Problems with M1G

[garydidio]

Hi,
 
I have an M1 Gold installed in my house for 9+ years now.  It works really well and have been expanding it a bit at a time.  This past week all motion detectors were triggered at the same time for no apparent reason.  They are all hard-wired onto my first 16-port expansion board (zones 18, 22, 24, 28, 30 and 31) and have been that way since 2007.  I thought there might be insects in the panel, so I cleaned everything out and hard-started the system.  Everything seemed to be fine and then all motion detectors tripped again!  I now have the alarm enabled in the Stay mode so no motion detectors are enabled.
 
Any advice?  Do I need to replace the input board?
 
Thank you!
 
Gary

 

[mikefamig]

Have you looked at your log?

 

[RAL]

Hi,
 
I have an M1 Gold installed in my house for 9+ years now.  It works really well and have been expanding it a bit at a time.  This past week all motion detectors were triggered at the same time for no apparent reason.  They are all hard-wired onto my first 16-port expansion board (zones 18, 22, 24, 28, 30 and 31) and have been that way since 2007.  I thought there might be insects in the panel, so I cleaned everything out and hard-started the system.  Everything seemed to be fine and then all motion detectors tripped again!  I now have the alarm enabled in the Stay mode so no motion detectors are enabled.
 
Any advice?  Do I need to replace the input board?
 
Thank you!
 
Gary

 
It seems strange that all the motion detectors would trip at the same time.  Looks like you have 6 of them connected to the XIN.  Do you have anything else on any of the other zones on that board?
 
If so, and it is only the motions that trigger, I think the first place I would go looking is at the power distribution to the motions.  My guess is they all have a common connection point for the power somewhere that may be intermittent.

 

[blueman2]

... I think the first place I would go looking is at the power distribution to the motions.  My guess is they all have a common connection point for the power somewhere that may be intermittent.

 
THIS.  Also, check your voltage level at the XIN.  It should be around 13V or more.  If it is far from the ELK M1, line loss may be an issue.  

 

[garydidio]

My log simply shows the motions as tripped in the order they are wired to the XIN, and then recovered. I have other items door switches on the other zones on the XIN. Right now all the motion voltages are 0V, but that is because they are not activated. The XIN is next to the M1G in the same enclosure.

Strange it is happening now since I have not made any changes to the XiN.

 

[garydidio]

Power distribution seems logical. Will have to check when I am at my house this weekend. Maybe a broken wire?

Thank you for the advice!!!

 

[mikefamig]

Coincidentally I just had an interesting experience with an M1XIN this morning.
 
I upgraded my M1 firmware to the latest version and it seemed to go fine until the this morning. When I went down to my garage which is defined as area-2. I noticed that there was no beep when I opened the door and after looking around learned that none of the zones were being recognized by the M1 at all.
 
Long story short, no conflicts in RP, 0 volts in the status window for all zones in area-2 and the XIN was no longer enrolled and would not re-enroll after a few attempts. I checked power to the XIN and it was 14.1vdc Also the keypad in area-2 was fine so the data bus was intact at least to some degree.
 
I called Elk tech support and Chris got to the bottom of the problem pretty quickly. He went after the enrollment problem straight away and had me check the address on the adapter which BTW has been working fine for months. When I looked at the switches on the adapter I found that one of the four DIP switches was kind of not fully switched. It was between ON and OFF. We powered down teh system, corrected the address switch, powered back up and all is well.
 
So it seems that I got away with the mistake when I set the address switch for about a year until I upgraded the firmware and then the system balked. It may have something to do with the terrible heat and humidity we're experiencing here now too in my mind.
 
The Devil IS in the details, Mike.

 

[garydidio]

All,
 
Thank you for the advice.  The problem was very simple.  I had all the motion detectors powered from an alternate battery that was not managed by the M1G.  The battery died and every time the power would go off in the house, the detectors lost power so were activated.  Guess I need to replace the battery charger with a managed charger!
 
Gary

 

[Del91574]

Doesn't truly need to be managed, like a 212S. While it's a nice supply, it's inherently limited for battery size and output for the price.
 
You can do the same with any of the more popular manufacturers and just drive the supervision into a zone on the panel or expander.

 

[garydidio]

So how would that be wired into the system? 

 

[mikefamig]

So how would that be wired into the system? 

 
Some aux power supplies have Normally Open and/or Normally Closed dry contact switches on them that are used to monitor the condition of the power supply and batteries. You would just connect one of the zones on the M1 to the monitor on the power supply and set up the zone definition accordingly. You could also monitor the zone via rules.
 
Mike.
 
EDIT:
 
This is as opposed to the Elk P212S which is managed by the M1 via the rs-485 data bus.

 

[mikefamig]

My Altronix auxiliary power supply is itself powered by the same AC circuit that the Elk M1 is powered by. This way when the Elk senses an AC power failure and reports it to me I know that the Altronix has also experienced a failure and there is no need to monitor the Altronix seperately. Both the M1 and the Altronix have battery backup that I test occasionally.
 
Mike.

 

[garydidio]

Thanks, but I jhave a whole-house backup generator that comes on after 35 seconds. The M1G doesn't detect the power outage, but my other supply just turns off for the 35 seconds.