Newbie poster. Have Vista 15 about 10 years old, 3 keypads, two motions, all door and windows hard wired. Rapid beeping of the panels occurs randomly about every three months or so displaying "Check - Zone #" for the zone in trouble (so far four different zones). This happens when the alarm is not armed in the middle of the day. After silencing the beeping with Code-Off, the system works fine for months until the next mystery trouble code. Have had techs out to diagnose but all circuits check out OK. New battery, contacts were changed in affected zones but problem still occurs. I suggested the problem might be with the circuit boards in the control panel but tech did not agree yet he could not solve the problem.

Thinking of replacing the entire control panel unless someone has experienced this and knows the answer. I think my system is haunted - any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Do you have a zone expander? Your problem seems to indicate a loss of communication with the expander board. What zone numbers give this problem?

 

Stlaman, if you didn't tell the techs any more than you told us, it's no surprise that they couldn't find the problem. Intermittent troubles like yours are difficult to find, and the best tool a competent tech can have is INFORMATION about the symptoms.

Your panel is one possibility, but statistically it's the least likely cause of your troubles. The vast majority of panels last a _lot_ longer than 10 years.


First, is your panel a Vista-15, Vista-15SE or a Vista-15P? Each panel has small differences that might be relevant.

Which 4 zones have given you troubles, and what, specifically, is on them?

If you haven't kept track of which zones they were, I recommend you start keeping a record; or zones and dates this happens. There may be a pattern that 's relevant. At the very least, we'll know if the zones are on the main board or the expansion board, if you have one.

Do you have a zone expansion board? If so, what model, 4219 or 4229? How many zones total are in your system?

The way you phrased it, "..two motions, all door and windows hard wired", I'm not sure if the two motions are hardwired or not. I'm guessing not, but if the motions are wireless, this would be the time to mention it.


As I said: Information of the equipment and symptoms is our best tool for diagnosing the trouble. There's no such thing as too much information about your system.
The alternative to good diagnosis, Troubleshooting By Replacing Parts, can be expensive and time-consuming. I don't recommend it until all other avenues are exhausted.

 

Thanks to ChosunOne and tecman for your responses. Panel box shows Vista 15 but sticker on board says 15-SE, with expansion board 4219, 13 zones. 100% hard wired installed (including motions) during construction. I have kept a diary of the faults and the only pattern is the faulted zones are at the rear of the house. The installers manual says the problem is high resistance in the loop but when tested the measurements are within range. If it was an open loop it would just show the not ready zone number. "Check" zones are 5-MBR windows, 6- MBath windows, 11-Fam RM windows and 4- MBR motion. Zone 1-6 are on main board, remainder are on the expansion board. Have given ADT tech all info to no avail. If this is a transient problem with the hidden wiring and not something accessible then it seems my only recourse is to install wireless modules? With 22 windows, 3 doors and 2 motions it would get pretty expensive. Any ideas?

 

The simple test is to swap the zone input with one that hasn't been acting up. If the problem follows on the new zone then the problem is in the field wiring. If the same zone continues to glitch, then it's a control/expander problem.

 

The first thing I would do is get rid of the resistors. The Vista 15 panel zones can be programmed as Normally closed, but the 10 year old 4219 will probably not have this option. There is an option on the newer 4219 with a dip switch. I am not sure when this option was made available, but it seems like 2-3 years ago.
If this works for the panel you can move the trouble zones over from the 4219.

I only get the "Check" when using resistors because the panel is sensitive to any imbalance on that zone. Normally Closed zones are either open or closed.

 

It's an SE model. Disabling the resistor supervision isn't an available option.

 

Oops, my bad. The P was the first model to introduce that.

 

If 4 different zones are generating a Trouble, one at a time, at roughly 3-month intervals, that makes troubleshooting by moving zones around kind of a long-term process; especially with 4 flaky zones that you know of.

It also makes all the zones suspect; It sounds like you could develop a Trouble on yet a fifth or sixth zone any day now. If 4 different zones have developed a temporary trouble, one at a time for each, that's about a year that each of those Troubled zone have laid quiescent--that's indicative of a lot of very intermittent problems.

The V-15SE panel and the 4219 don't affect the operation of each other, i.e., a malfunction of one isn't going to be contagious to the other. I think it's highly unlike that both circuit boards developed the same zone-trouble problem. It's a lot more likely that the zone loops themselves have the problem.

But at least 4 zone loops developing a intermittent Trouble--probably an intermittent high resistance--is more than random. There's probably a common factor somewhere.

My suspicion is that someone on the original installation, possibly a new helper, made bad splices on some of the contacts--that's the first thing I would check when it comes time to check the physical hardware, and it could be difficult to get to the splices.

Ah, but the contacts were all changed, so the splices should have been repaired, right?
Not necessarily. It's a common practice among installers (because they usually don't have to go behind themselves later) to drill 3/8" holes for recessed contacts, splice the 2 lead-in wires with crimp-on "B" connecters, and shove the "beanie" splices back into the hole before pressing the 3/8" contact to plug it.

All well and good, as long as the "B"s were crimped properly (they sometimes aren't--I've seen Bs that were crimped with the cutting edges of wire cutters) and as long as you never have to access the splices again. (Which Installers usually don't, because that's Services's job.)

