| Posted: Friday Nov 5th, 2010 09:23 am |
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Pgordon
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Hi, been meaning to get round to investigating this for a little while, but some fairly major home renovations have been sucking up all my spare time...
Some weeks ago, one of my keypads lost its voice - and all other sounds - completely. The LEDs still work correctly, the keys still all perform their functions correctly. Nothing occurred around the time this stopped working that would have potentially disturbed anything, - no changes to comfort config, wiring either at the panel end or the KP end etc... (I wondered if it might be something as obvious as a wiring fault developed on the VOICE line).
However, since then, I've also been noticing that the voice on another keypad has been noticably degrading... - difficult to decribe exactly, but the overall audio quality has degraded; it seems fainter, but also "muffled". In addition, I've noticed that in any given sentence, various words (not consistent) occasionally drop out completely. - I have a voice announcement for the main entry door that tends to be the most noticeable example of this... - I very often hear it say "Front ___ Open"
Anyone got any ideas what might be going on here? - I've done a panel reset (via comfigurator), but I've not powered down completely (need to time that so the external siren doesn't annoy the neighbours!).
Like I said, due to time constraints I've just been living with this, and haven't really done even basic diagnostics yet (beyond the reset), but if there's anything that anyone can suggest as likely causes that might expedite the troubleshooting process, that would be appreciated!
Paul G.
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| Posted: Friday Nov 5th, 2010 09:41 am |
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2nd Post |
ident
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I have not encountered gradual degradation of the voice quality. Do you mean that there are other keypads which still sound good? Perhaps the extensive renovations may have affected the keypad cables?
You can try exchanging the keypads, just unplug the front housing from the wall and connect it to the back housing of another keypad and vice versa. This will tell you if it is a keypad or wiring problem
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| Posted: Friday Nov 5th, 2010 09:51 am |
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3rd Post |
Pgordon
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I have 3 keypads in total:
ID1: adjacent to front door (main entry path)
ID2: adjacent to my bed
ID3: adacent to Comfort panel in Node 0
ID1 is the one that is experiencing the "voice degradation", ID2 is the one that has lost all sound (not just voice, but beeps too). ID3 I don't know about since I only use it for testing when working at the panel. - so I'n not sure if there are currently any KPs which still "sound good"....
The renovations in the house have been in the kitchen, - which is at the opposite end of the building, well away from any of these KP's. The only Comfort wiring in that area is for a PIR, for which the cable is completely hidden inside the walls & ceiling; - hence my assertion that nothing has gone on which should have been able to disrupt any wiring...
I have just received a new KP from my supplier for the express purpose of swap-out testing, so I'll get to that ASAP, - kitchen renovations are still ongoing, so might yet be another week or two before I can get on to troubleshooting this...
Cheers.
Paul G.
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| Posted: Thursday Nov 25th, 2010 10:53 am |
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Pgordon
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Update to this: - I haven't had the free time to do the troubleshooting with the replacement keypad yet, but in the meantime, that keypad which was previously degrading has now gone "mute" just like the first one.
So I now have 2 out of 3 keypads that have fallen completely silent; no voice response of any kind. The 3rd keypad is as far as I can tell still functioning normally.. - it's situated in Node zero next to the panel itself - it was installed just for convenience when working on the panel - this is in the cellar so its voice is quite faint, but *can* be heard (just about) when operating the system from either of the other keypads..
I am fairly sceptical that this is going to be a hardware fault with two seperate keypads, in two seperate locations, with no shared wiring etc.
I will still try to get to the swap-out as soon as I can, - time is quite pressing at the moment though, so it may well be the Christmas break before I can round to this.
Anyone got any theories as to what might possibly cause these symptoms?
TIA
Paul G.
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| Posted: Friday Nov 26th, 2010 12:16 am |
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5th Post |
ident
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Its a mystery
Perhaps the internal volume has been adjusted somehow
Sign in with your code and # key on the keypad to go the user menu and press 7 for Volume. It should announce "50" which is the normal volume. If not enter 50# to change.
