Why do some alarm systems go off when loadshedding ends?

Your battery needs to be replaced. We replaced ours with a 8ah gel battery, and no low battery alarm when we had loadshedding 3 times a day last week.
 
Bighit said:
Your battery needs to be replaced. We replaced ours with a 8ah gel battery, and no low battery alarm when we had loadshedding 3 times a day last week.
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I've got a 9ah, sadly the battery couldn't charge up properly as you need 12 hours to charge the battery.
 
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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Only 1 reason this happens: Dead battery

Also why my alarm is on my Inverter. Its battery doesn't even know what Load shedding is cause it gets AC 24/7
 
Our complex alarm does this all the time, sometimes it goes of 3 times in a row when the power returns. Beyond annoying when it happens at 2AM.
 
Lupus said:
So not Eskom stage 6, but rather oppurtunists who took advantage.
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It was a combination of both. The power outing due to cable theft drained the battery. The first scheduled slot came about 90 minutes after the power were restored. Due to stage 6 we were off for just over 2 hours and then 2 hours later we were off again. The short time available for recharging the battery did not allow the battery to recover. Not knowing how much damage all this caused the battery I decided to replace it in any case.

We are with a smallish local security company and they a lot of parameters. Apart from ac mains and battery charge level they can tell which room, door or outside security beam or even the alarm in my caravan triggered the alarm.
In this case they confirmed that they got a tamper warning with the alarm activation. No sensor triggered the alarm.
 
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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Oh DSC is anything but cheap:ROFL: pretty decent systems actually. Obviously there are entry level models sure.

But your question is very valid. Not sure why exactly. What I recall with a DSC 1864 panel is that all zones are ignored for 2 minutes after a panel power restore so that the PIR’s and beams etc can stabilise.
Basically when the battery/AC supply goes completely out.

Sometimes especially beams need time to start up if they where completely dead.
 
I got an ids64, when it is on full arm mode, alarm screen after power up. But when arm was on a "outside only" then siren does not sound. I don't no if there is something programed wrong, but that is the story. I do have the software and someone lend me a dongle, but ids needs your installer password, where paradox and dsc does not need that via computer.
 
I've got a similar issue... sortof. I've got a ceiling fan with a light. I go to sleep with the fan on and light off and when there's loadshedding, and the power is subsequently restored, the fan goes off and the light comes on. Really annoying.
 
Napalm2880 said:
I've got a similar issue... sortof. I've got a ceiling fan with a light. I go to sleep with the fan on and light off and when there's loadshedding, and the power is subsequently restored, the fan goes off and the light comes on. Really annoying.
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I have one of those "surprize" lights in the bathroom. Normally pick up slack from the Mrs cause I remove it during LS weeks as I hate a sudden light in the house in the middle of the night.

Come to think of it, Its still lying in the basket in the kitchen... wonder how long it will take her to notice this time round <Evil grin>
 
There is another reason why the alarm can go off when the power is restored. Well this was according to a alarm installer.

The antenna is mounted too close to the alarm so when power returns and its sends out the signal to the control room to do its checks it trips the alarm.

I personally know someone who had the same issue with his IDS and the installer moved the antenna further away and his alarm never goes off anymore when the power comes back.
 
The OP's question is easy to answer. I have 7500 alarms installed in the field and I'd say 50 of them are operated by people who realise a bit of maintenance is needed

There are 2 basic problems

PIR detectors are sensitive to supply voltages
Some makes like Optex have a delay while the device powers up
Then some people will have a normally closed radio receiver for remote panic

In a Paradox panel, the bus will shut down when the panel voltage reached 10.2VDC. If the battery is dodgy, this can occur within minutes. A good 8 a/h or 9 a/h battery can easily manage 10 hours reserve time

The alarm panel also has "watchdog" circuitry. This will ensure that should the power fail and come back on, if the alarm, were already armed, it will power back up armed

A radio transmitter aerial, even a 25 watt transmitter should not affect an alarm panel, provided it it in a closed metal box. A plastic box is no good. Substantial RF rejection is built into the panel.

Early (pre 2004) IDS 400 and 800 panels appeared to suffer from this type of interference. Some would even trigger if a flourescent light was switched on in the same room

A PIR might power back on normally open
A radio receiver can "chatter" if the supply voltage is unstable (a flat battery pulling down the bus voltage
 
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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Yes my Texecom also went off each time. Had to replace the battery and until that wears out because of load shedding it should be good to go.
 
Its because the backup battery had better days!

I replaced mine a while ago. When power gets restored... no more adt calls

A sign your battery is almost dead: it loses time
 
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.
Click to expand...

My paradox does the same when the battery isn't good ... and loadshedding eats these batteries in no time as there is nothing to regulate the DoD .... so yea :p
 
If your battery cant sustain the full load shedding schedule your panels clock resets too which f***s with any auto-arming you might have
 
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.
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Yes

Every time I have this, I replace the battery to resolve it with my ancient old alarm. I replaced my alarm this year and no more problems.

As explained by @agentrfr, it's the anti-tamper alarm kicking in. I use to work as an alarm control room operator and it was always a tsunami of alarm alerts when power returned.
 
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