Aritech CS350 - How to move the fuse box?

jghutch1978

Aritech CS350 - question

Hi - hoping someone can help. I am re-doing my kitchen and it will involve unscrewing the alarm fuse box (if that is the right term, not the keypad that is in the hall and staying put) from a wall that is being knocked down, and moving it a small distance and screwing it to an adjacent wall. Thankfully the existing wire is long enough so no need to cut or extend that.

Any help or suggestions welcome in how I go about this - do i just power it off at the mains, and open it up and then unscrew it from the wall? Or is it harder than that.

Also if anyone has the engineer manual (i have the user manual) that would be appreciated. Have searched long and hard on here for it and cant find it!

Thanks in advance.

fred funk }{

There's a lot more than one wire in the panel. Maybe you can only see the power cable?

Moving a panel is normally a very time consuming job as it involves joining lots of cables.

stuartkee

get in an alarm guy at least you will have some come back and it will work out cheaper in the long run . these things can go pear shaped if your not sure what your looking into

jghutch1978

Hi - thanks for the replies. Trouble is, i have itchy fingers and am convinced this is not a large job. So any help appreciated.

Yesterday i switched the mains off and had a look inside the box. Looks like the pic attached. Realised that if i want to move the box i am going to need to unplug the battery as its damn heavy, and then realised as soon as i do that the alarm outside goes off.

I am not moving the box far ( a few feet to an adjacent wall) but but it will probably involve cutting the mains (dont worry, i'll turn the whole house off) and may need extending some of the wires coming out of it to the sensors.

So three questions:
1 - What i would love to be able to do is remove the battery without the alarm going off outside - is there any way of doing this? Do i need to go into the engineer menu and if how do i get there? Or is it a case of going up a ladder to disconnect the battery in the alarm on the wall outside?

2 - What is the type of wire going from the unit to the sensors? If i succeed in silencing the alarm outside per 1 and cut the wires to the sensors to be able to extend this, will this bugger things?

3 - I believe my engineer code may have been changed (1278 just gets me "Access denied". I found the below guidance on this forum - would this help me reset it? Also can someone help me on what the "LK1" is. Looking at the circuitboard (pic attached) i couldnt see any reference to it!

Thanks in advance

---

"If you want to try default the panel proceed as follows:
Turn off the mains power.
Open the panel and disconnect the battery.
Remove the factory link marked LK1
Reconnect the battery.
Goto the keypad, if the display shows select language press arrow up 1 & press 01122 to disarm & then 01278 to enter engineer mode.
Now replace the link, close the panel and reapply the mains power. "

KoolKid

jghutch1978 wrote: »

1 - What i would love to be able to do is remove the battery without the alarm going off outside - is there any way of doing this? Do i need to go into the engineer menu and if how do i get there? Or is it a case of going up a ladder to disconnect the battery in the alarm on the wall outside?

Easiest way is to let it ring. Unless its the very old metal box with a siren it will stop after 20 minutes or so.

jghutch1978 wrote: »

2 - What is the type of wire going from the unit to the sensors? If i succeed in silencing the alarm outside per 1 and cut the wires to the sensors to be able to extend this, will this bugger things?

If you are cutting an cables disconnect them first to prevent you blowing any fuses in the panel.
The cable is standard alarm cable.

jghutch1978 wrote: »

I believe my engineer code may have been changed (1278 just gets me "Access denied". I found the below guidance on this forum - would this help me reset it? Also can someone help me on what the "LK1" is. Looking at the circuitboard (pic attached) i couldnt see any reference to it!

Locate the tamper spring, under that there are 4 components. Under them is the factory link (blue).
Engineer access is not required to do this job...

jghutch1978

Thanks for the quick reply Koolkid - you are giving me confidence to have a go!

Just to clarify a few things.....

