New amateur seeking a bit of advice.

[inspiredron]

HI - I'm being very cheeky and looking for a bit of advice concerning the alarm in a house that we have just moved into.  I'm very competent in both electrics and electronics but unaware of the detail of security devices.

 

The house is fitted with a Scantronics 9651 panel wired to 5 PIR's and an internal and external sounder with the basic 9930 keypad and is a really basic system installed by the builders about 14 years ago.  When we bought the house I asked the vendors for the user master code and was told that they hadn't used the alarm for many years and had forgotten the codes.  They would never have been given the engineer code.  I don't think th ealrm has ever ben serviced. 

 

Finding the installation manual on line was not difficult and I have extracted all the instructions for resetting both engineer and user codes. I have also bought a new NP7-12 battery reckoning that the existing battery is almost certainly trashed.  However, before I open up the panel to install the new battery and to reset the codes I need a little more information, please. 

 

The PIR 's all react to movement showing red led's.  The keypad has no signs of life at all and does not react to any key press. When I cut off the mains supply, the external sounder goes off (as expected but relatively quietly) and then cuts out immediately the mains is restored. 

 

My assumption is that the external sounder has its own buiilt in battery, which is still possibly seviceable but may well need replacement.  What I am really unsure about is whether the keypad is expected to play dead if the panel battery is dead or whether that is fed from the mains supply to the transformer.  If the former than I would expect the panel to revive when I replace the battery.  However, if a healthy keypad can take its power from the stepped down mains supply that seems to point to failure of the panel. 

 

If I go ahead and open up the panel to replace the battery then, if the panel is dead, I have no way of inputting a code to silence the tamper alarm condition so what happens next? I presume that the sounders (internal and external?) will continue for 20 minutes or whatever duration has been set under option 42.  Once that time has elapsed, what happens next?  Thankfully there is no communication module installed.  Can I just replace the panel cover, and then continue with clearing fthe fault condition once I have installed a new keypad, probably a better model as I have read somewhere that the 9930 is a bit naff and prone to failure.

 

I do realise that if it is expected that the keypad acts dumb when the main battery is dead it may still be faulty - butthe answers to my bold paragraph will still be applicable and help me

 

As you can see, I have done my homework and feel competent to do the necessary - I just don't wantto really annoy my neighbours.  Nor do I want to spend a lot of money on a system that will need total replacement anyway.

 

I'd be really grateful for some help.

 

Ron

 

 

[sixwheeledbeast]

Maybe the keypad or cabling to the keypad is faulty?

To power down the system you will have to deal with the bellbox hold-off, this will run for 15-20 minutes every time it looses power or has a trigger (the bell itself controls this time).

If your competent it maybe time to consider upgrading the controls while your messing out diagnosing what is broken. Bellbox batteries are generally not worth replacing just replace.

Being cheap you may find it's just the keypad but probably just kicking the can down the road if something else fails, hard to say without looking at the overall condition.

 

[inspiredron]

Thanks for you very quick response, sixwheeledbeast.

 

In the last few minutes I found a thread on another site that points to possible failure of the NVM chip or perhaps just lost its programming so an NVM reset (or maybe replacement) might bring things back to life - at the expense of retuning all the default factory settings to what is needed.  None of that is a problem for me - provided the NVM chip is socketed rather than soldered - and that I can identify the chip required - but, as you say, a complete new panel plus proximity keypad is only £100 if that does not work - But it's all worth exploring first. As far as I can see the NVM chips are VERY cheap.  Any advice on my bold paragraph please?  The installation appaers to be cosmetically completely sound - just suffering from non-use.

[inspiredron]

Just found picture of PCB that makes it clear that NVM chip is NOT socketed - so I will have to try out and hope that NVM chip is OK - Nice tamper switch!   I will look hard at wiring continuity to keypad.

You mentioned external sounder controlled by bell box itself.  If the internal sounder is a problem then it seems that I can simply disconnect it from the LS terminals until I can get keypad working. Presumably if I disconnect external sounder wires the bell will do its business once but not reset after its 20 minutes?

 

Sorry to be a pain!

