Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - Rollins System VI battery changing

I went to change the battery on my Rollins System VI and now it is flashing lower case r's. I made sure the wires were connected to the correct terminals before I put in the new battery. Even putting the old battery back does not clear it. I tried power the unit off and back on but get the same results.

I would be thankful for any suggestions

Sadly this is a system dating from the early 1990s. I'm afraid that it's pretty much an orphan technology. The Rs mean (I think) that the CPU has lost it's settings.

These things are a modified version of the ITI SX-V panel (I think), but most of the configuration is pretty specific to the Rollins setup.

Sorry, no easy answer for this one.

Any ideas on what might have happend? My old battery was Portalac PE6V32 3.2AmH and the replacement I was sent was 3.8AmH but did not notice until after I troed to attach it. Could that have caused the failure?

Thanks.

I did manage to get the installation manual from a GE website (https://portal.gesecurity.com) and it does appear to be an ITI SX V. The r rr status means that the CPU is in a bootup mode. After running through the bootup the status changed to 0-cS which stands for checksum. According to the manual it is an ok status. However, it just beeps every minute or so. The keypad on the wall lights up with a status of 0-Disarmed but none of the keys seem to do anything.

Do you think it lost its configuration? Does it need to be reprogrammed?

Thanks again.

A slightly higher battery capacity has no significant effect.

One problem older alarm designs had was that if they were allowed to run on a failing battery, the system programming could become corrupted.

Modern designs have a low voltage cutoff that helps prevent this effect.

You probably do need to reprogram the control, but again, I don't know how modified from the base system that the Rollins version is.

Thanks for your input, I did manage to get everything working again. The manual information and directions worked exactly as described. It had a learning feature where all I had to do was "trip" each alarm sensor. However, I thought that meant open the door or window where the alarm sensor was located. What it really meant was to trip the tamper alram on the sensor. I had to take the cover off each device to trip the tamper alarm. After that it learned all my devices and I was back in business. For smoke detectors I just had to press the test button.

I did manage to get the installation manual from a GE website (https://portal.gesecurity.com) and it does appear to be an ITI SX V. ...

Thanks, I also have this system. I'm able to get the lithium 3.4 volt batteries for the sensors myself- do you know the best way to replace them in the individual sensors- ie, should turn off the whole system, replace the weak ones, then power up again? As you probably know, if you replace the battery while the system is active, it "loses" memory of that sensor and it has to be reprogrammed.
I checked the manuals you listed above, but I didn't see the answer there; any help is greatly appreciated!

If you are changing individual transmitter batteries, it has no effect on the base system, other than sending a tamper signal to the base unit.

You don't need to power anything down to change transmitter batteries, and you don't need to power down to change the main system battery.

You get into trouble when you loose AC power and the system tries to run on a failing battery.