1 - Sounds like if i disconnect the battery in the fuse box and then am happy to accept some annoyed neighbours on the street for 20 mins, then the battery in the sounder outside will eventually discharge and the thing will eventually go quiet - yes?...... then lets say i successfully move the fuse box and reconnect it all, i assume the mains from the fuse box will power up and recharge the battery in the outside sounder?

2 - in terms of the type of cable i need (standard alarm cable) is it that type of cable that serves both (1) the room sensors and (2) the outside sounder? Or will the outside sounder have a different type of cable connecting it?

3 - i'm probably not going to go down the road of defaulting the system and will accept 20 mins of noise as a means of powering down the system.... but just out of curiosity, when you "under the tamper spring", there is a blummin great spring in the middle of the circuit board (pic attached) which you must be refering to, are you suggesting i would pull this off to get to the factory link behind? or are you saying i would have to remove the circuit board from the main platic casing to be able to get access behind the circuit board? Interested to know the answer as have seen a few threads on here on this mysterious LK1 and i couldnt find any inkling as to what/where it was!

Thanks again for your help

KoolKid

1 Yes
2 Yes
3 No the LK1 link is below the tamper spring & below the 4 components.
It a blue bit of plastic. Its the only easily removable thing there.

jghutch1978

Thanks again for the quick reply. You have given me the confidence to have a go myself. My plan will be to remove the battery and let the outside sounder discharge fully before i start cutting cables, so i can easily plug it back together!

Just to close out question 3 more for curiosity (for others searching these useful forums as i have done) do you mean the small thing poking up from the board, per the attached picture? It has JP1 written next to it on mine.

Thanks again for your time and help

jghutch1978

Sorry - one final question. Is there an easy way to connect two pieces of 8 core cable together? Or is it just case of stripping back the plastic, twiddle the exposed wires together, and then wrapping up with a few turns of electrical tape?

Tokyo

jghutch1978 wrote: »

Sorry - one final question. Is there an easy way to connect two pieces of 8 core cable together? Or is it just case of stripping back the plastic, twiddle the exposed wires together, and then wrapping up with a few turns of electrical tape?

I'd solder and heatshrink myself - otherwise somewhere down the road you are going to get false alarms as something shorts or works loose. Additionally, stagger the joints where possible - don't have all the solder joints bunched at the one place. And label absolutely everything before you disconnect it from the panel - easiest way is to write on the white outer sheath of the cable with a sharpie first.

[edit]Just saw your post regarding LK1. Yes, it's the plastic jumper labelled JP1 that you have photographed. It'll pull off leaving two pins exposed and disconnected. However, I wouldn't default the panel as (a) there is no need to do this simply to move the panel, and (b) you will have to know how to program the panel from scratch in terms of setting up zones again, which I suspect you'd end up calling an alarm tech to do.

So yes, assuming you still want to go ahead with this and don't mix anything up....

- Plug out panel and disconnect battery. Let external bell ring and die.
- Label cables before removing anything. Take photos too. Each terminal is numbered so it's pretty easy.
- Extend cables where necessary. DON'T just "twiddle the exposed wires together"- stagger and solder the joints, and insulate with heatshrink. Otherwise I can pretty much guarantee failure.
- Move panel to new location, run cables into back of panel.
- Connect wires to the same terminals you disconnected them from.
- reconnect battery, power up, close panel, and it *should* work as normal.

Try to do at least as tidy a wiring job as was in it, it'll make it easier on the next guy who has to come along and work on it. And make sure that the panel is mounted solidly against the wall - haven't worked on this particular panel, but most have a rear tamper switch which can be et off if the panel box isn't solid against the wall.

jghutch1978

Just to say thanks to KoolKid and Mike for the help and advice. Project completed today and worked a dream. Outside bell indeed rang for 20 mins (19 mins to be exact) before the battery died. There were times i doubted it would work given the amount of wires i took out and extensions i had to solder (and this was my first soldering experience!) but on power on this morning it was fine in its new location. Amazing.

Thanks again

KoolKid

Glad you got sorted. Well done!