What is Force Armable on M1?

[Photon]

After a couple months of normal operation, my ELK M1 is becoming stubborn. I defined the magnetic switch in the door between the utility room and garage as normally closed, force armable. With the door open, the Ready light flashes on the keypad in the utility room, and the display reads "Ready Force." When I press the Exit button to arm the system, it renders a single low tone and then speaks "Intrusion Reporting-Intrusion-Intrusion Violated Utilility Room Door" and it refuses to arm.

I then close the door, the ready light stops blinking, and the display reads "Read to Arm." I can arm the system with the Exit button, and then disarm it with my code. Then I can open the door and get the same displays as at first, but now I can press the Away button and it reports it is armed Away Mode.

Is this another bug like the "leave for work" feature not working with delay2? Do I not understand the use of the Force Armable feature?

Software 5.1.8.

Regards. . . . John

 

[fcwilt]

Well the behavior varies depending on the presence of the little "clock" in the upper left corner of the display. It is marking the passing of some delay. When the clock is not there I get the low tone when trying to use just the Exit button but a user code works fine. If the clock is there the Exit button also works.

Seems like it may be a feature that is not explained real well. Perhaps it is intended to allow you a short span of time to return, disarm, arm and leave without re-entering the user code you used to force arm the system the first time.

Just guessing.

 

[mustangcoupe]

Force armable.... you have to enter your passcode to arm in force mode, but once the exit delay expires and the zone becomes secure it will arm that zone also. I use this for the same reason a door that we use to exit through and sometimes it is open when we arm/leave and close it behind us, it arms once the door is closed and exit delay is fully counted down.

 

[123]

If a door is flagged Force Armable, you can arm the Area even if the door is left open. You can't arm an Area if a zone is open and is not Force Armable. As soon as it is closed, the Force Armable door behaves according to its zone programming (i.e. Entry/Exit Delay). Force Armable is useful for garage doors ... door is open when you arm the Area, pull out of the garage, close the door, and now it is active.

whoops, mustangcoupe beat me to the post!

 

[Photon]

Thanks for the replies. I misunderstood the release notes for firmware 4.4.2 where it says it is no longer necessary to enter a user code twice when force arming. I took this, and comments from previous posts, to mean it could quick arm without a code entry. Not so.

Regards. . . .John

 

[Spanky]

Force arming has been a hot controversy over the years. For now if a Force armable door is open, you must enter your user code to arm. This leaves a record in the log of who armed the system with a door open.

Arming and disarming starts a 30 second timer which will allow you to arm again with only the exit key if the door is still open. The little clock icon on the screen shows that the timer is running.

The best usage of a Force Armable zone is the garage door. If the door is open, you can arm the M1, get in your car and leave. When the door closes, the zone will be placed back into the system and work as a normal zone input.