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| Posted: Friday Nov 26th, 2010 08:32 am |
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6th Post |
Pgordon
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I'll give that a go. I'm also likely to have to power down the panel completely in the next week or two, since I'm having some plumbing works done in the vacinity...
Do you recall back just after the launch of the G2 there were a few instances of the recorded announcements "disappearing"... I think it was eventually traced back to some problem related to the pillar height (or was it the pillar material? I can't remember)... I experienced the phenomena myself a couple of times, and I remember Nigel sending me a pack of replacement pillars for mounting the LEM... - is there any possibility of something akin to that hapenning here? - some kind of static build-up perhaps?
The fact that the 3rd keypad does seem to still be speaking normally would tend to rule out problems at the panel itself, but all I can think of is that the unaffected KP is very close to the panel and is thus only on about 1m of cable... could this be relevant? The other interesting thing is that the two silent KP's are about the same age, whereas the still-functioning one is considerably newer.. - again, is there a possibility of some age-related component failure in the KP's themselves? - wouldn't that scenario fit the observed symptom of the gradually degrading voice? (If that's the case, then obviously the swap-out will prove it one way or the other...)
TIA
Paul G.
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| Posted: Saturday Nov 27th, 2010 01:20 am |
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slychiu
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I suspect the problem is with the keypads speakers from what you say
They may have decided that they have had enough
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| Posted: Saturday Nov 27th, 2010 09:37 am |
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Pgordon
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Yup, that seems like it might well be the case, - I just swapped one out for a new one, and the voice is back.... I did get a few other odd behaviours, but that might be because I've not checked some of the jumpers perhaps (pretty sure I made certain it was set to the right KP ID)... I got a communications failure alarm when I disconnected the old one, but that cleared as soon as I reconnected the new one.. afterwards I was able to sign in & hear the voice menu, but I noticed a couple of "quirks":
1) the green "Off" LED didn't seem to always be correctly tracking the state... - when I first connected the KP, it didn't come on, - it did come on after I signed in... however I'm sure I subsequently saw it go off again. it's on at the moment, as it should be, I'll keep an eye on it...
2) when signed out, I should be able to press hash to get a report of any answering machine messages "No Message" or "New message for...." - I don't... all I get is a single beep from the speaker of about 2 seconds duration... this isn't right yet either...
I imagine both of the above effects are probably down to configuration parameters (I've put a KP03 in place of a KP04 if that matters...)
So, I guess I've now got to order another KP04 for the ID1 replacement - the KP03 I've just fitted there is actually the replacement for ID2 in another room... I don't suppose there's any kind of refurbishment possible on these KP's is there?
Paul G.
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| Posted: Sunday Nov 28th, 2010 02:09 am |
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slychiu
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You should not have to configure for KP03 or KP04 in Comfort beyond setting the ID and the number of Keypads in Comfigurator
The led status will not be correct if you connect the keypad to a live Comfort system, until you arm or disarm the system.
Try resetting Comfort
We can repair the KP04 if you are not in a hurry, ie send it back to Cytech and pay for the transport costs back. Or send it back to a distributor, wait for their next shipment
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| Posted: Monday Nov 29th, 2010 01:29 pm |
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10th Post |
Pgordon
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One more bit of feedback...
SWMBO has just informed me that the new KP Design is less effective than the slightly older design we had in place before.... - She definitely doesn't like that the text & icons on the individual keys are now white instead of black... apparently when the backlighting comes on, it's *much* harder to make out white-against-pale-green than it was to make out black-against-pale-green....
To keep the peace, I suggested I may be able to swap over the rubber keypad membrane with the older keypad, but I haven't looked at how easy that would be to do.. - is this a simple, straigntforward swap over?
Cheers.
Paul G.
