Problem with Elk M1 Gold Voice Function

[jkdevaughn]

Okay, I'm stumped... My Elk M1 Gold Voice function (output 1) is not behaving correctly. It will not say any of the words "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", or "seven". And after it is supposed to have said one of them, it acts like the voice output is temporarily disabled because it won't say subsequent words after it was supposed to say any one of "one" through "seven". It will say "one" but right after saying "one" the voice output acts as if it is temporarily disabled because it won't speak any subsequent words for several seconds. I have output 1 connected to an 8 Ohm speaker. I have output 2 connected to an Elk-74 siren. The "yelp" input on Elk-74 siren goes to output 2 + on the M1G panel and the "negative (GND)" input goes to output 2 - (negative) on the M1G panel. M1G firmware is version 5.3.10. Also, in ElkRP2 I have set "Output 2 hookup" to "Voltage out" as opposed to "Siren output." The Elk 74 siren is working as expected.
 
Any ideas on what going on with my voice output (output 1)?
 
jkd

 

[RAL]

Is this a new installation and voice announcements have never worked right, or did they previously work ok and now they don't?
 
Is this happening when the panel is in alarm state, or a non-alarm condition?
 
During an alarm condition, while the telephone line is seized, the voice output to Out1 will be silenced.  That's one thing I can think of that might be going on.   Though why it would matter what words are being said seems strange.  That makes me think there could be something broken in the M1 hardware.

 

[jkdevaughn]

Thanks for the replay RAL. It is occurring on an install that was originally installed back in 2009. It started occurring several months ago and I've just been putting up with it. I recently (i.e.  yesterday) got the gumption to try and figure out what's going on. It wasn't until yesterday that I fully understood that it was only some specific numbers (2 to 7) that it wouldn't say. Since it seems to speak all other words okay it is really puzzling. It definitely happens in a non-alarm condition and I'm pretty sure it happens in an alarm state as well although I haven't specifically tested it in an alarm state. I seem to recall the abnormal voice response the last time we accidentally set off the alarm. Could it be something corrupt in memory where the words for the numbers 2 to 7 are stored?
 
Sorry for my delayed responses but it seems that as a new poster, I am limited in the number of posts I can make in 1 day. I am limited to 1 post per day. This limitation is really annoying.
 
jkd

 

[RAL]

I don't know the specifics of how the M1 does it's voice output.  The M1's processor chip is a Freescale MMC2114, which has quite a bit of read-only-memory and a digital-to-analog converter on-board.  I imagine they store the voice words in ROM and stream the data out through the D/A converter.   If an address signal to the ROM is messed up in some way, I could see how it could cause some words to go missing or things to hang up after a word is spoken.  With a bad address bit, that might point the starting address for a certain work to the wrong location, where there might be no data that comes out as being audible.  Or, it could cause a word (like "one") to be output, but prevent the sequence from completing properly so it proceeds to the next word.

I can't think of any settings the could have gotten messed up that might cause this sort of behavior, so that makes me think that you've got a defective board.

 

[hgupta1]

I switched over to using Alexa for my announcements and absolutely love it.   Nice clear human sounding voice broadcast to the whole house.   All you need is a Isy499i with their cloud option.   Elk outputs map to ISY, and ISY tells Alexa to trigger a routine based on pretty much any rule.