Settle a debate??

[dabomb3k]

Hi guys, having a bit of a debate with my girlfriends boss.. He owns a kids play centre and he has a door entry system upon entering the building.. It is just a standard "push" switch and a Yale magnetic opening switch, my girlfriend was using it yesterday daytime and all of a sudden it just stopped working..

As her boss is on holiday she asked me to take a look (I do commercial equipment by trade and nothing to do with alarms) when I went down I opened up the switch to test for power and I found 2 small cables with red yellow and blue wiring on them, the red and yellow were wrapped up and connected to the L1 of the switch, the other cable connected to common and the blue leads were all joined at the earthing point, when I tested it I had no power across the cables for 12v and the switch was functioning as it should when doing a continuity test, so as there was no power going to the switch I advised that they should call in an alarm engineer as Im not sure what it entails...

Her boss then rang and said that he was 100% certain that the door entry is run direct off the mains and not connected into the alarm control panel.. I advised that there was no way mains power would be running down such small cable and u less he had a plug somewhere with a transformer down to 12v then it must be coming off the alarm control panel... He is still adamant this isn't the case, so for my own sanity could anyone advise what is correct??

Also if anyone has any idea what could be causing this Im open to suggestions too... The alarm does have a red light on Zone 2 but they claim it's been like that for months..

Untitled

• dabomb3k
• 17 Mar 2015
• 1

Untitled

• dabomb3k
• 17 Mar 2015
• 1

Thanks in advance hope I explained it clear enough

 

[sparkymarka]

First did the lock release just click or buzz when the button was pressed ? If it clicked it probably run on 12 dc if it buzzed it runs off 12v ac and if so it shouldn't come from the alarm panel , unless it connected to the ac transformer ( not good but I have seen it ) it could also come from the alarm also not good as lock releases can give off back emf. Does the alarm set ok since the release stopped working ? Aux fuse blown if powered from the alarm

 

[dabomb3k]

Thanks for reply, it used to buzz for them to then push the door open..

As the cable is in the wall and I've just been asked to "take a look" I didn't want to start messing with too much but I had a quick look up above the partition where there's a lot of cable runs and it "appeared" that the cable from the magnetic latch runs to the alarm control panel but I could be wrong..

I was trying to find some sort of fuse or transformer around there but there's nothing that stands out.. There is a fused spur nearby but the light is on and I don't think it is for that door system, and other than that I can't see a LV transformer anywhere

The alarm system still sets and resets despite the zone 2 light on and despite the door entry no longer working..

I tested for continuity off L1 to the "Earth" blue cables and got no reading, I then tested off the common to "Earth" and I did get a reading off that..

Testing between common and L1 gave me nothing, and testing for voltage gave no reading either...

 

[sparkymarka]

Test between the blue cables and the yellows for 12v ac , can you trace the cable back ?

 

[dabomb3k]

I will test that tomorrow.. Unfortunately whoever put the false wall in has completely hidden from view where the cables run too, I can see the magnetic switch running back to what appears to be the alarm control panel but I can't see where the cables to the switch go... I'll test for the voltage tomorrow, are there any other checks I can do? How would I go about finding the six fuse you mentioned...

 

[EightyTwo]

My guess, for what it's worth, is that the lock is wired to one of the cables in the switch (the L1 one) and the power comes from the other cable (the COM one). The switch would then energise the lock when pressed.

If you don't have a cable tracer, you'll want to track down the 12v ac supply. It could be a DIN rail mounted device, a plug-in tramsformer, a (real, not electronic) halogen lighting transformer or some other homebrew thing in a box.

If it was me, I'd start looking for it in places where there was easily-accessible mains (i.e. near soclets)...

I'd be surprised if it had anything to do with the alarm.