[al-yeti]

52 minutes ago, inspiredron said:

Just found picture of PCB that makes it clear that NVM chip is NOT socketed - so I will have to try out and hope that NVM chip is OK - Nice tamper switch!   I will look hard at wiring continuity to keypad.

You mentioned external sounder controlled by bell box itself.  If the internal sounder is a problem then it seems that I can simply disconnect it from the LS terminals until I can get keypad working. Presumably if I disconnect external sounder wires the bell will do its business once but not reset after its 20 minutes?

 

Sorry to be a pain!

On this panel the external bell shouldn't sound when you take the cover off 

 

But you can disconnect the internal speaker if codes are no good 

[inspiredron]

Thanks for help - guess it's exploring tomorrow! I will report back - positive or negative.

Ron

[PeterJames]

NVM failure would not make the keypad blank and unresponsive, cable to keypad or keypad is fooked (technical term)

[inspiredron]

JOB DONE! It was very much easier than I had expected and apart from the 15 minute external sounder when I switched off the mains and the 3 second test when I had finished there was no sound at all to disturb the neighbours.

So what wa sth eproblem you may ask.

1)  As I expected the battery dated from 2007 and was totally shot - in fact there were very small traces of white powder but they had not affected the case at all - I was in time.

2)  The control panel was dead because it had been opened up and the 4 wires to it had been cut.  Also one of the wires feeding the internal sounder had also been cut.  Luckily in both cases the wires were long enough to be reconnected (after a bit of soldering on the sounder).  Our friendly(?) vendors had told us they could not remember the codes - it would have been helpful if they had said that they cut the wires! *****!*!*!!! (expletives!)  The external sounder did the full 15 minutes on battery which is a good sign!

The codes rest to defaults perfectly and I have spent some time going through the totality of the programming commands, walk test, checking Zone attributes, naming zones (the installer was too lazy to do that) and setting up new engineer and user codes. I know that I have been slower than a pro but it has been interesting. Now I need to consider whether to get a communicator for it so that it can ring my mobile when we are not at home.

 

Thanks for the help to those who responded - it set me in the right direction and gave me extra confidence.

 

If anyone has intimate knowledge of the 9651 I might well be asking about setting up zone attributes to enable entry through either of front and back doors. Front door leads directly into hall which is Final Exit while back door has to negootiate an extra zone.  Perhaps it's as easy as giving that zone an FE attribute instead of NA?

 

Thanks again folks

Ron

[al-yeti]

2 minutes ago, inspiredron said:

JOB DONE! It was very much easier than I had expected and apart from the 15 minute external sounder when I switched off the mains and the 3 second test when I had finished there was no sound at all to disturb the neighbours.

So what wa sth eproblem you may ask.

1)  As I expected the battery dated from 2007 and was totally shot - in fact there were very small traces of white powder but they had not affected the case at all - I was in time.

2)  The control panel was dead because it had been opened up and the 4 wires to it had been cut.  Also one of the wires feeding the internal sounder had also been cut.  Luckily in both cases the wires were long enough to be reconnected (after a bit of soldering on the sounder).  Our friendly(?) vendors had told us they could not remember the codes - it would have been helpful if they had said that they cut the wires! *****!*!*!!! (expletives!)  The external sounder did the full 15 minutes on battery which is a good sign!

The codes rest to defaults perfectly and I have spent some time going through the totality of the programming commands, walk test, checking Zone attributes, naming zones (the installer was too lazy to do that) and setting up new engineer and user codes. I know that I have been slower than a pro but it has been interesting. Now I need to consider whether to get a communicator for it so that it can ring my mobile when we are not at home.

 

Thanks for the help to those who responded - it set me in the right direction and gave me extra confidence.

 

If anyone has intimate knowledge of the 9651 I might well be asking about setting up zone attributes to enable entry through either of front and back doors. Front door leads directly into hall which is Final Exit while back door has to negootiate an extra zone.  Perhaps it's as easy as giving that zone an FE attribute instead of NA?

 

Thanks again folks

Ron

Best to get something GSM with cheap monthly SMS SIM not payasgo 

[sixwheeledbeast]

That would indicate to me that it was unreliable or had an issue and they just killed all the internal sounders and left it.

I suppose you will have to see.