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Tamper Alarm


Guest chumbawumba

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Well you are entitled to your view but I've never come across a fault like that before! I see where you are coming from but I thought it might be some speil you've dreamed up to confuse the customer! I just thought its more likely to be the bell which it sounds like it is! For your information I'm not an electrican I'm just called Mark, I'm only 22 so excuse my nievety however I have got my NVQ level III in alarm installations not that it means a lot! We've had prolems with RFI setting motion detectors off but never tampers but I agree that maybe in a data line you might.

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Well Mark... 1st of all I don't dream up rubbish on here to confuse customers to rip them off and make money. Secondly in this trade you'll always find someone who knows a little more than you and I'm still finding out that others still know more than me... and after having years of experience in the trade and having a vast amount of technical knowledge I'm not trying to make anyone look like a prat but the lol didn't go down well and as your now probabally awear with an nvq level III you've still got a lot to learn.... as well all probabally have. In future take on board what others are saying and look into their view 1st before making any quick responses. As you can see the customer has given us some more information whichs point to the sab being at fault but you can't say hand on heart that is the fault without going to the system, if your not at the system you should never assume a fault as you could be batting in the wrong direction, all options should be considered and you should look at every job/fault as a blank page.

CCTV Intruder Access Control

Tony Hughes, Proprietor,

TRADE MEMBER

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Bell ringing when unset with tamper fault i would be 95% its a sab fault test the bell cable replace the bellbox and check the batt in the panel is ok.

i am sure you will have no more problems.

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try disconnecting all the bell wires from the panel link out the tamper and give it a week. If the sab kicks in get out your ladders and dis the nicad or flash the sab with 240v :no: LOL only joking but i must say i have done it more than once on a rip out in a town centre when the car is miles away with the ladders on. You down power the panel and the sab kicks in. NOT RECOMENDED

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As an A class licence holder  :whistle: and a well respected engineer  :whistle: the RFI problem is valid.

Transmitting antennas are not always visable, I personally have a wire antenna run horizontal 50ft long and at 10meters away you can't see the thing.... good luck!!!  :whistle:

62807[/snapback]

What is being said here, is basically wrap you bell box in tin foil to stop any RF interference you dont know whats around.

Mavrick, tried anything on 10Ghz

www.nova-security.co.uk

www.nsiapproved.co.uk

No PMs please unless i know you or you are using this board with your proper name.

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  • 2 months later...
Guest witts end

Well, the tamper alarm on my house's Veritas 8 has just managed to wake up me and the entire street again. It's been happening at random times every day since before the weekend. The damn alarm isn't even set, the tamper alarm just rings anyway and there's nothing I can do about it but enter the user code to stop it.

I bought the house just over two years ago, don't have a manual or anything for the alarm, all I was given was the user's PIN code.

I contacted the Texecom technical support helpline on Friday and was just told to find an engineer in my area that services Texecom alarms (well, gee, that was helpful mate). He also suggested that the battery would need replacing but, having read this thread, I see it may not be as straightforward as that. :(

It does seem to be getting more frequent in this wet weather, which suggests to my layman's mind that it may well be the external bell unit rather than just the battery.

So... can anyone recommend me a good engineer in the Selby (near Leeds and York) area who coulld help me?

Thanks.

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You could try HERE as a starter, but I'm sure it won't be too long before someone nearby on the forum offers help.

Regards Chris

Chris Teague (Sales & Operations Manager) Sightguard Intruder Division

Covering the Isle of Wight: - Design, Installation, Maintenance & Takeover of Intruder Alarms, Fire Alarms & Equipment, CCTV, Access Control, Nursecall. Keyholding Service, Guarding & Cash in Transit. SSAIB & NICEIC Registered Tel 01983 884000 / 884440

Any comments / opinions posted could be the voices in my head speaking, but they are my opinion only and do not represent those of my employer or Company

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Guest witts end
You could try HERE as a starter, but I'm sure it won't be too long before someone nearby on the forum offers help.

Regards Chris

Hmmm, the nearest firms within 50 miles or so all seem to be CCTV companies on than link. The nearest is Bradford and the website is under construction.

While I try to find someone, is there anything I can do to just isolate the goddamn bell? I don't actually need the alarm to be working at the moment. This bloody alarm isn't making me terribly popular right now, as you can imagine.

