Guest Manty Posted October 2, 2003 Posted October 2, 2003 Hi all, Nearly 2 years ago we moved into a house where the previous couple had installed an A1 Omnicrap panel and bellbox 4 or 5 years before. Being that this is our first house and I had so much on, I never thought to look into whether this alarm was any good. Anyway, about 8 months later the panel started acting funny, beeping noises for no reason, etc.. as though a zone had been tripped, even though it was deactivated. The manuals would blame faulty wiring, etc, etc. In the end we would just leave the alarm off all the time - a waste, but we're not in a bad area. This panel strangeness would happen occasionally but not often, I thought nothing of it, put it down to a hyper PIR. About 2 months later we had been out all weekend and on our return found that the master RCD on our mains had tripped for some reason and the whole house had been powered down for an unknown time. Before I powered up the house I entered the front door the panel starts beeping... que frantic punchings of random codes because the original code wasn't working.. in fact, not even the default code worked, it just constantly farted this annoying noise at us. I'm thinking that the batteries had enough power to light up the panel but not enough for me to actually use it. So the next thing I thought of - knowing by now this is a **** control panel - is "defeat the tamper mechanism" (hehe, this is a dodgy spring that you hook under the keypad, pff!), but it still kept going, so then I disconnected the battery inside... that set off the bellbox... Bugger, those things have batteries in too! Quickly reconnected the panel batteries, bellbox shuts up, panel still beeping constantly. Eventually the keypad starts responding (can hear tones when pressing buttons) but despite doing alsorts the beeping never stopped. So rather than spend all night faffing, I just cut the panel speaker wires. It's now 6 months later (we never use it) and the speaker is still disconnected. I thought I'd see if the panel was behaving... I reconnected the speaker wire.. que more beeping. Perhaps the battery was still flat and it didn't like it? Anyway, sorry about the waffle, but there is a question... Is it easy for me to replace this panel by myself, given that as soon as I disconnect the battery terminals the bellbox goes ape? Or will I have to temporarily disconnect the bellbox battery as well while fitting the new panel? I'm quite comfortable with electrical wiring, it's the logic of alarm systems that I know little about, so I'm not sure if I need to get someone in to replace the panel for me. It's just making sure there's little disruption while swapping, and the only way I can think of doing that is by removing the battery from the bellbox, then cutting the building power. ?? From what I've seen on various other posts, I shouldn't go far wrong with any of the following panels should I? - Guardtec CP8 - Texecom VR8 - Ademco Accord - Compact G3 Would appreciate any advice, and thanks for your time. Stuart.
morph Posted October 2, 2003 Posted October 2, 2003 If you want a straight forward easy to install/use system. The eurosec cp8 (gardtec) fits the bill. Dont forget to fit a new battery at the same time in the panel. It would also be advisable to check the battery in the external sounder also, if this needs replacing you would be bettter changing the box completely,a CQR box would be suitable. Again if the bell on the outside looks modern/looked after, intruders may think that the house with rusty/old one down the road is a better option. Follow the links for more info on each: http://www.euro-sec.co.uk/pdf/CP8L.pdf http://www.cqr.co.uk/ Colin.
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