Set a Galaxy 500 system correctly

Hi

Recently had a battery replacement on our aging Galaxy 500 alarm system and seems everything's got reset. Electrician who did the job for us insists it wasn't him and to go elsewhere. Besides, we live in a rented house and don't have a good relationship with the landlord at the moment, who paid to get the job done.

Anyway, I've got manager and engineer codes and a manual from online somewhere and with that I've set back the user pin. So far so good. However, when setting the alarm and going to timer there'd be a very long continuous beep instead of just a two second one followed by a series of short beeps. On top of that, after a few seconds the panel changes to 1021 INTRUDER and then the countdown restarts all over again. That was about two weeks ago.

Today, I found option 52 PROGRAM ZONES and could see that all zones from 1021 to 1028 were set to 03 INTRUDER. I changed 1021 and 1022 to 01 FINAL and this time the old way of the panel came back when setting the alarm. The only problem is that when the series of beeps stop and the panel goes from SYSTEM SET to blank, like it used to I think, the outside alarm rings out! I then have to enter the user code followed by the ENT button to unset the alarm.

I really think I'm close to cracking this, but haven't got a clue what FINAL, EXIT, ENTRY, INTRUDER, PUSH-SET etc etc actually mean. And I can't keep trying different functions because sooner or later one of the neighbours will tell our landlord if the alarm keeps seemingly randomly ringing out.

Yes, I should have told the landlord the truth that the alarm needed further inspection, but I didn't and too much time has passed. Please can someone shed some light on this evil thing that got my hopes up?

JurysInn

You need to set the zone types correctly. Any door sensor on the way out (the last door) should be set as a final zone and any sensor en-route to the panel when unsetting programmed as exit. You may want to set the exit timer in menu 51.4 to 20 seconds or so. The default is zero, which means the system is waiting for the final door to open and close to set the system rather than a countdown timer.

Thank you for that.

So, FINAL is used purely for doors then?

We got three adjacent rooms with sensors. There's the front room, the back room and then the kitchen. The front room accommodates the front door whilst the kitchen the back door. Both doors tend to get used for both exit and entry. What zones should the front room and kitchen be set as?

I don't think there are sensors on the doors by the way. I'll look at option 51.4 as well

Thank you.

Final is the zone that starts the entry timer
Exit is a zone that you pass after the final to get to the keypad
Intruder is a zone that’s not on an exit route

Okay thanks for the info.

So, if there's a keypad and room sensor in the kitchen where the back door is, do I set that sensor/zone as FINAL? There wouldn't be an exit zone in that case, would there? And I don't believe there's a door sensor either.

So, exit and entry zones are used on the way to/from a final zone?

Thanks in advance all

I’d say cct 1021 is faulty. Go to option 21 Display Zones, scroll to 1021 and check that cct 1021 is working correctly.

The bell sounding when the system sets will be because the trigger connection to the bell box is connected to an output on the panel that is programmed to "set" by default instead of "bells"

Go into engineer option 53 and find any outputs programmed as "set" (it will likely be in the early outputs ie 1001, 1002, 1011 etc) and change them to "bells"

steveo44 said:

I’d say cct 1021 is faulty. Go to option 21 Display Zones, scroll to 1021 and check that cct 1021 is working correctly.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I see it shows a status of the zones. Using it I've concluded which zone numbers relate to which rooms. I've also concluded that none of the sensors are faulty.

Ggghh

GalaxyGuy said:

You need to set the zone types correctly. Any door sensor on the way out (the last door) should be set as a final zone and any sensor en-route to the panel when unsetting programmed as exit. You may want to set the exit timer in menu 51.4 to 20 seconds or so. The default is zero, which means the system is waiting for the final door to open and close to set the system rather than a countdown timer.

Click to expand...

