Multiple PIR false alarms on Premier Elite 24

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Bazhok

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Dear All,
I wonder if anyone can help.
Have had premier elite 24 with a one entry exit contact sensor, around 6 Prestige TD WIRED PIRs and one keypad.
It's been problem free for 6-7 years.

Now initially, in the night, the downstairs hallway PIR would set off the alarm every 4-6 months and I just blamed the kids.

Now the false alarm is more frequent ie weekly. The issue is that one day the hallway PIR would false alarm and now the dining room PIR false alarmed.

No cobwebs. No obvious cause. PIRs on the wall. I have opened the hallway PIR and it's clean and sealed. Location of PIRs unchanged for years. No renovations to disturb wiring.

Voltage at PIR 13.8v stable. Sometime I remotely monitor the sensor via the app when I get a false alarm and sometimes the offending PIR shows movement when the house is absolutely empty.

If it was just one sensor, was going to clean out then replace but now it's different sensors.

What shall I do next? What's going on?

Thank you so much in advance.

Please see pic
 

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if nothing has changed environmentally it isn’t going to be so easy to find with any degree of certainty.

have you opened up the sensors, have you looked at the condition of the cable if hard wired, start with the one that’s easiest to access that’s been causing the most problems if possible.

personally I would check the back up battery and would look at the event log to see what devices reported in.

All devices and becoming more frequent suggests either panel issue or cable issue, less like a device issue but not impossible.
 
Thank you for your reply.

I opened the sensor and it seemed perfect to me. Clean inside and wires in good condition and secure. Resistors looks okay too.

I will check the battery as per your suggestion. Can I ask how a back up battery failure can affect sensors?

I'll also check the log and report back.

How can one check cables?

Thank you
 
Check resistor value at control panel with a multi meter with the wires out of the zone , and power connection at the control panel end ( may be loose )
 
..you could also test for induced induced AC voltage across 12v and earth at panel, should not be above 1.2 AC volts. Battery backup failing can drag the system voltages down, if the pir voltage gets below a certain threshold, it'll play up...(but 13.8v at the pir is more than enough) usually the devices on the longest runs of cable will start to react first with a gradual decline of a bad battery. but in a typical house, the cable length differences would be marginal. intermittant cable failure, or poor connections on 12v/0v could also cause random alarms(corrosion or dry solder joints can cause this..). if sub-par cabling was used, it could break down over time. or a fine nick in a cable somewhere can take time to manifest itself(cables getting worn if under carpet and walked on over the years is another example)... you could try doubling up cores to 12v and 0v at either end(say 12v would be red/green, and 0v would be black/white, with blue/yellow as the alarm/tamper circuit, but disconnect both ends first before doing this and connect up at pir end first!). it could just be the pir playing up... some older pir's can get twitchy as they age..
 
It’s hard to be specific and until you start eliminating things unfortunately.

voltage may be varying but it may be possible to miss it during testing and induced ac may not show depending on what’s in use.

Panel back up battery is old enough to be a suspect, if say the battery was under load test when it false alarmed.

The more data the better chance of identifying a pattern.


Wrt to damage to pirs I have seen water marks, spiders inside the electronics rather than the lens. Paint cracked lenses, scratched lenses. Seen great big spiders crawl out from behind pirs after customer tells you there are no spiders…… made me jump once or twice with biggest ones.


good luck and hopefully get to the bottom of it. It maybe worth looking at every log of all the activations to date and timings.

sun, drafts. Heating. Car lights. Electrical interference are a few causes of false alarms.

direct sunlight usually affects the odd sensor facing windows or skylights, if you have Clear skies on consecutive days you may see the time of activation changing slightly but roughly same time of day for that sensor.
 
Thank you so much for replies so far.

I have taken on board your advice and this is what I have found:

No particular pattern of timing of alarm set off BUT I have found that when I leave for work in the morning and I arm the house alarm, by the time I have closed the exit door, locked up and sit in my car, sometimes the alarm will trigger.

