Scantronic 9800

[Hysteresis]

I have a Scantronic 9800 domestic intruder alarm installed 17 years ago.
I have had a few annoying problems with it and have not set the unit for alarm for many years. I have a fault light 'on' with a 'bf' alarm but last night due to a mains surge, the alarm went off, I entered my user code to silence it and all went silent, but am now left with an alarm state of AP flashing. If I enter my code I get the 'rr' alarm state for a couple of minutes then the AP alarm state reappears
I can't get rid of this alarm and as I don't use the system, I just want to disable the system completely.
If I switch the mains power OFF, the alarm sounds so I have to re-instate the power supply to shut the damn thing up.
SO the question is - How do I just disable the thing from operating.

 

[sparkymarka]

Switch off at mains , remove back up battery ( probably no good ) ....get ladders out disconnect the bell box battery OR let it ring for 20 mins you may be lucky and the bellbox has a cut off timer ....if not ladders out !

 

[Hysteresis]

No where can I find a reference to a Bell Box Battery in the Installation or Engineering Manuals so thanks for the tip.
I had disconnected the Mains and the Battery and the external sounder kept going and going. I presumed as there was no power to the Electronics, maybe there was a Capacitor (admittedly a big one) was driving the sounder, but it did not discharge, so I suppose a battery in the sounder is the answer.
I thought a special tool was required to gain access to the the Sounder for tamper proof reasons!
Have you any tips on getting into the Sounder?

 

[Hysteresis]

Incidentally 'Sparkymarka' The battery measures 10.9 V and I would have thought this would be high enough to satisfy the Battery Fault alarm condition I am getting. I realise the 10.9V is measured with the battery open circuit, but I would have thought that would have been ok to satisfy the electronic power requirements.

 

[sparkymarka]

Unfortunately I don't have a crystal ball..so it could be one of a hundred different bellboxes that have been on the market in the last 17 years ! Posting a picture of the bellbox may help ...and if that battery has 10.9v in it ...then it's faulty ....your looking at 13.8v even at this voltage there may be no capacity ..

 

[Hysteresis]

Thanks so much for your help 'Sparkymarka'. I know what you mean regarding the variety of Sounders. The one I have has been customised to have the name of the installation company on it and that company is no longer in business, so I doubt I will be able identify the manufacturer unless I can get into the box. I will get a ladder out tomorrow to have a close look at it. It looks like it has a special access device on it but I will have a closer inspection tomorrow. Thanks again for your advice.

 

[sparkymarka]

Post picture of it ....

 

[Hysteresis]

It was too late for me to get the ladders out tonight so I tried to take a picture using a telephoto lens which did not turn out too well as I was not on a tripod.
I will take a better picture tomorrow and send it on but you may be able to identify the unit with these very bad out of focus shaky images.

 

[sparkymarka]

It looks like a ventcroft vision bell box from that out of focus picture ...lol

 

[Europlex]

Incidentally 'Sparkymarka' The battery measures 10.9 V and I would have thought this would be high enough to satisfy the Battery Fault alarm condition I am getting. I realise the 10.9V is measured with the battery open circuit, but I would have thought that would have been ok to satisfy the electronic power requirements.

A healthy battery.

Voltage is NO indication that there is any capacity available, in the same way
that fumes smelt in your car fuel tank is NO indication that petrol exists!

Read more: https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/9448-alarm-problem.425759/#ixzz4qeodDreC

 

[Hysteresis]

Hi Sparkymarka. I got the ladders out and took some better pictures attached. There is a plastic 'bung' in the bottom and removal exposes an allen screw. Not sure what this Screw does but I suspect it will release the lid, but unless it is a captive I will have problems re-inserting it therefore I am reluctant to unscrew it.
I di what you suggested and disconnected Power and the Battery, the outside sounder went off so I left it for 20 minutes to see if it timed out. Good News it did time out. So all is dead now and hopefully de-activated. Not too sure if the outside sounder will stay quiet because if it timed out then clearly there is some electronic timer somewhere in there. If this timer is designed such that when it times out the Battery is disconnected from the electronics and therefore not subject to failure in the electronics which could re-energise the sounder.
Another web site suggested that the sounder could be silenced by linking TR (presumably Tamper return) to 0v. Not sure if this would be advisable because when I sell my house the new owner would not be aware of this inking out and I would probably forget all about it when I sell up.
Now that it is all peaceful and disabled, I assume if and when I decide to re-instate the system by buying a new Battery, simply re-powering up will be all that would be rewuired, or would I need to do an Engineers reset or maybe a user reset to bring the thing back to life.
If a reset is underrated, does that reset to Factory settings and therefore the whole thing require reprogramming. Also if I leave the thing de-powered, does this result in a reprogramming to be required. The instructions for a reprogram are not very clear.
Anyway here are the pictures I took of the sounders that you may be able to identify,
Thanks again for all of your help, assistance and advice.

 

[Hysteresis]

Sparkymarka - in the previous mail 'rewuired' should read 'required' and 'underrated' should read 'undertaken' . A combination of Finger trouble and auto correct is my excuse.

 

[sparkymarka]

Just leave it as it is , make sure the fuse is removed in the spur as powering it up again may restart the bell timer , it should keep all the settings but to be honest due to the age of the panel an upgrade may be better at a later date

 

[Hysteresis]

I see your point Europlex although not a very good parallel. Open circuit battery voltage is not a good measure of Battery performance as the Characteristic of a failed Battery is that the Voltage drops off severely under load. Using your parallel is rather like saying if my petrol indicator shows 80% then this is no indication of petrol tank capacity when clearly it is.
But I get your point.

 

[Hysteresis]

Thanks again Sparkymarka for all of your time and advice.