Accenta G4 and a broken bell box?

[Lee Davies]

Hello,

I recently had an issue with my Accenta G4 alarm. The external bell box was ringing a the remote keypad was dead. I replaced the battery and everything was fine for a few hours, then the same thing happened again. Despite AC being present on the main board, It appears the alarm was running constantly of the battery and flattening them.

After quite a large quote to replace the main board, I decided to buy an identical alarm (£45 on EBay with an LCD keypad). I wired everything up and walk around testing every sensor. Everything workes but the external bell box. The wiring from the alarm box side looks fine. I was wondering whether the lack of power to the bell box for nearly a week has flattened the bell box battery. However now there's power to the bell box, shouldn't work regardless of the bell box battery state?

Cheers,

Lee

 

[Andy™]

so youre just going with replacing parts until you fix the problem? and there is a lot more to replacing an alarm than simply swapping the panel. it will also need programmed correctly. so how do you know there is no power to the bellbox? just because it 'looks fine' doesnt mean it is

 

[Lee Davies]

so youre just going with replacing parts until you fix the problem? and there is a lot more to replacing an alarm than simply swapping the panel. it will also need programmed correctly. so how do you know there is no power to the bellbox? just because it 'looks fine' doesnt mean it is

The original problem was diagnosed by the alarm engineer. I did suspect the main board since AC power to the bridge rectifier was present however the board was constantly drawing 250mA from the battery (flattening two batteries).

I've installed the new alarm box and remote LCD keypad (an improvement on the old LED one) and gone through the engineering manual. The LCD keypad certainly made life easy, especially the ability to label sensors.

It is possible the fault on the alarm box could have damaged the bell box but I doubt it. The next step is to check the voltage on the bell box itself but it's not easy to access.

I was just wondering whether a flat battery in the bell box would fit the  symptoms?

Cheers,

Lee

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

It actually depends on the sounder and what it is. Some external sounders do rely on the internal battery to operate. The panel just tell it when to sound and and when to stop. I would also check the voltage at the panel sounder connections first.

 

[Lee Davies]

It actually depends on the sounder and what it is. Some external sounders do rely on the internal battery to operate. The panel just tell it when to sound and and when to stop. I would also check the voltage at the panel sounder connections first.

The voltage on the alarm panel to the bell box was a good 13.4V, well within spec. I need to pluck up the courage and check the other end. Since the strobe was already faulty and the battery maybe dud, I'm toying with the idea of replace the entire external sounder (£30 from EBay).

Cheers,

Lee

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

There are more places than ebay. And they cost less.

 

[Lee Davies]

There are more places than ebay. And they cost less.

The advantage of EBay is you can compare prices and way up costs against distance (I like to keep it local if I can). But your right, not everything is cheaper on Ebuy...Caveat Emptor!

Cheers,

Lee

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

But isn't £20 always cheaper than £30?

 

[Andy™]

The voltage on the alarm panel to the bell box was a good 13.4V, well within spec. I need to pluck up the courage and check the other end. Since the strobe was already faulty and the battery maybe dud, I'm toying with the idea of replace the entire external sounder (£30 from EBay).

Cheers,

Lee

voltage at the panel to bellbox may well be within spec, but is it actually giving the correct signals for it to sound?