I'd appreciate any help that can be given in a problem I've encountered with my security system. I am definetely a layman here, but I've been trying to get through what I figured was going to be a simple task....but it's being a royal PAIN!!!!

Last year we bought a house. It was the first house we owned that had a security system. So, we bought the house and had no idea how to even work the thing. After about 2 weeks I was beginning to learn more about it and was actually not so intimidated by it. Then as "Murphy's Law" would be........the worst thing happened......lightning storm!

It cut the alarm out and after inspection I could see a burn mark on the vista10se board. So, I found one on Ebay just like it. I carefully replaced it and put every wire exactly how it was (from on the old burnt board). I plugged in a new transformer (I replaced that too). Then the 2 keyboards in the house finally lit up after a year of being dead. So, the board was definetely bad because the keyboards were dead until I replaced it.

Now, to my dilema: When I purchased this board I realized I had no idea of what the master code was (and neither did the Ebayer who I bought it from) and that I had to get a Ademco 6139 to program my own code in and to overall be able to program and use the system.
So, I went back to Ebay in search of 6139 keypads and found a guy selling not one......but 2! So, I bought them both (knowing how Ebay can be sometimes, I figured it was best to get 2.....just in case one was'nt all it should be).

Well, I tied the 4 wires of the 6139 into the 4,5,6, and 7 spots of the board and the keypads backlight comes on, but that is it. I can get responses of beeps out of the keypad and it has a backlight......but I have no readings coming up
in the LED at all.

Before I jumped to conclusions and thought 2 keypads were bad, I wanted to run it by this forum. I just can't believe both Ebay keypads are bad. It's got to be something else (something I don't understand about these things perhaps).

To reiterate (because I know this is lengthy):

I had lightning damage. I replaced the vista10-se board and transformer. MY two 6128 (non-addressable) keypads in the house begin to work immediately (they appeared to be working anyway-but I had no master code to operate them). I bought 2 6139 keypads and both beep and backlight, but not the first word will appear.


I'd greatly appreciate anyone helping me get through this.
My biggest issues here are to understand what elementry mistake I may be making here, OR finding out if there is a fool proof way in determining if I actually do have 2 bad keypads by coincidence??
Regards JW

 

Check the keypad address, for this system, the address should be set to 31 (non addressed) on all keypads.

Also check your connections. Certain, you can wire the keypad directly at the panel, temporarily, to make sure that the wiring between the panel and the keypads is alright.

 

Mr Ron,
Greetings again from Savannah (I believe you gave me some info on another post I had recently concerning this system).
I do show an address of 31. This board on the system came from Ebay , because of lightning damage I had. That's all I know about it. I certainly don't have the code (master or installers) that it was programmed with: so I can't even operate it or play around with it. That's what I'm trying to get done and is why I bought the 6139 keypad model from Ebay. I was hoping I could at least get this thing into some kind of default mode where I could program in a master code so I could attempt to program it. I have the programming guide that came with the vist 10-se, but that's about it. Is this something you could explain to me?
I just need to get this thing where it will respond to me.

JW

 

If you have a blank display, and the keypad address is set to 31, and you are sure your keypad wiring is correct, then you may have bought a bad board. Usually such hardware bought on an auction site has been reset to factory default, which would be an installer code of 4111, and a master code of 1234.

Your problem is that you are getting nothing at all, and this is a very basic system; there's no funky special setup for the keypad, you should at least get basic indications on the display. Busy - Standby should show on power up.with the 6139 keypad.

 

I was told by another guy that if I've tried 4111+8+0 & also tried holding down the + & * keys at powerup.....and still was'nt getting in.....then most likely the unit came from some place that changed the installer code from default to something else and also may have eliminated the "back door" ( * + #) by downloading special software.



You're saying that those symptoms (of non-communication listed above) would be superseded with the obvious if:

I'm getting nothing at all on the display of the 6139 at powerup, because the screen definitely would'nt just be blank?

 

Ron,
Just found out the board I was sold was not a Vista 10 but rather a 4110. According to the 4110's manual 6139 keypads won't work. Thats' why I've had problems. I'll take this up with the guy who sold me the unit as a vista 10.

thanks for your help.

JW

 

Bingo! That's one of those "ask the right question" situations....