Spanky
Senior Member
If you have been a professional installer for any length of time, you have probably experienced that one job that never goes right.
Over the last several months, we have had such a house that we refer to as the "House From Hell" which must have been built over an old grave yard.
Unexplained alarms, keypads going blank, data bus devices going missing, hardwired switches failing, and the list goes on.
All the control equipment and sensors were replaced and problems still showed up about every two to three weeks.
The installer and myself was at our wits end.
He had decided to rip out everything and start again. 
In a last minute check of data bus voltages the culprit was found.... 
a loose ground wire on a data bus hub. The ground wire had been inserted under the terminal and not clamped by the terminal. It was making enough connection to power the data bus normally, but when corrosion built up, the house shook, or other unexplained events happened, the power connection failed and the power when down to the data bus devices momentarily. By the time the installer got to the job site everything was working normally.
Moral of this story: Give all your wires a tug to make sure they are clamped by the terminal. Also make sure the terminals are fully seated into the terminal socket.
Over the last several months, we have had such a house that we refer to as the "House From Hell" which must have been built over an old grave yard.
Unexplained alarms, keypads going blank, data bus devices going missing, hardwired switches failing, and the list goes on.
All the control equipment and sensors were replaced and problems still showed up about every two to three weeks.
The installer and myself was at our wits end.
He had decided to rip out everything and start again. In a last minute check of data bus voltages the culprit was found.... a loose ground wire on a data bus hub.
The ground wire had been inserted under the terminal and not clamped by the terminal. It was making enough connection to power the data bus normally, but when corrosion built up, the house shook, or other unexplained events happened, the power connection failed and the power when down to the data bus devices momentarily. By the time the installer got to the job site everything was working normally. Moral of this story: Give all your wires a tug to make sure they are clamped by the terminal. Also make sure the terminals are fully seated into the terminal socket.
