Texecom tamper fault

bongos · 1 Jul 2018

Evening all,

I got home today to discover a tamper fault on my Texecom.

I tried doing the latching walk test and it came up with a '......B......' on the LCD display. Not really sure what this means from the manual but anyway I progressed and opened up the panel. Below is the inside of the alarm panel. It was installed by the spark doing the rewire, a little over 4 years ago.

The instruction manual says that by bridging the tamper link I can diagnose whether it is a bell tamper (LED remians on) or a global system tamper (LED extinguishes). I removed the yellow and blue wire in the TAMP terminals (presumably these loop between all the PIRs and magnetic contacts?) and bridged as below.

The tamper LED remained on, so according to the instruction manual I have a bell tamper.

My questions are:
1) Have I completed this test correctly? The unit was still in engineer mode with the cover off - would this not cause a tamper in itself (basically, should I have put the lid back on and exited engineer mode)

2) If I have identified this tamper fault correctly, how do I go about rectifying it and is there an easy fix (or bodge) where I could use the alarm without the tamper circuit in use on the bell box. While not ideal the alarm is for domestic use and I doubt anyone that bothered about coming in would go to the lengths of finding a very long ladder to climb to the top of my house to tamper with it...

Thanks for any advice

sparkymarka · 1 Jul 2018

Insert a link between the 0v ( black ) and tamp ( yellow ) leave the wires in ....does it clear ...bell box may gave expanded due to the heat, may need the tamper switch adjusting

swampy46 · 1 Jul 2018

Hello guys
I had to join up and say to you Sparkymarka you are right
My alarm has been doing this last weekswith the afternoon heat, been driving me nuts and I just worked it out yesterday!
I know nothing about alarms 2 weeks ago have done loads of reading now

long story short My alarm didn't worked for couple years.

we had the original alarm guy come round but hes retired now about month ago , he fitted 1 new pir for us £100 ! and he lives 2 mins down the road from my house ,, anyway we then had him fit a new bell box outside the front ( a texecom oddesey 1 )
£100

before he came round i tried fixing the alarm myself fitting a new battery ...I gave up too soon trying to fix it myself I think ...the lights were flashing still after i fitted the new battery (its an old scantronics 9452!

I rang him up and he says the battery i put in might be dead, cant remember what he said now but I had to leave open the lid without battery connected if it goes off but i ccant remember his instructions now.
He was positive it was not the bell box he fitted though

would a dodgy wire on a pir or door contact set the outside bell siren off with the alarm not being in armed mode ?

anyway this has been going on for week now Ive not phoned him back up since I think i found it now the bell tamper switch with the heat

but now I've been reading about alarms I want to install a new modern alarm now.

I disconnected bell box outside no more worries

sorry if i rambled on

bongos · 2 Jul 2018

sparkymarka said:
Insert a link between the 0v ( black ) and tamp ( yellow ) leave the wires in ....does it clear ...bell box may gave expanded due to the heat, may need the tamper switch adjusting

Thanks Sparkymarka. I'll have a go at this when I get in from work later and report back.

swampy46 said:
Hello guys
I had to join up and say to you Sparkymarka you are right
My alarm has been doing this last weekswith the afternoon heat, been driving me nuts and I just worked it out yesterday!
I know nothing about alarms 2 weeks ago have done loads of reading now
long story short My alarm didn't worked for couple years.

A good shout. The log had the tamper down as mid morning, at which point the bell box will have been in direct sunlight for several hours as it faces the morning sun. Like you I know very little about alarms so have started reading up. It would be nice to solve this problem myself if I can but will have to see what happens...

bongos · 3 Jul 2018

sparkymarka said:
Insert a link between the 0v ( black ) and tamp ( yellow ) leave the wires in ....does it clear ...bell box may gave expanded due to the heat, may need the tamper switch adjusting

Well, i've tried this but the 'Tamper' light remains on. Does this basically put the tamper circuit at 0v and in theory clear the tamper? Anyhoo, it didn't work which has confused me as i'd assumed i'd negated the global tamper by my earlier test.

I have discovered that I can omit the tamper circuit from the alarm and so can at least still set it though I would still like to try and rectify this if I can. Presumably i've omitted all tamper circuits by doing this anyway?

Any ideas for anything else that I can try at ground level to sort this before either buying a big ladder or paying someone to look at the bell box.

Only other information I can add is this pic when I did the original Walk Latch Test:

I still don't know what the 'B' signifies

sparkymarka · 3 Jul 2018

Ok other simple test ...remove the yellow tamper return wire and leave in the link ....does it clear ?

bongos · 4 Jul 2018

sparkymarka said:
Ok other simple test ...remove the yellow tamper return wire and leave in the link ....does it clear ?

Unfortunately not. Tamper light remains on.

Edit: Just a thought...obviously the lid is open while i'm doing this. Won't this also initiate the tamper light? So I could actually be clearing the fault, but because the lid is open i'm none the wiser.