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Guest witts end
You could try omitting the tamper circuit.

enter your code , press FULL , press OMIT , 9 , PROG,

then re-enter you user code to abort setting.

This won't stop the bell , but should stop the internals.

Thanks, I've just given that a try. Fingers crossed.

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Guest witts end
Thanks, I've just given that a try. Fingers crossed.

Well, I'm back home after a few hours away in Leeds. No flashing bell box on the outside, which was nice, but the control panel inside had the red tamper LED illuminated. Does this mean that omitting the tamper circuit failed? Dunno if the alarm actually sounded or not.

I did call a local firm out of the yellow pages to see if they'd take a look at it. They want £65 before they even look at it. That doesn't sound especially good compared to the sort of figures people have mentioned on this board, but I do want to get it fixed for the sake of a quiet life. Anyway, they were meant to call me back on the mobile and never did, which doesn;t bode well, so if anyone can recommend somebody better please let me know.

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  • 1 year later...

I thought I would revive this thread because I have been suffering from similar problems but on a different system.

We have a TS700 alarm at home. It's about 8-9 years old now. I used to have a service contract but canceled it when the prices leapt up substantially.

Periodically, but on a very random basis, the LID TAMP alarm will go off. Luckily I have a neighbour who has a key to the house and a code for the alarm and will, most of the time, come in and turn off the alarm if no one is home.

In the last few weeks, the LID TAMP alarm has gone off several times when we have been home and in the house (setting off the internal alarm). On Saturday this happened and I went round all the PIR detectors and checked they were all clean and had no spiders etc and they all seemed fine. Then I checked the main control box (which is located right underneath the fuse panel in the house) and that seemed perfectly fine too. Then it went off yesterday again. What I did notice yesterday was that I could not cancel the alarm with my user code. I had to try about half a dozen times over some minutes before it would finally clear (my neighbour mentioned this to me once too - the fact that he could not clear the error message with his code). This suggests that the problem lasted for some time (10-15 minutes perhaps).

I've read this thread with interest, noting things like potential RFI interference for example, or mains spikes, but my neighbour has an almost identical system and has never had any problems with this type of error so it would seem unlikely that these suggestions are the cause of my problems. But, how would I deal with them if they were?

I'm reluctant to call someone out because of the fact that it is an intermittent fault and they are normally so hard to solve and what I don't want to get into is an expensive series of repeat visits trying different things to solve the problem but it is quite irritating not to be able to sort it out.

I can check the battery in the control box and see if that is okay, but I noticed that some of you have mentioned that this problem might lie with the bellbox. I assume this refers to the box outside on the wall with the alarm and flashing light. What sort of problem might there be with that? The system overall has four PIR sensors, one panic alarm, and two door contacts, one on our front door and one on our garage door. From what I can see when I checked the PIR sensors, when they are opened up, the display specifically tells me that there is a tamper alarm with that detector so it would seem that the LID TAMP false alarm that we get is not with the PIRs. However when I open up the control box, the message displayed is indeed the LID TAMP error that we get when the system goes off with a false alarm. I noted also that my manual says the LID TAMP signal could be a LID TAMP SAB (I think) tamp or AUX. What are these last two items?

Thanks for any help and suggestions you may be able to offer.

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hi chrisw,

the fault will actually be the control unit tamper, this is a longish spring attached to what really is a keyboard button, the fault is unlikely to be an exernal tamper like a pir unless the installer has hooked it into another device like an extra power supply unit or voice dialler.

personally. if i were called in on reading the log and checking, i'd disable the factory lid tamper contact and fit a simple leaf micro in it's place. so not to big a job just needs some sklll with a soldering iron.

regs

alan

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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Alan - Thank you for taking the time to reply and for your suggestion. That seems like a worthwhile thing to try replacing the tamper alarm in the control box. I had a good look at it yesterday to see if there was anything physical (dust/spider etc.) that might account for a possible false alarm but the box seemed quite clean and there was nothing I could see at all wrong with the spring. It's certainly a fairly simple thing to try to see if the problem goes away. Intermittent problems are always the worst. I did mention it to the service engineer when I was on the annual service contract but he did not seem to be able to suggest anything so I will do a little phoning around and see if I can find another company to do this for me.

Thanks again.

Chris.

