the pairs marked tamper out of the pcb and short the terminals on the pcb with a small piece of wire. Do this with the tamper cicuit and also between terminals labled bell hold and sab tamp (blk white wires top right in your image).

Close the panel (or hold down tamper spring) and tamper light should extinguish.

If not, new panel time.

If so, remove link from bell 1st, try again, if tamper back on, ur bell outside is U/S

if still ok, ur tamper fault lies on the global tamper circuit, if you havent got a meter with a resistance or continuity setting on it ur going to have to put them in 1 by 1 til u find the problem.

good luck

Mike

[arfur mo]

i'd suspect if fitted the internal siren tamper contact is wired in series with the sab tamper

but with the problems you have you need a half decent DVM along the knowledge to use it in anger.

if it has re-occured your water problem will likely show up as an 'earth' i/e/ one or both sides of the panels power rail is shorted down to earth.

the quickest way to test for one or more of these (and should have been done by the previous 'battery changer' so called engineer on his initial visit) is with a meter set to on 20 volt DC range, one meter lead to a decent earth point like a tap, pipe, the other to each side of the battery or aux volts in turn.

if all is well if only a very minor voltage if any but below a volt is read, if higher it is time to disconnect the circuits keeping the meter connected until that voltage drops off, when it does then thats the cable with a problem on.

tbh having found a vulnerble set of joints in such a daft location, i would be astounded if that engineer did not either move the junction box or make it waterproof in some way to prevent future problems, but we digress.

so now place your meter again on 20 vdc with + (red) Prob to the red battery lead, check both sides of the aux tamper with the - (black) prob to get appx 12 volts, if not present then work your way back along the tamper conections which are in series and hopefully in terminal block - not tape joints to find the faulty cable.

ditto for the sab/siren, test 12 v neg is present at the bell hold off and tamper tamper return terminals.

regs

alan

[mikethecamera]

Just as a footnote to the last comment to make it clear,

Looking at your images, you have the tamper terminals disconnected, therefore you will only get negative return on your 12v on one side of the tamper output, (the - side of the two terminals).

When the wires are refitted, if the circuit is closed, you will get a reading on both sides, ditto the bell sab- and tamp ret terminals.

Same with the circuits, when disconnected, again as in your image, the voltage return (if any) will only be present on the cables, not the terminals whilst the connections are not made. However this will not cause a tamper fault anyway, on this model of panel it would show a zone open.

The panel is showing an on board speaker, so I doubt very much that you will have an additional internal siren, but if so, it may well (altough unlikely on a 'domestic') have a tamper switch, and if, after following my previous instructions, you find that the bell sab output is generating the fault, the fault could lie there

Mike

[Alarm Protection]

Tony,

Have you checked the external bell??

[Tony111]

Alarm panels work on normally closed circuits, so removing wires alon will only exasperate any tamper faults.

You need to take the pairs marked tamper out of the pcb and short the terminals on the pcb with a small piece of wire. Do this with the tamper cicuit and also between terminals labled bell hold and sab tamp (blk white wires top right in your image).

Close the panel (or hold down tamper spring) and tamper light should extinguish.

If not, new panel time.

If so, remove link from bell 1st, try again, if tamper back on, ur bell outside is U/S

if still ok, ur tamper fault lies on the global tamper circuit, if you havent got a meter with a resistance or continuity setting on it ur going to have to put them in 1 by 1 til u find the problem.

good luck

Mike

OK did this one last night, it was the link from the bell that caused the problem. So all the rest refitted and today we opened the bell unit to have a look inside. After clearing out the spiders (uhhhhhh I hate them) we found a battery there and based on the fact it was fitted in February 1996 it seemed ripe for replacement. Lots of driving round later (RS components finally had something in stock I could use for it) I have it in place and closed up the box without all the spider c##p in it Now I can reset and the tamper light goes out, yay , and all the alarm seems to function normally as it should ..........

Except, we thought we would let it go on and see what the siren sounded like as we hadnt ever triggered it in years .... and lo and behold the siren isnt working now. The internal alarm sounds to remind oyu to turn it off, and after about 30 seconds it then goes two tone in the house and thats when we expect the external siren to start but it doesnt. Am I thinking thats a replacement part or are we into a new bell box now?

As a footnote to the original damp wiring fault, it was taped up by the previous enginer with tape and not choc block terminations. However when we fitted new floorboards and the laminate flooring about 18 months back we resited the wiring runs and remade all those terminations correctly before clipping them up into a safe place. We realised once the laminate flooring was down it would be a nightmare to get under there again and really didint want that to come and bite us at a later date