Deryck Tintagel · 4 Jul 2018

Just to confirm you have tried the link between black and yellow on the bell connections? not on the global tamper? Have you checked the extended log for cause of tamper?

I think the tamper light will remain lit with the control panel lid open

bongos · 4 Jul 2018

bongos said:
Edit: Just a thought...obviously the lid is open while i'm doing this. Won't this also initiate the tamper light? So I could actually be clearing the fault, but because the lid is open i'm none the wiser.

Urgh...i'm so thick sometimes. The lid was throwing up an additional tamper.

Right, tamper identified. It's a Global System Tamper not bell box (linking the the TAMP connections cleared it but linking the 0v and TAMP doesn't). Remember to put your lid back on folks/stick down the spring for the lid connection with tape...

However, this presumably means there is a fault on the fixed wiring, one of the 4 PIRs or the one magnetic contact between the main panel and these units. Does this sound right?

So, advice seems to be try and check the PIRs and magnetic contact for any loose wires/damage. If I can't locate anything obvious then I should:

Identify the global tamper terminal on the PCB and the two tamper wires connected to the terminals.

Trace the wires back from the terminals - they should be connected into a connector strip or other type of connector where all the individual tampers are daisy-chained (serial) to form one continuous loop.

Dissassemble the wires at the connector strip and identify the tamper pairs from each circuit.

Test each pair of tamper wires using a continuity tester until the pair at fault is found.

Once the faulty circuit is found, the cable can be traced back to the detectors/devices along the cable. The tamper circuit can be linked out at various points along its route and tested in order to determine the location of the fault.

Is this the best approach?

bongos · 4 Jul 2018

Deryck Tintagel said:
Just to confirm you have tried the link between black and yellow on the bell connections? not on the global tamper? Have you checked the extended log for cause of tamper?

Hi Deryck. The extended log just said Bell/Global Tamper

Deryck Tintagel · 4 Jul 2018

essentially your thoughts are correct if you have a multimeter but you shouldn't have to take the terminal block connections apart - just check between each connection in sequence until you find high resistance. Make sure one end of the connections to the panel is removed

Alternatively, I would reconnect the tamper pair into the panel then take a length or wire stripped at both ends. Connect one end to the blue wire in the tamper pair and touch each blue / yellow combination in the terminal blocks. When the tamper light goes out you have found the cable with the fault. Identify it on the zones and which detector is connected. Check if the tamper at the detector clears when shorted at the detector end > tamper problem on detector. If not it will be the wiring

bongos · 7 Jul 2018

Sorry for the delayed reply. I will take your approach above Derick when I get two minutes. Probably next weekend now grrr and will report back. Or probably just have more questions for you all.

All help so far massively appreciated!

bongos · 9 Jul 2018

Right. This is now solved. I took the excellent advice posted by Deryck:

Deryck said:
Alternatively, I would reconnect the tamper pair into the panel then take a length or wire stripped at both ends. Connect one end to the blue wire in the tamper pair and touch each blue / yellow combination in the terminal blocks. When the tamper light goes out you have found the cable with the fault. Identify it on the zones and which detector is connected. Check if the tamper at the detector clears when shorted at the detector end > tamper problem on detector. If not it will be the wiring

By bridging from the tamper terminal to the terminal blocks with the blue yellow connectors I was able to quickly identify the issue as being on Z3 (kitchen PIR).

Popped it open and had a look bit nothing obvious:

I then connected the yellow and blue from the global tamper circuit in to a connector block and reattached the PIR front cover. As Deryck states, if the fault clears it's a knackered PIR, if the fault remains it's the wiring:

The global circuit remained in tamper therefore it was the wiring. I'd realised prior to this that I could easily loop out the tamper circuit from Z3 by either bridging across from the working zones or just disconnecting this part of the tamper circuit. This tamper circuit seems like overkill in a domestic setting when someone would have to already be in my house messing with a PIR/hidden fixed wiring to set off this tamper circuit in the first place. However, I always like to try and work out how to fix things properly if I can and on noticing that the alarm had been installed in 8 core with only 6 cores in use, I reckoned I could (potentially) get the circuit working properly by using the unused brown/orange cores in place of the damaged blue/yellow.

New connection at PIR (I didn't take a photo at the panel but it daisy chains blue/yellow and then has one orange/brown and then back to blue yellow) :

Put it all back together and I now have one happy alarm no longer in tamper:

I wasn't sure this would work as presumably either the blue, yellow or both cores have been damaged somehow so it seemed possible that the unused cores could also be damaged, though they don't seem to be. I've no idea how these cores have become damaged but winder if it's a trapped floorboard somewhere (seems quite common in mains powered domestic wiring anyway). Anyway, i've done this write up so you too can fix your global tamper and because it's always annoying when you don't find out what the final outcome was in a thread

Things i've learnt:
Domestic alarm systems are far simpler than i'd thought
Remember if you have the panel lid off (or the PIR front cover off) this will introduce an additional tamper in to your system so will make clearing the existing fault seem impossible! Put that lid back on...

Massive thanks to all those who posted!