Recently attended a site...

The Abacus 15 system had gone into alarm (internal and external sounders) and in doing so had locked the remote keypads out.

Consequently, the customer was unable to silence the alarm.

I tampered the main panel, at which point the system went into LID TAMPER alarm.

In doing so, the remote keypads came back to life and I was able to access the system using my ENG CODE.

The LOG listed "000004 WATCHDOG" at the point at which the system went into alarm.

The system seems to have recovered OK and all semms to be operating as normal (critical voltages OK, fuses OK, battery backup OK, etc).

Can anyone shed any light as to what exactly the LOG is trying to tell me?

I assume the watchdog is related to the processor/system board?

Has anyone experienced similar problems on an Abacus system?

Watchdog in an Abacus log means the panel has reset itself after some kind of fault (as Richl said, usually a processor fault, try some 240V and 12V filters).

If it starts happening frequently, it's usually game over for the panel!

Watchdog in an Abacus log means the panel has reset itself after some kind of fault (as Richl said, usually a processor fault, try some 240V and 12V filters).

If it starts happening frequently, it's usually game over for the panel!

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I assume the 240V filter is on the incoming mains supply, of which seems far enough.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by 12V filter?

Do all filters act the same?

From my college days (a very long time ago!) I seem to remember something about low pass and high pass filters.

To be honest, I'm not really sure of the ins and outs of what they do, just that they supress spikes in electricity.

What I was referring to was a (ACT) 12V spike supressor fitted in parallel with the 12V AUX supply.

Could it be the sounders are pulling too much current, would be worth a check?

I've got an abacus user manual (hard-copy). It says the system self-tests continually and resets itself if it finds a problem (Watch Dog). It says programming not usually affected but date/time can be lost and need re-entering. It suggests massive electrical surges, such as during a storm, can cause this reset.

According to the manual if the system is set at the time of the "Watch Dog" it should rearm automatically. If its not set, it should beep and return to day mode.

The fact that the panel in question didn't rearm might suggest something more wrong than a power surge.

Hope that's some use.

Allso

Edited November 25, 200421 yr by Allso

Sounds like the panel has been operating on battery power only and then drain it totally.

If you get a wired tamper fault not explained in the book then then all the outputs will need to be re-programmed.

Best panel of their time.