House alarm siren activates randomly

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quebec

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#277222 2-Oct-2020 10:22

Internal siren activated randomly 4 days ago. When I looked at the keypad Zone 6 which is tamper rear was lit. I disarmed it and it was fine until this morning it started again. I disarmed it and then went to disconnect power. As soon as I turned off power to the panel from the switchboard it activated again so i thought maybe the battery is giving it power so I turned power back on, it stopped. Disconnected battery then turned power to it off and it activated again. How is the siren getting power?? I don't really want to call a technician as I want to eventually replace it with either Ring wireless or konnected.

itxtme

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#2577841 2-Oct-2020 10:32

How old is it? I had issues with mine when its battery was going flat. For me it was inside the metal siren housing

Edit I see its the internal one, I am not so sure about that.

Kim587

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#2577874 2-Oct-2020 11:52

The siren might have it a separate battery from the control box?

I had a particularly bad run with an alarm some time ago which did the same thing. The suspected cause was a combination of moisture getting into the external components on damp days, and earthquake damage straining the wiring. At one point a roof leak opened up right above the control box as well which was a bundle of laughs. There were some very unexpected wakeup calls in the middle of the night with that piece of equipment!

Linux

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#2577876 2-Oct-2020 11:58

Spider living on the sensor!

01EG

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#2577918 2-Oct-2020 11:59

One of my motion sensor was failing like this, found that sensor when I had bypass one by one.

01EG

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#2577919 2-Oct-2020 12:00

Linux:

Spider living on the sensor!

really?

rugrat

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#2577920 2-Oct-2020 12:07

When I had an alarm go off for no reason, and it was disarmed as well so no reason to go off, it was because the batteries in the control panel had lost the ability to be recharged. Yours is probably a different one though as my alarm wouldn’t turn off at all.

‘The outside siren had it’s own battery. Once I put good rechargeable batteries in the control panel it was good again.

Check batteries sensors, and control panel. Siren going in control panel with no power, batteries is a weird one.

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FineWine

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#2577956 2-Oct-2020 12:41

Insects or rodents having a feed on the wire insulation. Or an insect setting up home in the sensor housing.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

quebec

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#2577988 2-Oct-2020 13:19

itxtme:

How old is it? I had issues with mine when its battery was going flat. For me it was inside the metal siren housing

Edit I see its the internal one, I am not so sure about that.

Not sure how old as I just moved in. ok so an update. It's the internal and external that activate randomly with tamper light flashing on the keypad when they activate. When i turn the power off, only the external activates. Bit hard to open as the other screw is on top is hard to put a screwdriver into. Wonder if the installer will give me the master code without charging me, there is a phone no. on the keypad.

snnet

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#2578289 2-Oct-2020 19:31

Those sirens don't normally house a battery... an odd problem indeed

The memory that lights up, says a tamper was activated? Not a PIR zone? Because as above if it was a PIR I'd put money on it being a spider hiding behind it

MarkM536

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#2578617 3-Oct-2020 15:40

Tamper sensors in most systems are inside main motherboard box, external siren and each motion sensor.

Older systems may have a backup battery in the external siren as well. This has gone out of favour because of problems with the siren continuing to sound and unable to be stopped from main board.

Possibly a tamper in an alarm sensor could be a full disconnection (unlikely) or a EOL resistor has come lose. But both of these would register Fault or Tamper and Zone number.

In the external siren; tamper plunger may not be pushed in because of the wall material breaking. Good examples of a wooden wall that has rotted, the plunger then released from no resistance.

Tamper switch plunger could also release inside the main motherboard box, from the door opening.

Hugely unlikely is any modules installed receiving abnormal input. Such as an IP module declining a device requesting with wrong credentials after 'x' amount of tries. Same could go with a wireless remote.

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#2578621 3-Oct-2020 15:54

snnet:
Those sirens don't normally house a battery... an odd problem indeed

The memory that lights up, says a tamper was activated? Not a PIR zone? Because as above if it was a PIR I'd put money on it being a spider hiding behind it

I have the same light siren thing as you and started getting random alarm triggers. The guy who came to check actually installed it around 15 years before. Those outside alarm/lights have a tamper detector that plays up after a while. As it was high up on a wall he disconnected a wire in the inside alarm box (i seem to recall a resistor being used maybe) and its been fine ever since.

EDIT:sorry, meant to quote the OP's picture post.

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Daynger

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#2579034 4-Oct-2020 14:03

It will be the external siren tamper, i can almost guarantee it.

It will go off as there is a small backup battery inside the box, its an old way of doing it, modern ones dont have the battery in the external siren.

You can either program out that zone, you will need an installers code or to reprogram from scratch for this, bridge the zone out at the control panel or replace the external siren.

All things you are not likely to be able to do yourself.