Risco WisDom Burglar Alarm Auto Unsetting Itself

[chaoticj]

Hi,

Bought a house which has a Risco Wisdom, was totally dead no power at all. Had an engineer look at it - no fuse to power supply. He turned it on and looked through past events which were all garbled and said the control panel was goosed. Then managed to get it working and briefly explained how to set etc.

Seemed to work after this but then I swapped a ceiling light the other day, boiler RCD tripped. The boiler and burglar alarm seem to be on the same circuit. The batteries in the burglar alarm are duff so it eventually lost all power.

Started it back up again after fitting my ceiling light, set date and time - it showed a fault. Something about GSM not being able to communicate. Went into engineers section and the area for GSM was showing garbled characters, kept pressing the buttons and eventually got to the option to disable GSM.

Seemed to work after this.. however I've since found out when leaving the house and coming back the next day - the alarm isn't set. Looking through the events it is auto unsetting itself possibly in the middle of the night and setting itself in the morning etc?

I have checked the section for schedules and there seems to be nothing set (this is what the auto unsetting would relate to).

How best to proceed? It says in the manual you can remove all power and set a jumper to restore all default settings - but then it needs fully reprogramming. If I do this would it be difficult to reprogram and would it be likely to fix the issue?

Thanks in advance,
chaoticj

 

[sparkymarka]

Would pm "secure I am" think he is based in Oldham area , he fits Risco equipment , not sure on the wisdom, worth a try!

 

[secureiam]

Hi, I don't like these panels much, but I have done a few, and to be fair I have replaced the panels usually, mainly because they were locked or goosed after speaking with Technical, some were recoverable

The fact it was down powered to start suggest its not been used by the previous owner, the question is why I guess.

Just checked my Risco store account and cant see the panels anymore (can see limited parts for it) so asked Risco if its been discontinued or not, normally it shows the panel name and discontinued.

Probably confirm that tomorrow.
Garbled characters are a sign usualy that its had some kind of serious issue, ie electrical spike, although could be you just need the batteries replacing, difficult to say without seeing the panel or screen shots.
But so many panels don't like it when there batteries are gone, also if you have messed with the sim card in the gsm module whilst theres been power to it, you can damage the unit.

I went looking for this post after you pm'd me.

 

[chaoticj]

Hi Secure I AM,

Thanks for your post, I did buy some new batteries but it still has the same issues, as far as I'm aware it doesn't have a sim card and if there is a GSM module it hasn't been used. It only came up with the GSM error after I'd changed a ceiling light in the hall which was on a different circuit..

Here are a couple of pictures of the schedule and GSM areas showing the garbled characters.. I did call Risco technical but they told me that they only sell the alarms.



Many thanks in advance.

 

[secureiam]

Risco won't deal with end users, they refer them to installers.

they do look corrupted, I would try a default, and see how you get on, you wouldn't be any worse off than you are now by doing so.

 

[chaoticj]

Hi secure I AM,

I can give it a go - but just a bit trepidant as I believe it would then need fully reprogramming?

Also if this did work, should putting it on a dedicated circuit instead of on one with the boiler prevent it from happening again?

Many thanks,
chaoticj

 

[secureiam]

I would try down powering completely first and remove the duff battery.

Then power up on mains only, and last ditch attempt would default the unit, this doesn't take long, but you will know relatively quickly if the issue has resolved and its cost you a bit of time.

If your unsure get a pro in and pay them for there time, after I had tried the above I probably give technical a call myself to see if they have any wonderful means of bring it back to life.

what I find interesting I you have the top line appearing to be okay and the bottom line corrupted possibly, but don't know enough about how the panel works to say if it is recoverable just by looking. The steps above should at least give you some indication without it costing you anything.