Hi chaps, I have just bought a Melcom ST6100 to replace my faulty control box.

I now know they are not a very respected setup but it was very straight forward to fit, my question is will this box work without a backup battery fitted?

There is power to the box but it is totally dead with no mains power LED.

The 240v to the transformer is fine and the anti surge fuse is fine, as the box came without a back up battery I will purchase one in the next few days but can I still use the alarm until then without it? Just checking before I send it back as a dead unit.

Thanks for any help.

Hi Iam not familiar with Melcom , but if they are like other panels you should have some life when juice is applied, the battery is to keep the system working in times such as a power cut etc, you really ought to go over it with a multimeter first to be 100% sure , but it would seem like a faulty panel to me .

Rob.

Thanks for that, i did expect it to work on mains only but not 100% i will do one last check, strangely at the left hand end of the circuit board there is a metal strip that gets very hot within 30 seconds of pluging the unit in, so may be short somewhere.

That metal strip i'd imagine is the heatsink for the psu voltage regulator. They can get hot esp with an iffy battery connected, but as you have no battery you might want to check the power lines to the detectors & bell.

A fellow Red Dwarf nut! Thanks for the advice I am going to get a rechargeable battery tommorow as I will need one anyway, just in case this box requires a battery to be connected, i will let you know of the outcome.

Just to report back, the battery did the trick and the panel burst into life, I ran the test procedure and it seems to be working fine, sadly my bell box and pir detector wiring are completely different to the control box instructions so I am stuck for the moment until I can get some new detectors....