Flex 20 with RF portal - TAMP S/C on wireless zone

[rajjinator]

Hi all,

I have DIY installed a Flex 20 with 3 wired zones (1x PIR and 2x Door contacts). All working fine until I recently added an RF portal to the RS485 bus and paired a wireless DT8M PIR for an outbuilding approx 10-15 meters away from the RF portal. This has been working OK for a number of days - signal strength has been between 90% to 80% with a Lo value of 60. However today i got a +RF Super (supervison?) error, which I assume is due to a total loss of signal (it is currently reading 40% with Lo of 0%).

To resolve this I may attempt to move the RF portal to a part of the house nearer the outbuilding, however before I do, I am also getting a TAMPER S/C (short circuit?) on the wireless zone. This seems a little strange since there is no 'wired' tamper cirucit as such on a wireless zone, so wondered if this is likely to be a faulty PIR sensor before I go to the effort of re-positioning the portal.

Thanks!

 

[GalaxyGuy]

Try power cycling the portal to see if it corrects the issue.

 

[rajjinator]

Hi GalaxyGuy. That indeed corrects the issue, it's happened twice now within the period of a week and both times rebooting the panel using the option in the engineer menu has corrected the issue. I assume doing this also power cycles the portal.

Do you think I am just trying to operate on the limit of the wireless range or is there perhaps some other issue?

 

[GalaxyGuy]

Restarting the panel doesn't restart the portal. I would advise going into eng mode and disconnecting/reconnecting power to the portal. Which portal version do you have fitted? The most recent firmware is V3.00. You can find out the RF Portal firmware level in the diagnostics menu 61.1.9 Also, which panel firmware do you have? Menu 23.

 

[rajjinator]

OK thanks, I will try to physically remove and reinstate power from the portal when this reoccurs whilst in engineer mode.

Portal Firmware is indeed V3.00 and the panel firmware is V3.52

 

[GalaxyGuy]

The most recent panel firmware is 3.54, but the last two releases were related to Intellibus fixes and not related to RF.

 

[rajjinator]

Good to know, thank you. I might try another PIR to see if the problem persists and then perhaps move the portal closer to the outbuilding. But it's perhaps only 15 meters at most. I know it's going through an external wall but i'd expected better. What sort of range might one typically expect?

In hindsight i'd imagine it depends on many factors including what other noise there is on that band...

 

[GalaxyGuy]

I've installed in outbuildings in excess of 50 metres, so 15 is pretty close. As you say, it depends on other factors such as wall thickness, reflective insulation, Etc. I wouldn't think it was noise related, as the portal would be issuing jamming notices - unless you have those disabled on your panel config.

 

[rajjinator]

Strange. If I had some kind of addressing issue would things just not work at all, or could that be a potential cause? I am using a MK7 keyprox also wired to the 485 bus. Both are in short wire runs directly to the panel and with EOL resistors in place at both portal and keyprox. (not sure if i should have also removed the on board jumper/resistor thinking about it now)?

 

[GalaxyGuy]

No, an address or rs485 problem would give bus tampers. You should be seeing 100% on the diags for the RF portal.

 

[rajjinator]

I am indeed seeing 100% in the diags. I have just removed the internal jumper for the 680 EOL resistor since I have a wiring set up as per "configuration B (Two Chains)" in the manual, and also power cycled the RF portal by removing power.

Will try another PIR if issues persist.