Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - pc1500/pc1550 alarm won't reset

We have a pc1500/pc1550 system for our concession stand at a youth soccer field. After a recent lightening, thunder storm, the alarm does not want to work. We lost electricity to the system 5 or 6 times throughout one night.

Symptoms:


alarm goes off intermittantly - touching any key silences the alarm for 10-15 minutes. The user code does no good.
alarm test {*}[6]master code[8] does nothing. No lights, no alarm, no blinking. Some clicking.
press # trouble light lit and all 6 zones lit.
Can check the trouble light code and it is for no battery. We have not had one for two years.
Can not get the ready light to arm the system
Put a tester across the fuses and they are all good
The tranformer puts out 15.5+ vac


We have plugged and unplugged the transformer and can not get the system to reset so it can be armed. Any suggestions would be appreciated. This thing may be fried. Thanks for your help. Fritzj

Sounds like since you havn't had a battery on it in 2 years the 6 to 8 power bumps might have cooked the panel. That many times powering up and down, on a board that old can do harm. Might have had a power surge as well. Battery may have helped as the panel wouldnt have shut right down and back on again.

Hard to say, but i would start looking at a replacement panel. You can still find used 1550's around if you look hard enough.

I have to agree. DSC equipment's biggest weakness is voltage transients. Running it without a backup battery with repeated brownout/blackouts, you have pretty likely (at best) scrambled the program, and more likely damaged the eeprom.

You can _try_ doing a hardware default, and seeing if it will take a program again, but I'm not holding out much hope for this one.