Ive just got a general gripe not that its like me to moan lol but why do manufacturers design a product that works really well then decide to "redesign" it and turn it into a real nightmare on this occasion a novaguard 6. Imagine been on call all week, its half five at night when I should be finishing getting to a job to swap a strobe on an old regalsafe bell that wasnt done when someone serviced it last week and finding I didnt have a strobe to fit as someone borrowed it and gave me back a yellow strobe.

Oh did I mention it was raining hehe, anyway strobe didnt fit so thought sod it, customers fully maintained so ill put a new bell up, wired it all in all seemed well, went to do a bell test nothing. Then it suddenly dawned on me, 2 bell boxes have to be connected differently on the novaguard 6. So wired it as per the instructions still nothing. Turns out that you can only wire 2 novaguard 6 bells to each other because of the voltage it gives out of the tamper return.

Unipmressed I wired one tamper circuit as a zone in the panel and used the novaguard as sab tamper return but an hour to fit a bell is a joke.

Just wondered if anybody else had come accross "redesigned" products that worked better before.

Edited April 29, 200817 yr by djandysp

Ive just got a general gripe not that its like me to moan lol but why do manufacturers design a product that works really well then decide to "redesign" it and turn it into a real nightmare on this occasion a novaguard 6. Imagine been on call all week, its half five at night when I should be finishing getting to a job to swap a strobe on an old regalsafe bell that wasnt done when someone serviced it last week and finding I didnt have a strobe to fit as someone borrowed it and gave me back a yellow strobe.

Oh did I mention it was raining hehe, anyway strobe didnt fit so thought sod it, customers fully maintained so ill put a new bell up, wired it all in all seemed well, went to do a bell test nothing. Then it suddenly dawned on me, 2 bell boxes have to be connected differently on the novaguard 6. So wired it as per the instructions still nothing. Turns out that you can only wire 2 novaguard 6 bells to each other because of the voltage it gives out of the tamper return.

Unipmressed I wired one tamper circuit as a zone in the panel and used the novaguard as sab tamper return but an hour to fit a bell is a joke.

Just wondered if anybody else had come accross "redesigned" products that worked better before.

I use the Nova 6 as you can see, i have not yet needed to do this.

can you go into a bit more detail.

If you look at the funky diagram on the back of the Nova 6 manual it shows how to link 2 sab's together, you cant do it the conventional way ie looping the tamper return from 1 bell to the negative of the other as it isnt a 12v negative tamper return so as far as I can tell you can only link 1 nova to another which is ok if its a new install but if you got a faulty bell then fix it before you change it lol.

I much prefer the original nova 5 and they had straight edges hehe. Every time I use the spirit level on the nova 6 it looks drunk, then again that could be my eyes

I have had this problem all last week on about 6 jobs with 2 bells. I have been fitting the newer Nova 4's, mainly in place of old style Novagards, wired with the tamper return of one bell feeding the negative hold off of the other, one set as SCB mode etc, which worked fine. I swapped the old ones like for like and it just won't work at all. The bell being fed by the first bell box only gets about 9v at the hold off terminals, with around 8 volts at the panel tamper return. If you meter the tamper feed and return terminals with the switch closed you get about 2 Meg Ended up chopping the tamper switch out of the first bell completely, choc blocking the two wires off the PCB together and using the tamper switch to cut the negative hold off to both bells, which works a treat and still complies.

Edited April 30, 200817 yr by antinode

I have had this problem all last week on about 6 jobs with 2 bells. I have been fitting the newer Nova 4's, mainly in place of old style Novagards, wired with the tamper return of one bell feeding the negative hold off of the other, one set as SCB mode etc, which worked fine. I swapped the old ones like for like and it just won't work at all. The bell being fed by the first bell box only gets about 9v at the hold off terminals, with around 8 volts at the panel tamper return. If you meter the tamper feed and return terminals with the switch closed you get about 2 Meg Ended up chopping the tamper switch out of the first bell completely, choc blocking the two wires off the PCB together and using the tamper switch to cut the negative hold off to both bells, which works a treat and still complies.

I feel your pain lol but Ive got a diagram of how to wire em together if you want me to send it, what you have to do on 2 novas is wire the tampoer return out of one into the tamper feed of the other and the tamper return from that one to the panel, oh and you need to set it to scb

Edited April 30, 200817 yr by djandysp

tis because tamper return is now a transisterised output not a switched voltage

and dont worry, even I got caught out early doors GRR LOL

I feel your pain lol but Ive got a diagram of how to wire em together if you want me to send it, what you have to do on 2 novas is wire the tampoer return out of one into the tamper feed of the other and the tamper return from that one to the panel, oh and you need to set it to scb

Tried all that, was having none of it!

How come they've changed it? Nowt wrong with the old way of doing it. Perhaps it's because no one could be bothered wiring them correctly on the old ones...

Edited April 30, 200817 yr by antinode

Tried all that, was having none of it!

How come they've changed it?

nova active required it - they told me

Tried all that, was having none of it!

How come they've changed it? Nowt wrong with the old way of doing it. Perhaps it's because no one could be bothered wiring them correctly on the old ones...

Wolf using Novas now?

Yep, along with the 480/90 for domestics. Talked him round eventually lol.