Why do some alarm systems go off when loadshedding ends?

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deweyzeph

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So I consider myself pretty handy when it comes to DIY home alarm systems. I've installed a few Paradox Alarm systems for myself and family members. None of these systems go into an alarm state when the power goes off and then comes back on again. However in my neighbourhood when the power comes back on it sounds like the every alarm system in the street starts screaming when the power comes back on again. I can't for life of me figure out why though? My Paradox Alarm system does not, and handles loadshedding very gracefully. Is it just the cheap alarm systems like IDS and DSC that do this? Paradox never has this problem and I'm thinking maybe it's a quality issue or some other kind of design flaw.
 
deweyzeph said:
So I consider myself pretty handy when it comes to DIY home alarm systems. I've installed a few Paradox Alarm systems for myself and family members. None of these systems go into an alarm state when the power goes off and then comes back on again. However in my neighbourhood when the power comes back on it sounds like the every alarm system in the street starts screaming when the power comes back on again. I can't for life of me figure out why though? My Paradox Alarm system does not, and handles loadshedding very gracefully. Is it just the cheap alarm systems like IDS and DSC that do this? Paradox never has this problem and I'm thinking maybe it's a quality issue or some other kind of design flaw.
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Our Paradox alarm went off during loadshedding because the battery was finished. We just moved into the new house. However after we replaced the battery it was all fine again.
 
deweyzeph said:
Is it just the cheap alarm systems like IDS and DSC that do this?
Click to expand...

Excuse you.. I have an IDS alarm system and it doesn't go off when the power goes out or gets restored.. I do get notifications through push and SMS about the power state but, it doesn't trigger the alarm..

My guess is, poor configuration from the installer..
 
My paradox used to go off because the electric fence battery was dead, when the power came back on it used send a panic to the alarm. Battery changed on fence and this resolved the issue.
 
Solitude said:
Our Paradox alarm went off during loadshedding because the battery was finished. We just moved into the new house. However after we replaced the battery it was all fine again.
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^^
This

When the DSC systems' batteries are pap, they tend to go off as soon as the power comes back

The older DSC systems have utterly KAK chargers for the LA's so best to invest in a better transformer or just hook up a "smart" battery charger that will charge the LA faster and handle float.
 
they are probably dying completely, like as in going off completely, when coming back on alarming
 
So you guys reckon it's pap batteries causing this? In that case it's pretty crazy how many people's alarm systems must be non-operational during load shedding judging by the amount of alarms that go off when the power comes back on. I've also had problems with load shedding killing my alarm batteries, but I always replace the battery before it's completely dead so I've just never experienced this for myself.
 
I have a Texecom alarm system installed. It went off once during the Stage 6 load shedding we had a while ago.
The control room told me the battery level were down to 40% at the time so it seem that when power is restored the power surge when the charger kicks in trigger a tamper responce which causes the alarm to go off. I changed the battery and since had no problems during load shedding.
 
Alarm systems on it's own for homes are quite easily bypassed by a determined attacker. You need layers of security, complimenting each other. Case in example, during load shedding your battery is dead and you did not know - what happens if you need to press a panic button and nothing happens?
 
Aghori said:
Alarm systems on it's own for homes are quite easily bypassed by a determined attacker. You need layers of security, complimenting each other. Case in example, during load shedding your battery is dead and you did not know - what happens if you need to press a panic button and nothing happens?
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You panic some more?
 
Nemesys said:
I have a Texecom alarm system installed. It went off once during the Stage 6 load shedding we had a while ago.
The control room told me the battery level were down to 40% at the time so it seem that when power is restored the power surge when the charger kicks in trigger a tamper responce which causes the alarm to go off. I changed the battery and since had no problems during load shedding.
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You mean that one evening we had stage 6? I'm not sure how 1 evening would cause issues, 3 days of stage 4 we had last week was far worse.
 
Aghori said:
Alarm systems on it's own for homes are quite easily bypassed by a determined attacker. You need layers of security, complimenting each other. Case in example, during load shedding your battery is dead and you did not know - what happens if you need to press a panic button and nothing happens?
Click to expand...

Most decent alarm systems should warn you when the battery is getting low.
 
The battery
The battery is dead, and the homeowner is not interested in replacing it, so when the power comes back on, it reverts back to previous state, the PIRs have to warm up and that causes triggering.

Fancier alarms see the battery drain as tampering (see above)
 
deweyzeph said:
So you guys reckon it's pap batteries causing this? In that case it's pretty crazy how many people's alarm systems must be non-operational during load shedding judging by the amount of alarms that go off when the power comes back on. I've also had problems with load shedding killing my alarm batteries, but I always replace the battery before it's completely dead so I've just never experienced this for myself.
Click to expand...
Alarm batteries are not designed for the hard use of loadshedding.
 
Lupus said:
You mean that one evening we had stage 6? I'm not sure how 1 evening would cause issues, 3 days of stage 4 we had last week was far worse.
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Appart from load sheddding we also have to contend with cable theft. At that time they stole the cables on both sides of the substation so we had to wait for both the municipality and escom to replace the cables. Some 10 hours with no power.
 
Short answer: battery died completely. They need to add more batteries to their alarm (at my house we had to replace the single 7Ah battery with a 20Ah one - gives us 16+ hours with arm lights on outside too)

Long answer: The battery dies to an extent that when power is returned the in line voltage divider on one of the armed lines trips the alarm (it's called an end of line resistor). It esentially simulates cutting one of the zone cables to the sensor, hence trips the alarm.
 
Nemesys said:
Appart from load sheddding we also have to contend with cable theft. At that time they stole the cables on both sides of the substation so we had to wait for both the municipality and escom to replace the cables. Some 10 hours with no power.
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So not Eskom stage 6, but rather oppurtunists who took advantage.
 
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