Hi all,
Have a Ademco AIM100 security system. Inside the panel is a AM20 board. Installed 10/98 and have done all maint./batt.changes etc, and the system works good. Is ADT monitored. Problem: had three Vista 6139 pads in place. All worked perfectly till mid October this year when the keypad in the bedroom started 'Fast Beeping, then stopped". Would do this intermit. only. Showed "Opn Cir". Would only do this every so often then would work fine after re-set. A couple weeks later keypad fast beeped for the last time and then continued to beep, while not working after that. All experts said, wire defective, panel defective, connections intermit., etc. Nope. Called ADT and they sent out tech. Panel passing proper voltage to wires, wires to touchpad showing proper voltage at connection ends. Even took touchpad to other pad hookups in house and it read "Opn Cir". So must have been the pad gone bad, right? Replaced old 6139 with new 6160 V. Fired up, registered and ran fine till yesterday when the new pad started fast beeping and stopped after about 6-8 beeps. Showed nothing on display. Once again, only this pad reporting, not other two. The other two were silent even though all three pads hooked to the same terminals on the board. This situation for me defies all logic and could'nt be more aggravating. Anyone out there with thoughts or suggestions.

 

On a guess, the cable/wire that feeds this keypad is damaged somewhere between the alarm motherboard and the keypad. As a test, try connecting the keypad directly to the motherboard with a known good length of wire.

This is the sort of thing that happens when alarm cables get caught in building framing and gets crushed, or gets gnawed by rodents.

 

Thanks MrRonFl. Was hoping to hear from you. Thanks for the reponse. I hear you clearly on this and I think I will go ahead and pull a new length of wire from the pad down to the panel on your suggestion. The wire there now is the original installed 17 year old wire. As much as I hate to think about doing it, it is very concievable this is the problem. Once I get to the basement there are some AC "120" wires I just wire stapled to the bottoms of the floor joists for lack of a better term, because of laziness. What is your suggestion for distance as far as standoff from those wires? I don't want to rerun and possibly get or pick up some undue AC feedover that may cause the keypad to act silly. I am thinking at least minimum 2-3 inches, but maybe the more distance the better? Whats you thought? I know just enough to be dangerous. I have read your responses and you are much better versed than I. Thank you in advance.

 

in general, the rule of thumb is that you don't want to run parallel to 120v+ cables for more than a couple of feet, and to not be any closer than a couple of inches, if you can avoid it. Obviously, more separation is better.

 

Thanks again for the info. I will do the required mod's sometime this week and then will monitor for some time to see if the issue is resolved. Will let you know one way or the other in future. Thanks again for your input as I think it will fix it. Merry Christmas