Veritas R8

[Dan12]

Hi, recently moved into a house with a Veritas R8 alarm installed. Fairly basic system with 2 PIRs, RKP by the front door (the LED one with no screen) and bell box on the front of the house. I was looking to get the original installer in to set it up again as the battery had been removed and fuse taken out by the previous owner and I suspect it had been this way for some time.

Decided to have a go myself before calling someone so I reattached the battery and put the fuse back in. Nothing happened when attaching the battery so I suspect it’s dead. Inserting the fuse the system powered up and I entered 4321 on the keypad to silence it. Put the cover back on the control panel and tested the zones were working correctly after setting the system. Front door PIR starts the keypad countdown and the back door PIR sets the alarm off immediately so it was all working as it should.

Unset it and all was good and the keypad looked happy. 10mins later I noticed the siren was ringing outside (although I didn’t see the strobe flashing or anything). There were no noises from the keypad or the panel and no warning lights. I quickly killed the power to the panel again and I’ve left it like that since.

Would this be a case of just replacing the panel battery? It was my understanding that if mains power is going to the panel then it should be fine without the battery. I’m just confused as to why the siren was going on it’s own without any upset from the panel or keypad.

 

[sparkymarka]

Maybe why it was powered down in the first place....

 

[Dan12]

Yes I was thinking that too, but the house was previously let to tenants so I did wonder if they’d just powered it down so there’s one less thing for the landlord to maintain. If it’s just the panel battery that needs replacing then that’s fine. However if the bell box is dodgy I’ll have to get the installer out as it’s quite high up on the house and I also don’t want to risk losing my ear drums.

Would the fact that the bell is sounding on its own, without any indication from keypad or panel, point towards an issue with the bell itself?

 

[sparkymarka]

Could be anything ....shorted/ damaged cable , water damage in bell box , faulty panel ( least likely ) post picture of external bell box

 

[Dan12]

I haven’t been able to get a picture of the bell box but from googling it looks to be an Odyssey 3E or similar.

I bought a new battery for the panel and connected it today. So far everything has been working as normal. Tested the strobe and sounder work by going through engineer mode. I still feel a little uneasy about it though as the only the right LED on the bell box is flashing slowly. Had a search online and it pointed to engineer hold off mode which I haven’t enabled and I’ve tried the usual fixes to turn this mode off. It just doesn’t seem 100% to me and I’m concerned it’s going to go nuts again in the middle of the night.

When I killed the power to the panel previously the bell box stopped immediately. Now that I’ve had the system powered up all evening, will the bell have recharged at all? Again I’m just concerned if it goes off on it’s own that I can just kill power to the panel. (I don’t have a ladder to access should the bell box keep going on it’s own)