Galaxy G2 Adding New Panel

[anwss]

Hi,

Hope I dont offent anyone with a simple question, but I have searched over the internet for two days now without finding a clear answer.

I have a fairly newbuilt house which came with a Galaxy G2 pre-installed. Unfortunately I missed to get an additional keypad to my second door. The installation was done by the house building firm and they have responded that they cannot re-sell panels or help me and have pointed me to another re-seller here in Sweden (where I live by the way). They state that I can only use the simplest MK7 panel to my alarm system (not the prox one that I want), but my searches on the internet (and here) seems to indicate that it should work anyway?:

The user manual I have states that its a G2-20 system, but the existing MK7 panel says "Galaxy 44 v1.4" on the LCD display.

So my question is; will it be possible to install a second MK7 panel with prox, so I can use a tag to set/unset the alarm?

I will also order this from the UK since they wanted £230 for the simplest MK7 panel (without prox). To me this sounds like robbery when I see the prices in the UK web-shops.

Thanks in advance!

BR Anders

[Monty]

I am 90% sure the prox keypad will work with your system as the work is done in the key pad (readercoil) but Iwould se who comes a long shortly who use the g2 panel on a daily basis to confirm this we use Menvier and we can mix match keypads as required on current versions .

[9651]

100% works on UK derived panels, but they are country specific....

On the box end station, there will be a sticker saying Galaxy 2-20 or possibly 2-44. There will be some other no/letters after it. What are they?

Also to view what panel you have tap in master code, (ent)then 23. This will show the system version. Might give us some more clues.

[GalaxyGuy]

Hi Anders,

You posted that the keypad currently displays "Galaxy 44 v1.4", so it's probably a G2-44 (unless someone has been fooling with the banner). The manuals are pretty generic between the G2 range, so it doesn't surprise me that you have a 2-20 manual. As 9651 asked previously, can you determine any more information about the end station (control panel) ? If this is English, then yes, there should be no reason that you cannot add a MK7 Keyprox to the system (up to four keypads in total). Just ensure that you set the address selector to a different address than is set on the other keypad. They must be set at 0, 1, 2 or 3.

I am assuming that you have the Master (L3) PIN code. Do you also have the Engineering (L3) code ?

When you add a keypad to the system, the system will not communicate with the keypad, as the control panel only indexes peripheral devices at certain points of its operation. These indexing points are when exiting engineer mode, when resetting the system and when powering on the system (mains and battery). Until the keypad is indexed, it will display a flashing row of "*************" characters. It will also emit a constant tone from the onboard speaker (press the 'esc' key to stop that).

If you get a new keyprox, I would advise that you switch off power and disconnect the battery when you connect the wiring to the panel. When doing this, any battery backed warning device will sound, so you want to prepare everything prior to making the final connection in order to do it quickly and avoid annoying the neighbours. You must observe the 'daisy-chain' configuration of the RS485 bus when you are connecting your new keypad. This may mean that you have to move resistors or remove the on-board jumper and add another termination resistor.

When you power the system back on, the indexing should take place and the new keyprox should be seen by the system. You should now be able to program your keyprox tags against your user accounts using the master code. When you hold a prox tag in front of the keyprox, you should hear a beep from the speaker. If you don't get that beep, then you will need the engineering code to modify the panels parameters. The default is 'max enabled', so hopefully the installing engineer will have left that alone and everything should work.

Regards,

[anwss]

Thanks guys for the fast and good replies. I will check the version when I get back home (Im on vacation right now). I can just confirm that you are right regarding the MK7 keyprox working; I got a new message yesterday from the reseller saying that they where wrong and that it should work on my system.

Thanks!

[anwss]

Hi again,

Checked my system again now and from the keypad (master code+23) I get:

"Galaxy 2-44+, version 1.44"

When I check the sticker on the main box it says:

"GALAXY 2-44+ C044"

Then at the bottom the following string:

"prEN50131-1:2004 - Grade 2, Class II"

So the remaining question here is if it will work to install a UK keypad to my system. The existing keypad seems to have swedish language in it (in the menus), but if it's just a language issue I dont have any problems with having one keypad in English and one in Swedish. But are there any other technical issues?

[GalaxyGuy]

The keypad itself doesn't hold the language. It's just a device that receives display data and sends keypress data on the serial bus to/from the end station/control panel. I see no reason that your version of control panel will not work with an additional keyprox.

Regards,

[anwss]

Thanks again for the exellent help. I have managed to install a new keyprox (CP038) to the system and it works fine when using pin, so the normal keypad function is working without any issues so far. However I cant make the prox function work. I tried to check prox readers diagnostics (meny 61.4 in engineering mode), but it gave me a "no access" (translated from swedish, so Im not sure about the correct english term). When checking the user menu 42.1, the option 6=Prox tag is not available (it doesnt show up). So it feels like I have missed something? GalaxyGuy, you said something about "MAX enabled" option should be set, but this doesnt seem to be available on the G2, or?

When I check Keypad diagnostic (61.1), both keypads show up with no problems (address 0 and 1 with 100%).

[james.wilson]

Have you tried restarting it?

[anwss]

I've made a panel restart from the engineer menu, but the result is the same.

Can there be a problem mixing non-prox keypads with prox ones?