Why is the siren going off?

[apostolakisl]

I have a curious issue.

I have set up 4 zones on my m1g to respond to a keyfob with 4 buttons. Each button causes a relay (nc) to open causing the zone to become not secure.

When I push button "c" zone 36 becomes not secure. A rule states that when zone 36 becomes not secure to 1) disarm the system, 2) execute a task (open garage door), and 3) chirp the siren one time.

Often times what happens instead (but not always) is that it disarms the system, opens the garage door, and puts the siren into full out howling burglery mode. The alarm is not actually alarming (it is off), but the siren would make you think it is.

Button "b" has the exact same rule but it opens my wifes garage door instead of mine. She tells me a long time ago it did that a few times but not in ages. She also uses it way more than I do.

I also have button "a" programmed to arm the system and chirp twice. Neither my wife nor I have ever heard that do anything but chirp twice as programmed.

So, what gives? why would the system decide sometimes to start howling at me instead of just doing a single chirp? At what level would this error orginate?

 

[fcwilt]

It's been a good while since I changed the setup of my ELK so bear with me here.

Why do you have the keyfob button trigger a relay to trigger a zone instead of responding to the keyfob button press directly?

As far as the siren problem I would have to guess that there is a problem in the way the ELK is handling the rule. Is the garage door tied into a zone? In trying to determine the cause of the problem have you tried changing the order of events or adding some other "dummy" events (such as speaking) between the current events?

 

[apostolakisl]

The keyfob is a generic keyfob not specifically designed to work with an alarm system. When the button is depressed, the receiver outputs 5v to whichever of the 4 outputs is associated with that button. From there I have 4 nc relays that open while the button is depressed which interupts a zone allowing the Elk to be aware of it.

Yes, the garage door is on an alarm zone. But the elk is not going into alarm mode, it is just turning the siren on. The elk does disarm (as the rule states) according to the log and it is not executing any of the alarming protocols (except the siren of course).

The thing that really is messing with me here is that it does not do it everytime. And it almost only does it with my garage door and almost never on my wifes (but it has a few times).

I assume it is the "chirp one time" that is instead just going into full out siren. Maybe I should just elliminate that line and forget about my house chirping like the car. I do have it set to chirp 2 times when I arm the system from the keyfob and that has never messed up.

 

[fcwilt]

The thing that really is messing with me here is that it does not do it everytime. And it almost only does it with my garage door and almost never on my wifes (but it has a few times).

Again another guess but since the doors are tied into zones it may be that there is some sort of timing issue where the garage door is triggering the siren while the system is still disarming (if that is even possible). A timing issue might explain why one door has a problem and not the other.

I would try this: Have the keyfob event trigger a rule disarms the system and sets a counter to, say, 5. Then have a rule that decrements the counter every second. Then have rules that trigger the door when the counter hits 3 and the siren when the counter hits 1. This would allow you to vary the timing of actions to see if the problem is timing related.

If you find that the problem IS timing related then you can come up with a cleaner way to insert the needed delays.

 

[apostolakisl]

I sent an email to Elk and Brad responded. He said there has been report of an issue with the output 2 (sirens) latching when they are supposed to chirp. He suggested upgrading the firmware which I did (I had the .20 firware, now I have .24). This did not fix the problem. I'll try putting a delay in separating the chirp from the disarm command and see what happens.