Hi there good afternoon. I bought my Defender 3000 in the year 2000.  It has served me well since then but has lately started to give spurious alarms and I get the impressipn the spare parts are difficult to source.   I decided to bin this one and buy some form of wireless alternative. I mentioned this to the guy who maintains it annually and he wasn't too happy about it.  What I would like to know is what is the sequence of events to stop the alarm going off when I turn the mains power and start opening the box to remove the battery backup.  I assume that if I just turn the power supply off at the mains,  the battery will kick in and the alarm stay armed. 

What is the best way that I can go about taking the alarm down without annoying neighbours and defening myself.  Given the few words exchanged with the maintaining guy,  I am loathed to pay him.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated

Look no further than where you already find yourself...

 

Or, in a nutshell (kids under 40ish you might have to image google it...)

 

 

Personally I'd leave it to a professional, but if you are determined to attempt this yourself I would start at the external sounder, be prepared for the noise (ear plugs) and high voltage if there is a strobe present.

Remove the lid and snip the wire to the actual sounder (often small, black and round). Should only ring then for a few seconds up to doing this. You can then remove at your leisure. 

There is a suggestion in the thread I linked that the bell isn't a SAB (i.e is not battery backed); it states it has no tamper anyway.

 

But either way follow the above and you shouldn't go wrong either way... though best left to a pro. Any pro so you could get other quotes for removal and/or replacement??

 

Edited June 30, 20178 yr by datadiffusion

Wow  ... that was quick ... and useful.   thanks.

If I disconnect the mains power from the control unit indoors, how long is the backup battery likely to last?

If I leave it 2 or 3 weeks, could I get over even the 5 seconds of alarm ringing?

Once again, thank you both for your rapid response to my query.

 

 

If the bell contains a battery (if) it will last indefinitely, and if you disconnect power indoors it will ring outside for at least 20 mins anyway.

That's what a normal system would do anyway, for this kit it isn't so obvious.

 

So you may as well do as suggested;

 

Bell first

Then mains off at control unit

Then pull control unit from wall & open up to remove battery inside

Or disconnect the mains and battery in one hit , see if the bell dies after a minute , otherwise put power back and do above as they said 

What sort of wireless alarm were you thinking of getting?

Wow  ... that was quick ... and useful.   thanks.

If I disconnect the mains power from the control unit indoors, how long is the backup battery likely to last?

If I leave it 2 or 3 weeks, could I get over even the 5 seconds of alarm ringing?

Once again, thank you both for your rapid response to my query.

 

 

Many thanks.

I think i now have enough advice to get on with the job.

I appreciate the time and expertise spent on this query.

 

I have already purchased, and installed a Yale EF Series alarm.

I have sprayed the bell box black and added three letters to the front so that it isn't too obvious what alarm make it is.

Hopefully this uncertainty will be an added incentive for someone to burgle elsewhere.

Not that I have much of real value ... but the wife would be able to stand the thought of home invasion.

 

Before I used it 'live', I had the siren in a drawer in a spare room and did quite a lot of testing with various scenarios.

I haven't set it off accidentally, nor has it gone off on a false alarm.

The images from the PIR camera are pretty poor  ... but I had nothing at all with the Defender!

. . . . and it is nice to look at the system on-line to answer that question.  "Did you set the alarm?"

Up to now it seems to being doing all that is being asked of it.

 

Again,  many thanks for your time and efforts on my behalf.