There was an EXIT TIME for both A and B. They were already at 120 seconds, but I brought them down to 90 seconds as that was the exit time before the whole system got reset.

scott1980 said:

The bell sounding when the system sets will be because the trigger connection to the bell box is connected to an output on the panel that is programmed to "set" by default instead of "bells"

Go into engineer option 53 and find any outputs programmed as "set" (it will likely be in the early outputs ie 1001, 1002, 1011 etc) and change them to "bells"

Click to expand...

I've had a look at the manual at option 53 PROGRAM OUTPUTS and felt completely alone whilst reading it. What the heck does bells mean anyway? Is that the external alarm?

I had another test tonight and the same things happened again. Alarm went off when we exited by the back door of the kitchen with that zone set as FINAL. We sure it shouldn't be set as EXIT?

JurysInn said:

Ggghh

There was an EXIT TIME for both A and B. They were already at 120 seconds, but I brought them down to 90 seconds as that was the exit time before the whole system got reset.

I've had a look at the manual at option 53 PROGRAM OUTPUTS and felt completely alone whilst reading it. What the heck does bells mean anyway? Is that the external alarm?

I had another test tonight and the same things happened again. Alarm went off when we exited by the back door of the kitchen with that zone set as FINAL. We sure it shouldn't be set as EXIT?

Click to expand...

I'm not an alarm expert and I know for a fact that Galaxy Guy has infinitely more knowledge on your system than I do. Also, my system is a Galaxy G2, so it might be completely different. However, that being said...

Mine has Exit Time and Entry Time too. For the Exit Time the manual states that if Final Contact is required then enter 0000 (four zeros).

JurysInn said:

Ggghh


There was an EXIT TIME for both A and B. They were already at 120 seconds, but I brought them down to 90 seconds as that was the exit time before the whole system got reset.



I've had a look at the manual at option 53 PROGRAM OUTPUTS and felt completely alone whilst reading it. What the heck does bells mean anyway? Is that the external alarm?

I had another test tonight and the same things happened again. Alarm went off when we exited by the back door of the kitchen with that zone set as FINAL. We sure it shouldn't be set as EXIT?

Click to expand...

When ADT install these systems, they don't use the default 'BELLS' (just a name and nowadays is the siren trigger output) output. They use another output where the default for that output is called 'SET'. So, when your system sets, the 'SET' output is pulled low and is triggering the siren. You need to reprogram output 1003 and change it from 'SET' to 'BELLS'.

Menu 53. 'ent' to select. Use 'A' a few times to select output 1003, select option 1 for OP FUNCTION and change from 09 'SET' to 01 'BELLS'.

If this doesn't work, take a picture of the wiring inside the main control panel and post it.

Hey guys. Thanks for sticking with me. Something just caught my attention from the manual. Firstly, I completely forgot to state that the landlord said the alarm system is disconnected from ADT. Would that result in a comms fail of some kind? What grabbed my attention was when I wanted to silence/delay the alarm outside, I found this in 51.2 of the manual:-

The delayed activation of the bell is programmable within the range 0 –20 minutes; the default is 0. The Bell Delay is overridden by a telecom fail (either a Comms Fail on the Galaxy Telecom Moduleor by the activation of a Line Fail zone used to monitor a digicom); an alarm condition in either of these conditions results ini instant bells activation.

So, could a comms fail be the cause of the alarm? I've searched through the manual again and nothing else mentions a comms fail. I could try setting the BELL DELAY to 20 minutes (maximum in the manual) and if it goes off again instantly I guess that's the problem.

Well see if I can do something over the weekend.

Thanks

No

As per Mark, no this does not cause the issue. Please take this step by step and stop guessing, as you're only going down rat holes.

If you have an additional comms fail, it may be that the panel has adt default numbers programmed in the comms menu 56. These need to be deleted. If no phone line connection, then 56.1.10 line volts also needs disabled. Best get the output programming sorted first though.

Hi GalaxyGuy and others

Apologies I didn't see you'd posted at #11 so didn't mean to seem ignorant. You've all given me food for thought so really, thanks again.