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| Posted: Tuesday Nov 30th, 2010 11:34 am |
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ident
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The old keypad meaning the KP01? The buttons are rounded rectangles so they cannot be used with KP03 or KP04
Another option is the AL version of the KP04
This has grey buttons. You can change the housing to AL or change the buttons if you ffind that it matches, at a small cost of course
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| Posted: Tuesday Nov 30th, 2010 12:05 pm |
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Pgordon
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No, not the really old *original* keypad design... - I changed over from then when I upgraded from G1 to G2. I have the new style with the round buttons exactly as shown in the pic above. these are "white" (I believe they're described as white, although I've always thought beige or cream would be more accurate), but they do have the icons & text on the buttons in black - again, as is shown in the pic. The replacement I've just got has white icons & text, which doesn't seem as "contrasty" when the keypad illumination os on... - I'm pretty sure they're exactly the same apart from that - I'm not at home now, so I'm not looking at the two of them side-by-side, but from what I recall them looking like, I'm fairly certain the key membranes are exactly the same apart from the printing colour... - I'll make a point of double-checking when I get home this evening...
Cheers.
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| Posted: Saturday Dec 4th, 2010 03:16 pm |
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13th Post |
Pgordon
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I swapped out the PCB & speaker from the new keypads into my original enclosures, thus keeping the original key membrane, and the polycarb enclusures which are of a slightly different shade. All is working much as it should, and SWMBO is happy that we kept the original key colours... - I'm *still* seeing the "Off" key not tracking the correct state most of the time, - at the moment, I think it stays off until someone signs in, at which point it illuminates correctly... - but I haven't done a system reset yet, so hopefully that will sort itself out shortly...
Now, I have a couple of fully functional KP's that have no voice... - what to do with them I wonder?... - is it likely just the actual speaker that has died? or is more likely a PCB component?
Paul G.
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| Posted: Monday Dec 6th, 2010 07:28 am |
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Pgordon
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New problem.... KP voices are now all OK, but the LED's are definitely not operating correctly.. - A case in point that I made a point of observing in the last few hours... the KP by my bedside is where I set to night mode from. Last night when I set to night mode, there were *NO* LED's on at all on the keypad. I set night mode, and the red ARM LED came on & I thought no more of it. This morning, once again, there are *NO* LED's on....
So this morning, I disarmed as per normal, I observed the red ARM LED go on very briefly (less than a second), followed immediately by the green OFF LED... I continued to observe this time, and the green OFF LED went off after 15 seconds or thereabouts...
What gives? - why do my state LED's come on correctly initially, then almost immediately go out again?
TIA
Paul G.
PS, i *HAVE* now performed a system reset (via comfigurator), but I haven't done a complete power-down restart... do you think that would make any difference?Last edited on Monday Dec 6th, 2010 07:31 am by Pgordon
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| Posted: Monday Dec 6th, 2010 11:32 am |
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slychiu
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I believe you may have inadvertently turned on the settings for EN50131 the great new European standard for security.
Go to Comfiguration > Modules and Settings, look for Show Alarms checkbox. I think you have the checkbox unchecked.
One of the requirements in EN50131 is that you are not allowed to see any indications on the keypad unless you sign in. The screen will not show the security mode and the LEDs will not show any indications. After you sign in and log out, the screen and led indications will go off after 30 seconds. This is so that the burglar cannot find out that useful information.
Furthermore when there is an alarm, the keypad is not alllowed to show any alarm, otherwise the burglar may find out there is an alarm!
If you think such a great "security" feature is a pain in the a.. , check the "Show Alarms" box and Comfort will behave in the way you and I are accustomed to.
You may not have encountered this before because old keypads did not have this feature in firmware.
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| Posted: Monday Dec 6th, 2010 02:27 pm |
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Pgordon
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By jove I believe that's it!
I've never come across that setting before, so it must have always been unchecked, and as you say, not relevant to me before with the older keypad firmware... I'd actually had ONE of my 3 KP's that obviously was new enough to exhibit this behaviour, but I'd always ignored it as it was the one by the panel which I only ever used for testing anyway... - now all my keypads work "properly" - i.e. NOT as the bl**dy EU think it should!
Thanks Chiu.
P.
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