Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - ADT Safewatch 2000 Pro - Fault Zone

Just recently both my main controllers are showing a fault in zone 01 which in my case relates to both the front main door and door leading to our garage. These have magnetic sensors one in the door and the other in the door sill. Most recently there was a heavy rain storm, some lighting that passed - nothing out of the ordinary, but one time the lightning actually triggered the alarm. Again no biggie as I reset it as in the past but now get the fault zone 01 message which I cannot clear.

Here's the strange part. When both doors are closed the system is supposed to acknowledge that they are, clear and display the green light which means ready to arm. However, only when I keep open either one of the two doors does this occur. Basically working backwards.

My read sliding door and three motion detectors are all fine, but only with zone 01 am I running out of options to consider that I can think of.

Can anyone provide some suggestions or potential cause of the continous fault message?

Thanks.

One of your contact switches on zone 1 was probably damaged by the lighting strike. The easy way to tell which is to close both doors and test the connections at the panel end where the wiring from both doors should have been connected together. With the doors both closed, you should have a closed circuit. The damaged contact will read as open, even though the door is closed.

The worst case scenario is that the nearby strike actually damaged the zone input on the alarm panel.

I've located the connections for zone 01 at the panel end, easy to do as theirs an illustration or schematic on the inside front door of the panel. Must I disconnect and remove both sets of the panel, then twist them together to create a closed loop? Or am I misunderstanding?

Bridging each pair is a quick and dirty way to sort out which one is staying open. You don't disconnect them, you short the pairs. The one that closes the zone is the bad contact.

Alternately, you can separate them, and test each pair individually. Just remember that the resistor still has to be in the loop.

OK, so what I was able to do successfully in order to determine if the problems a) the wires themselves or b) the zone station which in this case is 01. I swapped zone 01 with 02 then noticed that the doors which were originally connected to zone 01 work fine. Now my sliding door works opposite much like the front doors had. I since put them as they were and now back to the same situation.

Since I have allocations for 08 zones and I'm only utilizing 05, I switched the doors from 01 and put it into 07. Now everything works perfectly prior to the lightning strike, but the fault message in zone 01 remains. I'm wondering if I reassign 07 to the doors and omit completely (assuming I can via programing) then zone one could be out of the loop altogether.

What do you think? Must I actually replace the board completely? Would reprogramming alter security or acknowledgment by ADT?

Try putting just the zone resistor on the zone 1 input. If the zone doesn't close, then your board will need to be replaced (this kind of damage eventually kills the board in the long term). If it does close, then your problem is something else.

If you have the right keypad, you can pretty easily delete zone 1 and set up an unused zone to carry the loop. Just remember, if zone 1 is burnt, your panel is on borrowed time. It might last a week, or it might last 10 years; there are no guarantees...

Adding only the resistor to zone 01 is what I initially performed, but with no success. Therefore I agree the board is on borrowed time. I still haven't found the programming steps to eliminate the faulty zone and re-allocate (define) the zone with the doors. In reality I guess it doesn't matter as long as the system works should an intruder attempt getting in.

Are the boards only available via ADT? Or is there a known reliable supplier of such boards within the US?

A safewatch 2000 is a modified Ademco Vista 20se (websearch using the phrase: "installer manual Vista 20se") which was a pretty common panel, so the manuals are pretty easy to find. The problem is that you need a 2-line alphanumeric keypad (the fixed alpha won't really work) to change the zone settings.

This one comes up in these forums pretty often. There are lots of archived posts on the subject.