sixwheeledbeast

I don't like working on these things, as above they do daft things. You end up power cycling them or reprogramming them to clear weird faults. From a DIY POV you are already at the limit of your ability as you say, so your left with finding another installer. You could put another set of batteries in and hope. You will likely be able to clear most faults with your user code, arming then disarming. I would want to replace the system for something else if it wasn't as simple as batteries.

Everything on an alarm has some sort of battery somewhere, if it's for primary or standby use depends on the component and/or the system. Standard wired alarm bellboxes have a built in rechargeable pack that will trigger the bell if the power is lost. If in SCB mode it will use this pack for the bell siren in all situations.

Pretty sure the panel on it's own is about 100mA with a Smartcom probably a little more. It must be getting it's current from elsewhere, if the tests are right. Seems fair bit of kit on the panel, battery fuse in good condition, correct value? Any poly fuses hot?

I don't believe the Powermaster has a wired box option, like the old one. You would have to cable it with alarm cable and use any standard SAB from it's expander module. You will have to check the 12V output current maybe use bell with SCB mode if required.

They know Bosch will always be NDAA. Even tho it's an American ruling it's considered more and more in public sector.

Most of them I have seen either stop picking up or latch active and get red hot, lens plastic gets brittle with age too. It's just too open ended to answer, everyone chooses and avoids kit based on there past experience with it. We won't all get the same experience. Another example, many rate Risco I-wise sensors I don't, have seen too many daft false alarm issues in the past to trust fitting them. There is a similar story behind every piece of kit, it's chosen because of reliability and fitting in with how you work. A one off purchase isn't going to matter, if it works that time.

Funny that. I think the same of Pyronix. Everyone is going to have their preferences for whatever reason. It's just too much of an open ended question to answer.

That's more like how kids learn now with Scratch bit like an IDE. node.js is a whole can of worms, a good few reports of developers adding malicious things to popular libraries lately.

I hate working with YAML it's just backwards to most other markup languages, it's becoming increasingly common in config files. It's supposed to be more human readable but I just find it annoying to work with in a similar way to python. Give me some old school XML or even JSON anyday, let me whitespace where I want...

Decent places have been implementing that for a while, I would hope?

Not that hard for any panel manufacturer if you know what your doing...? Likely, why you need to continue on to crack the engineers code if you have UDL access is beyond me.

As I have already said take it down and get it working adjacent the controls. it needs to be sited where you can access it anyway. The thing is most of the trade members here have seen all this before, new members posting for months and not getting any further. We have no idea on someone's skill set, there is no persuading it's the best option depending on how much you value your security. You can't learn to be an installer here either, people can only give you some guidance based on assumptions.

Heard of a number of businesses offering extras or free stuff if a customer would remove/improve/reword a review. This isn't how reviews are suppose to work if they are to be more than an advert/space on platform... It's also impossible for these review sites to moderate this behaviour on the internet, plus they are only really interested in the internet traffic/ad revenue which pays the wages. Stick to asking relatives, colleagues or your mates opinion down the pub...

Take all online reviews with a pinch of salt and completely ignore platform any were the businesses have full moderation (facebook etc). The majority of people are useless at giving an in depth review of service because they have no other experience and business will often only ever show the positive side. Reviews are not what they were years ago, you could give/take minor criticism and improve with it. It's become just a place where people vent in public if something went wrong, or bump them as close to 5* as possible.

You'd honestly save a lot of time and get more reliable interfacing from a better panel. High end alarm panels can do a lot of automation and logic themselves, they can just lack slightly on easy user control. The main thing I don't like with konnected things are they instruct you to piggy back on all the zone inputs for presence, so if something failed you could get false alarms it doesn't conform IMO. It's designed to retrofit to old panels but it costs a lot considering a decent alarm panel can do a chunk of that functionality and output it somewhere clean, if you know what your doing.

That strobe terminal will pulse low if the system is full armed, whereas it will not if part armed. I was suggesting to move any external bell wiring from that terminal to the bell trigger instead, so not to interfere with whatever you poke in there to try to interface with it. This will mean the external strobe would only trigger when the bell is ringing, you wouldn't get a strobe flash on set if you do now. It may work with both in there but I would generally want to isolate things like that to avoid issues.

It's been a while... I was pretty clear with my instructions and the logic table in the post, how you utilise it will depend on what your connecting it to. It's probably simpler to just put a more capable panel in.

An unserviced alarm is neither use nor ornament, it's a service based industry. Having it maintained is part of the deal to making sure everything works when you need it and will not disturb everyone in the early hours. They are not consumer products you can't just pop batteries in and out of them and either would you want them to be. Consumer products are generally junk and easily defeatable. Programming knowledge is all part of the system design, which is all part of knowing what is required for correct operation. You can't learn to be an alarm installer from reading the manual it's a guide. It's general practice and part of the standards that the installer wouldn't disclose the engineering code, this is to protect any liability from a user messing with the system. As far as end users and installers are concerned if it's locked you have no access to reprogram it, if you default it you have cleared the programming with no way to reprogram it. It's even more useless depending on how usable it is now. Have you done what I suggested yet? Enable Engineer is for the user to allow the engineer access for a limited amount of time, normally the engineer code will not allow access without the user code first.

Something that should be checked at purchase, records of regular service are vital evidence; otherwise it's easy to make a system look working. Will clear the programming with no way to reprogram. Wintex needs the code to login otherwise it would be an exploit. Radio Conf Fail just means the device is missing hasn't polled within the polling timer, which it will with the battery out.

You can't tell. If it's locked you have a brick. Engineer code may reset it but may clear with user code if you resolve the issue, take the box down and bring it near to the controls then try to clear. Make sure you are using the correct lithium batteries. If your not sure best to get an installer that fits Texecom to inspect and resolve.

Output modules were made EOL as expanders have 8 O/Ps anyway so they hardly got purchased. You also have no inputs on a OP16 so not suitable by itself. It's possible to setup a either SCB/SAB bell from a PSU200XP, if you know how to program everything, yes.

You could try an ATA if they don't supply something, it will likely have issues. Upgrade the panel will be the best option in the long run.

It sounds simple as replacing the battery but often it isn't. The system charging circuit could be faulty or fuses blown. This often happens when they are not serviced regular and batteries replaced as required. Something as old as this I would check the charging rate before and after battery replacement, but before that other checks would be done to make sure it's still fit for purpose. It's possible a fuse has blown during your replacement but the tests above would need to be completed to check the system I wouldn't rule out needing a new panel. Alternatively you may have faulty sensors, the new battery is faulty or disturbed some wiring in the panel but these are less likely. Best to get an alarm engineer to look at it if using a multimeter is out of your depth.

15 minutes of tea drinking and paperwork?

Congrats on completing your 15 minute job. As I said originally there is no way to disable the bell, you have to get on with it.