Aritech CS350 - open zone - wire severed?

Jimbob1977

Hi there,

I have an Aritech CS350. When I tried set the alarm at the panel, I received an Open Zone Message 04 (which is my downstairs front windows).

I checked the downstairs front windows and they are all closed.

Around this time, I had been drilling screws into the upstairs floorboards to tighten them as they are creaking.

Is there any chance that I severed a sensor wire while I was drilling? The downstairs front windows have wires that disappear into the ceiling. Obviously, I can't tell where they run. Could they be running under the floorboards upstairs?

Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but the sensors are quite new.

Any troubleshooting advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Regards

James

KoolKid

You are unlikely to have hit a wire drilling into the floorboards, you would have been drilling into the beams surly.
Is this a pre-wired house?
How many sensors are on that zone?
Try disconnecting them one by one & close of the cables.

Jimbob1977

Hi Koolkid,

Thanks for the reply.

I was trying to drill the floorboards into the joist beams as they creak a lot (in advance of laying a new carpet). It was a bad floor installation.

The house was pre-wired (we moved in). How do I close off the cables? They are HKC shock sensors (white).

There's only two sensors involved. It says Open Zone(s) Front Windows. These are not magnets. They are shock sensors.

Thanks in advance

KoolKid

Can you open the sensors and post up a photo.

Jimbob1977

The sensor with two cables and four colours has:

Yellow and Blue in Slot 1

Red in Slot 2

Blue in Slot 3

Yellow in Slot 4

Black in Slot 5

Black and Red in Slot 6

The sensor with one cable has the following:

Red Slot 2
Yellow Slot 3
Blue Slot 4
Black Slot 5

KoolKid

Where there are 2 cables join colour to colour.
On the single cable join red to black & blue to yellow.

Jimbob1977

Ok. I have exposed the wires and spliced them together as per your instruction above. They are just loosely dangling. Not in the slots. Is that OK?

The same message is at the panel. Open Zone.

Does that shed any light on what might be wrong?

KoolKid

OK . Now separate the blue & yellow on the single cable and see if it shows a tamper also?

Jimbob1977

Just separated the blue and yellow wires on the single cable.

No mention of Tamper on the panel.

Just the usual Open Zone Message and can't set alarm

KoolKid

Ok
Now goto the two loops and join red and black on each of the cables.

Jimbob1977

Hi Koolkid.

I've gone to the two cabled sensor and joined opposite reds to opposite blacks.

Still no change on the panel.

I apologise for taking up so much of your time.

I am on a 'hiding to nothing' here? I might need to call a professional.

KoolKid

What you need to do is join red and black together on each individual cable.
Don't give up yet. It's a process of elimination.
Do you have a multimeter by any chance?

Jimbob1977

Hi Koolkid,

As luck would have it, I was dropping the kids off at school and saw an alarm company van. Tried my luck. It was one of the parents from another class.

Anyway, he came out immediately as he was on leave today.

He opened up the fuse box and did a few checks to ensure there was no cut in supply. It was fine. My drilling didn't cause it

Then he tested the control panel and it was fine.

Next step was the sensors. He agreed with everything you had suggested to date as fully correct

He exposed and trimmed more of the wires as they were a bit wispy and flimsy. Like strands of hair. So the wires are now more robust.

Anyway, long story short, he cleared the Open Zone issue and the alarm can now be reset.

There was no need to change the sensors and he didn't use any new parts. He chalked it off to experience. Just one of those things!!

Thanks a million for your advice. You're so patient.

What I've learnt from this thread is that you can close a circuit and prove it's not electrical by:

o Joining similar colours on a two-cable sensors
o Joining red/black and blue/yellow on a one-cable sensor.

Hopefully it's useful to people in the future.