A lot of the time--I'd say most--it's difficult if not impossible to pull the B connector out of the 3/8" hole. They tend to snag on the other side of the hole, which often has unseparated "flakes" of wood still hanging by a fiber--drill a 3/8" drill thru a pine 2X4 and you'll see what I mean. The loose wood will easily pass an object going thru the hole from the "clean" side (the side you see), inside the wall, if you pull the wire back out, the flakes are pulled back to the wood and snag anything that can snag.

This is why I do only solder splices on recessed contact leads, and only straight splices, no spurs that can catch--because I have to live with what I install. But very few if any installers take the time to solder any more.

So if the splices weren't accessible, how did the ADT tech replace the contacts? Probably by leaving the old splices in the walls and splicing to the old contact leads instead of repairing the old splices. That's what I've had to do many times when I couldn't retrieve the buried splices without major time-consuming fidgeting to tease them out. Most Service techs aren't allowed to spend that kind of time, nor are they inclined to, and I'd guess that many of them don't know how.

Now I could be totally off-base here--I don't have the benefit of being able to remove a sample contact or two and look at the splices. If I can't pull the splices out of their holes, then I can't eliminate them as probable causes, and neither can any tech who can't access them. If I manage to fiddle and fidget one out, and find the existing contact lead wire is spliced to a similar-looking lead wire and not to one of the wires coming from the control panel, then I'd know that my guess about how your tech replaced the contact was right and you have 4 splices for the contact, at least 2 of which are suspect.

In your situation, I would take careful resistance readings of each zone--all of them, not just the ones that have had Troubles.

You didn't say how the loops were tested, nor what kind of readings were found, so I can't assume the zones metered okay. The Installation Manual indicates that the V-15SE will tolerate up to 300 Ohms resistance---glad to hear it, but if a zone loop has anywhere near 300 Ohms, it's in serious trouble whether the panel recognizes that or not.

A perimeter (door/window) zone should read only a few Ohms at most, and it should be a steady reading, no fluctuations while the door/window is closed. The wire (22AWG) has about 1.6 Ohms per 100 feet and each splice has a fraction of an Ohm (best guess).

You must removed the EOLR (End-of-Line Resistor, 2K Ohms) from the loop to read the resistance properly. The EOLRs have a 5% tolerance, ~100 Ohms max, and a high resistance--anything more than a few Ohms--can hide in that tolerance. If the EOLRs are installed on the V-15P zone terminals, that's ideal for check loop resistance: Just meter beyond the resistor.

Although you're measuring resistance, using the volt scale can actually work better to ferret out any transient resistance "blips". The loop only "drops" voltage where there's resistance, so if you leave the 2K resistor in the loop, it will drop virtually all the voltage and the loop beyond it will read near-zero voltage unless there's a high resistance. The volt scale will show up high resistances better because it will spike for even a sporadic resistance.

I know I've give you a lot to digest. Intermittent falsing problems can be really difficult to track down. It's too bad tecman's idea can't be implemented with your current equipment.

This does remind me of the Bad Old Days of single-zone (i.e., unzoned) panels, and contacts before sealed contacts, and foil on windows that developed resistance from scratch repairs, and large houses might get up to 50 Ohms on the protective loop. The panels would handle 50 Ohms fine, but it would hide intermittent resistance points in the hundreds of feet of loop wiring, much of which was inaccessible.

One last-resort solution I occasionally used was to put a relay between the panel and the loop: The relay power, (with a current-limiting resistor) went through the zone loop and the panel zone terminals were connected to the relay contacts, closed-when-powered.
When a door/window is opened, it stops power to the relay and opens the relay contacts, which opens the zone at the panel. It's clunky, but solved some of our worst cases.

I'm just throwing it out for consideration. Hacky as it sounds, i'd personally prefer it over buying a 5881 ENH Receiver and 27 5816 sensor/transmitters.

 

Contacts are not recessed so I don't think there is an inside splice at the windows. Only Zone 1 has recessed contacts for the doors and that has never faulted, Looks like lead in wire goes directly to the magnetic contacts. Of course there are likely other splices in the loop which could be causing the problem. These homes were thrown up quickly by the developer and I'm sure did not use the best qualified installers. Tech did not tell me what the readings were but only that they were within "range".

Even with accurate readings I still won't be able to get to the source of the high resistance. So I'm thinking of going wireless for the faulting zones. I can always add to it if any others fault.

Can the wireless receiver be installed to control just four zones and leave the rest hard wired with everything still controlled by the existing hard wired keypads? Is that something that I could DIY as a fairly handy homeowner, in your opinion?

Was looking online and the 5811 seems to be thinner. What would be the best source for the equipment if I decide to try wireless?

I know you have better things to do so I appreciate all the help from all for taking the time to educate me about the problem.

 

Yes, wireless can coexist with the hardwired zones. Your system supports a total of 24 zones. You have 16 hardwire zones available with your expander, so the first wireless zone has to start at zone 17.

You also need a 2-line alpha keypad (6139 or 6160 or equiv.) to access the zone programming menus.

 

It's been a long time since I responded on this problem. Just by chance I was home when the landscapers were here. Whenever they come near the rear BR or bathroom windows with their gas powered blowers the zone for those areas trouble-check with rapid beeping. It's not a window vibration issue so it must be EMF interference from the unshielded sparkplug on the blower. Anyone ever heard of that happening and is there anything that can be done to my system to shield it?

 

You can try replacing the contacts. When reed switches get old, sometimes they barely make contact, even with the magnet properly positioned (you are talking about a switch the size of a mechanical pencil lead).

Newer contacts typically have a broader range of operation, and stronger magnets.

It's a fairly cheap and easy fix.