Battery trouble bypass

Hello everybody. I have a question. Is there any way to bypass a battery trouble on an older fire alarm panel? My EST 6632 has no batteries, and I don’t plan on getting any because I don’t leave my system plugged in 24/7. The trouble is annoying. So is there a way to trick the panel into thinking it has batteries? Maybe cutting a certain jumper on the circuit board? Please let me know. :wink:

The previous post was deleted as it promoted a very dangerous wiring practice.

While it is fine to leave the battery circuit disconnected, do not attempt to connect the battery circuit to a 24VDC power supply or nonrechargable battery. The battery circuit places a variable charging current into the terminals designed to charge SLA type backup batteries. Connecting to a power supply or other output to these terminals will damage the panel, in addition to the power supply used.

My apologies. I’ve seen others do it and not have issues but that does not guarantee that everybody who tries it will not have issues. If OP read that he should definitely not do it.

I have fooled some panels with a capacitor connected to the battery terminals. What size is needed depends on the panel and will have to be determined experimentally. Always use a capacitor rated for at least 50 volts and be sure to get the polarity correct. I have fooled a 4002 with a capacitor as small as 33uF. On the other end of the spectrum, it took a 20,000uF cap to fool a 4100 classic, and the high rate charge relay would still click on after the test.

What size you need depends on how the panel does the battery test. Some panels only test for presence of voltage when the charger is turned off. That is why the 4002 can be fooled with a small cap. Others place a load resistor across the battery when the charger is turned off. The 4100 places a 25 ohm resistor (1 amp load) across the battery during the test cycle. That is why it takes a very big capacitor.

Some panels may still go into battery trouble when put in alarm. That is because they shut off the battery charger to divert full current availability to the NACs. The capacitor will loose its charge in some amount of time.

Of course, this should only be done on hobby systems not protecting life and property.

Just a quick note, I am currently waiting to hear back from a professional fire alarm technician from Chubb Edwards to see if he has any advice. Thank you kcin556 for deleting that comment about the dangerous wiring idea. That said, I would still not have done anything that involved wiring modifications, additional power supplies, or anything else like that anyways

Most panels I believe do have a jumper or dip switch somewhere to disable the battery charger. That said, I looked at the manual for this panel and couldn’t find any reference to one.

I often recycle batteries that still have enough life left that the panel is not in trouble. Perhaps you can get some old batteries taken out of service from either a fire alarm company or a battery recycling center. You’d be fine with 5Ah or 7-8Ah batteries. Just don’t go to Batteries Plus, I’ve paid $45 there for a battery that wholesales for $9.

My 6632 is the “newer” version you could say. The only difference really is that the colour of the case is different, plus it has a slightly newer design

You can disable the charger with a switch or in the programmingn on the panel In most cases.

I looked in the panel and found nothing. Oh well