HKC SecureWatch house alarm: looks OK but will not turn on.

Gautama

Hi,

I've had a reasonable browse through the many HKC SecureWatch house alarm threads but can't find any problem that matches mine.

The keypad, screen and LEDs all look OK but I cannot turn the alarm on.

When I type in the code to set it, normally "System Arming" is displayed and announced, followed by beeps for 20sec.
Instead, the display continues to read as normal, there's silence for a few seconds, then "System Unset" announced (as though it had been on and I'd disarmed it).

Is there some way I can reset it? It's as though it's being prevented from being set.

kub

It sounds like there is an open zone, have you double checked?

Gautama

Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is an open zone?
I did have a wander around the house, opening and closing all windows and external doors. That didn't have any effect though.

kub

Perhaps one of your detectors has gone faulty.
So put in your code and keep an eye on the keypad screen.

It should currently have the time and date.
Once you put in your code, stars appear with each digit you press.
Watch your screen then and see what it written there.

Sorry, zones are areas that the system is made up of, for example your front door would be on a different input ( zone ) than your back windows/ upstairs etc.

Gautama

OK, thanks, I'll check it out.

altor

Gautama wrote: »

OK, thanks, I'll check it out.

If you cant find the open device that way do a user walk test on the system.
0#3 and open and close devices. If shock sensors fitted tap to activate.

Gautama

OK, thanks to you both.
Zone 5 Landing is giving the Open Zone message. The sensor looks fine to me, there's a blue light on and AFAIK that's the way it's been since we bought the house.
I've sussed out how to inhibit this zone so at least I can get the alarm on.
I've found the user manual online and between that and your advice above I'll
play around and figure out what's going on.
I'm actually going on a (very rare) holiday on Saturday for one week so I probably have to be back from that before I can play around.

BTW, a couple of weeks ago we had a couple of power outages from ESB. First was a scheduled maintenance in the area, second a week after was a outage problem. Would either of these caused a malfunction?
Would a TurnItOffAndTurnItBackOnAgain be worth a go?

KoolKid

Is zone 5 a PiR (Motion Sensor)?
If so open it up and tell us what connections there are & we can advise you how to disconnect it so you dont have to keep inhibiting it.

altor

Gautama wrote: »

OK, thanks to you both.
Zone 5 Landing is giving the Open Zone message. The sensor looks fine to me, there's a blue light on and AFAIK that's the way it's been since we bought the house.
I've sussed out how to inhibit this zone so at least I can get the alarm on.
I've found the user manual online and between that and your advice above I'll
play around and figure out what's going on.
I'm actually going on a (very rare) holiday on Saturday for one week so I probably have to be back from that before I can play around.

BTW, a couple of weeks ago we had a couple of power outages from ESB. First was a scheduled maintenance in the area, second a week after was a outage problem. Would either of these caused a malfunction?
Would a TurnItOffAndTurnItBackOnAgain be worth a go?

Could of been the start of it. You should only be seeing the blue light when the motion detects movement.
If you had an issue with the back up battery then it would also pull down powered devices on the system like the motion detector you describe on your landing.
Try down powering the PIR and leave it for a minute then power back up and see if that fixes it.
If not I'd do same with battery disconnected to see if that's causing the problem also.