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Alan - Thank you for taking the time to reply and for your suggestion. That seems like a worthwhile thing to try replacing the tamper alarm in the control box. I had a good look at it yesterday to see if there was anything physical (dust/spider etc.) that might account for a possible false alarm but the box seemed quite clean and there was nothing I could see at all wrong with the spring. It's certainly a fairly simple thing to try to see if the problem goes away. Intermittent problems are always the worst. I did mention it to the service engineer when I was on the annual service contract but he did not seem to be able to suggest anything so I will do a little phoning around and see if I can find another company to do this for me.

Thanks again.

Chris.

your welcome Chris,

if you were to post what part of London your in, then members who cover it can contact you - you might even get me (OMG) as i cover the M25 + about 20 mile west and south of it.

regs

alan

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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Lid Tamper on TS700 can be 3 things. Panel Lid tamper, bell tamper or anything connected to the auxiliary tamper.

The opinions I express are mine and are usually correct!

(Except when I'm wrong)(which I'm not)

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I'm in West London. Ealing Area.

In reply to breff, that's what my manual states, i.e. that the LID TAMP code corresponds to three possibilities, Lid Tamper, SAB tamper (and a quick google tells me that SAB is a self actuating bell, which I presume means that it is the box outside on the wall) and also Aux Tamper. So a couple more questions.

1. What is the Aux(iliary) tamper?

2. How do I rule out the possibility that it is the SAB? It is reasonably accessible, so I could pop up a ladder and check if there is anything obvious. From what I can see there should be a battery in there. Anything else obvious to check?

Thanks again to everyone offering suggestions.

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Auxiliary tamper are a pair of terminals on the circuit board which are quite often linked out, extra power supplies, speech diallers, speakers etc can have their tamper circuits connected to it.

The opinions I express are mine and are usually correct!

(Except when I'm wrong)(which I'm not)

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I seem to remember the optima range panel tamper switch occasionallt needed the spring stretching slightly otherwise the tamper would spuriously activate...usually caused by the installing engineer hanging a screwdriver from the spring to close the tamper switch :rolleyes:

If at first you don't succeed...don't try skydiving!

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Thanks to everyone for the extra information and suggestions.

First of all I don't think the auxiliary tamper will have anything connected to it. We have a basic system with four PIRs, two door switches (one front door, one garage) and a panic alarm. The system has no speakers and is not connected to a phone line or anything else like that. However it should not be too hard to check and I will do that.

The tamper alarm in the main control panel box seemed fine, at least to a visual inspection but that would not rule out a potential problem with the electronics. However I can easily stretch the spring out a bit and see if that helps. The box was very clean, free from dust and cobwebs and whatnot.

I think the next step is clearly to have a look at the bellbox and see if that is where the problem might be. Since it's external and exposed to the elements, then it may well be that a leak or hole somewhere has enabled some corrosion to start. I can't recall exactly when this problem started. We've had the system for about 8-9 years and my feeling is that it started to do this in the last 3-4 years. I definitely mentioned it to the service engineer when we had annual checks and it is probably 3 years or so since the last one. It used to be very rare, say once or twice a year, but the frequency of these false alarms is going up (three times in the last ten days or so) so I would really like to sort it out if I can.

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Thanks to everyone for the extra information and suggestions.

First of all I don't think the auxiliary tamper will have anything connected to it. We have a basic system with four PIRs, two door switches (one front door, one garage) and a panic alarm. The system has no speakers and is not connected to a phone line or anything else like that. However it should not be too hard to check and I will do that.

The tamper alarm in the main control panel box seemed fine, at least to a visual inspection but that would not rule out a potential problem with the electronics. However I can easily stretch the spring out a bit and see if that helps. The box was very clean, free from dust and cobwebs and whatnot.

I think the next step is clearly to have a look at the bellbox and see if that is where the problem might be. Since it's external and exposed to the elements, then it may well be that a leak or hole somewhere has enabled some corrosion to start. I can't recall exactly when this problem started. We've had the system for about 8-9 years and my feeling is that it started to do this in the last 3-4 years. I definitely mentioned it to the service engineer when we had annual checks and it is probably 3 years or so since the last one. It used to be very rare, say once or twice a year, but the frequency of these false alarms is going up (three times in the last ten days or so) so I would really like to sort it out if I can.

hi chris,

i hope you will evetually post back with the final 'fix', but i'm still nailing my colours to the panel lid contact being duff (having dealt with several on this model in the past) this is assuming the sab lid is secure, but lets see ;) .

regs

alan

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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