I have an (old) 5207 for a 26-unit apt building. Last week we had a power outage and after the power came back on, the alarm was spouting a ‘dc’ error. I looked at the two batteries in the base of the cabine, SLA1075’s. One was reading 14.5V and the other 11.5V. The 11.5V one is connected to a cellular dialer. I replaced the low voltage battery with a new one and the alarm worked - for a day. Then it started the dc error again! I replace the power supply board wiht a new (used) one from ebay. This oddly enough worked for a whole DAY, it was charging the battery! (which was at 11.5v) and the next day, the battery is down at 11.5V again and the damned thing is beeping again.
What the **** is going on here?! Is the main motherboard bad? or the cellular dialer? How can I diagnose this? My alarm monitoring company, ProComm, is almost useless so far.
It might be a mother board issue. If you put in a new battery to replace the old one that was 11.5V it shouldn’t go into a battery trouble fault again once you replace the old battery with a new one… Which is my guess but someone on here may know.
when the unit started beeping the first time, the right battery, which also powers the cellular dialer, was reading 11.5V.
bought a new battery. it read like 14V. I connected it and the fire alarm ran for about a day. then started beeping.
battery now reads 11.5V.
bought a new power supply for the fire alarm. plugged that in. For some reason, even though right battery was still at 11.5, the new power supply started charging the battery at 12.5V. No beeping.
day later, right battery is down to 11.5V again and DC error.
I just talked to proComm and they said the DC error isn’t from the battery voltage being too low, that it’s not detecting the DC voltage on the ring/tip being high enough. Any truth to that? I doubt this info is correct. I think I would see a L1/L2 error instead.
I disconnected the cellular dialer power (that goes to the battery in question) and the battery voltage popped up to 12.7V! I am thinking something’s bad in the cellular dialer, that it’s drawing too much power from the battery circuit. The voltage across the cellular dialer’s ring/tip is about 26V DC. Seems like it should be higher?
I have yet to own a butt-dialer phone to check the ringtone. I’ve ordered one.
DC means low battery. Voltage wise your batteries are going to read fine, but the issue is how long the batteries last under load. Inside the 5207 is where problem the battery will be, not the cellular dialer. Replace your other battery(ies) and be sure to wire them properly.
Yes, I’m explaining to you that there’s a difference between voltage, and load. Your batteries are going to read anywhere around 12V while connected to the charger, and probably even when disconnected from your panel. The issue is that when the panel is on batteries, the batteries may not have enough “juice” to last long enough to be complaint. That’s what the panel self tests for.
Okay now I get your point. I think I mentioned both batteries were new in sept 23. The right battery was draining heavily over several hours and running out of juice. The left battery staying constant. I figured the right charging circuit was bad so replaced the power supply board. No good. So drain, I get it, but I don’t think it’s the batteries!
That leaves the main motherboard as a culprit. Wish I knew the pinout on the power supply parallel cable that goes to the main board. And the test points.
I’m going to disconnect the cellular dialer (which is also wired to the right battery) and have it run off its own supply, and see if the alarm starts to work right.
If that’s the case, I know it’s the dialer.
Otherwise it’s probably the main board that is fried.
I disconnected the cellular dialer today from the right battery and put it on its own power supply, silenced the alarm, and watched the voltage on the right battery. It steadily climbed back up to 13.6.
The alarm seemed happy all day. The cellular dialer used to be tied to the right battery. It never had an issue before last week. How often is it supposed to update (dial) over the phone? It seemed to be calling out QUITE a bit! Is this settable?
It can vary from one place to another, but in general test calls are made every 12 hours or so. Any time a new trouble or alarm comes over the panel, it will also call out. So an intermittent trouble will cause multiple calls.