I looked at the log, I can see the following in the log list - sometimes linked to a false alarm but not always: 'Charger Fault'

Other things at control panel:
Battery voltage with charging cables: 13.81v
Battery voltage without charging cables: 13.62v and the voltage drops by 0.01 v every minute
Power to PIRs at control panel (green/white wires): 13.83v
AC voltage between 12v for PIRs at control panel and the power supply earth: 0.00ACv

Wintex: system voltage: 13.92v, Battery voltage 13.76v, System current 0.350 amps - these three values slightly fluctuate

In terms of resistance at zones (with multimeter set at 20k ohms (I don't have an auto ranging multimeter):
Z1 Entry/exit: 2.14k
Z2 Access guard (where keypad is): 2.16k
Z3: 2.15k
Z4: 2.16k
Z5: 2.15k
Z6: 2.15k
Z7: 2.17k
Z8: 2.18k

When I check zone resistances in Wintex, they are all equal at 2.13k

In terms of false alarm zones to date, they have been Z2, Z3, Z4

PIRs can never have direct sunlight. They don't 'view' radiators/windows.

If I had a charger fault - I am guessing this refers to PSU - but I am getting full voltage to PIRs at panel and batter is being charged.

What are your thoughts?
 
The condition of the battery is not based on its voltage alone, a battery tester will subject it to the correct tests, although a voltage measurement may show up a battery with some issues it isn't conclusive if voltage is healthy at time of measurement.

I can't tell you if there is a pattern or not as not seen the data ie full logs of events, pattern may not be immediately obvious.

The fact is you say there is nothing when tested, but you also say things are getting worse?

Z2 hallway
Z3 and 4 ??
where do these cables run?
Where are these zones in relation to each other?

In the short term, you could change the bell to sound on confirmed alarm which means it needs two zones to activate rather the one, or you can put the zones onto double knock.

Whilst this isn't a long term solution it may help you keep the alarm running until your able to find the problem without annoying everyone in the mean time.

I have seen a PIR activate (false alarm) because it was sunny and the sun bounced off a foil tray, it happened on consecutive days and separated by a minute or two removed the foil tray and never had the issue again.

The suns position in the sky changes slightly from day to day, couple this it may or may not be cloudy at a given day, its possible the perfect alignment for an activation doesn't exist on any given day. Same applies for issues caused by heating warm and cold days could trigger some central heating systems at different times of the day.

Indeed there was a thread on here not so long ago with there works system there was an issue, think it was at the back end of the working day but not at the exact same time of the working day.
That looks like whatever was happening was due to end shift type activity potentially.

You say there has been no work to your property at all?
Again on here there was a thread of someone having an external light put on the outside of there building, power for this light ran on the external wall, behind it on an internal wall was a PIR this caused issues when the outside light was activated.

So when you say not work, its important that internal and external works may be relevant.


The PSU issue Texecom have had could be an issue the problem is when does the PSU show up as an issue. Many saw the system keep poor time, yet the mains frequency in the property was relatively consistent. This can be fudged with say a daily correction factor or when sync with an app in some cases so that issue becomes less obvious. Even see the odd one fail that showed mains power off but when you disconnected the battery the mains was still powering everything.
 
Sounds like AC induced voltage on the alarm wiring, this is a common problem with telecom panels, can you source an ACT spike suppressor, it's a very small device that connects to the AUX 12dc terminals within the panel and earth of the 240v mains supply
 
They have allegedly tested the AC and at 0V that would suggest it has either not been measured correctly or it isn't an issue and unless wiring has changed it is unlikely to now be an induced AC issue.

They have had charger fault which means the PSU has an issue or the panels back battery has an issue and these can be replaced, an engineer would test the battery with an ACT meter this could be ruled as an issue or not relatively quickly (6-7 years old system if battery the same age its a possibility the battery is the issue). This can affect power to the PIR's. An update from the poster 5 months on would be good.
 
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