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Melcom St6100 - Rewire Or Replace Tomorrow?


Simon K

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Posted

Oh I meant if you were actually doing the work! You guys get paid for installing alarms, and so you're very good at that and can do it very fast and very well, with a depth of knowledge and experience that let's you make the right decisions. I'm doing it on my own to save a few bob, and I'm eternally grateful to those of you who choose to share your experience here :-)

Got nothing don't last night, was working until late :-(

Posted

Sorry, I thought I made it clear - I ripped off the old box and tidied up and tested all of the wires.  What I had was a huge unrepentant mess.  No standardisation of colours at all - the tamper loop had blue connected to orange connected to green, the alarm pairs were three different colours to different sensors, the power pairs alternated between green pair and orange pair.  No wires cut to reasonable lengths - just left as they came out from the wall and then folded over and tangled into the mess.  It was truly horrible.  I took everything out and started again.  I disconnected all of the detectors and tested the wires thoroughly (with a fluke 87-5 on high resolution reading resistance).  The cat5 cabling in the walls is good - the problem was with the way that the thing was wired up.  I've attached a photo of the mess (after I'd begun to tidy it up - most of the zone wires are out of shot).

 

I made a pragmatic decision that, since I'm starting from scratch any way, I would replace the alarm panel so that if it turns out to be bad I wouldn't have to do a large piece of work again.  I don't have infinite time to dedicate to this, and I'm obviously much slower than a professional, so I prefer to only have to connect the panel once.  On the other hand, if a PIR is bad, I can replace that relatively easily.

 

Marconi had a lot more to do with your alarms than you'll admit, especially the wireless ones that you're so fond of ;-)

 

2zzsun7.jpg

to be pedantic, that was the company in later years, not the inventor ;).

but no matter - moving on, your aim was to stop false alarms so now follow me through as a total 'newb' in alarms world ;).

having now paid for a shiny new panel, and installed it, you/we know detectors have been 'abused', definitely are ageing, best advice (given what value they are protecting) makes perfect and prudent sense to get all new ones with up to 7 years warranty (depends in make), not rely on your soldering skills, with all respects unless you have X-ray test facilities.

don't change you might be lucky, or on a hiding to nothing!

*shrug* this is the DIY forum.  I'm sure professionals would do it all much faster (and be paid for their time too ;-)).

(and in my case offer 3 years warranty).

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

Posted

looking at the pic closer (ans we see far worse all the time),i can only see 3 pairs connected to AUX power terminals, this likely means if you have more the 3 detectors you will either have a junction box, or cables going to say landing, then to main bedroom detectors.

make sure these are also sound.

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

Posted

Believe it or not, the other pairs were connected "in the mess" to the AUX power terminals.  I finally traced and found all seven individual pairs, so am hopefully good.

 

I'm away until late Friday evening, hope to finish this up on the weekend.

Posted

*sigh*

 

Ok, connected it all up today, wires good...but am getting "Control Panel Tamper".  The microswitch is definitely pushed in when the box is closed.  Any thoughts? :-(

Posted

Ahh, interesting.  I wired up the bell-box as per earlier in the thread...I guess I could short the SAB tamper return with the "Bell Hold Off - Supply" (I think that seems right)

Posted

Got it!  Tested the SAB tamper and it was fine (closed when powered), so started looking at the tamper spring in the control box itself.  The microswitch activates correctly when the spring is pushed in...but the spring was at a very slight angle.  When the box was closed, it wasn't pushing the switch in, just bending the spring.  Twisting the spring by 45 degrees appears to have done the trick - box closed, tamper deactivated!

 

So far it looks like all of the sensors are working...but I have to wait until I can get everyone out of the house so that I can actually do a walk test.  Programming seems very easy with the instructions, so with any luck this will now be the end of the story :-)

 

Thanks for all your help thus-far folks, and will post up if/when I finally get it all connected up and tested.

 

-simon

Posted

Day 19 in the Tsi house & there's tension as simon attempts lock the contestants in the garden so he can pish about with burglar alarm

Mr th2.jpg Veritas God

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