I bought a foreclosure property with a 2GIG system, which has been triggering warnings, etc. Since it was a foreclosure, prior owners pulled wires and did a slew of things to the property and we get surprised each day. The main issue I am getting now is low battery, but they are on hardwired sensors. Here is what I know:
I do not know what control panel I have. Firmware is US V1.9 PRO. Z-wave is 2GIG 2.78
All wiring is going to a DSC1616 box in the utility room.
In the box:
2GIG transformer wired to the control panel by the front door. I changed the backup battery in there already.
DSC1616 board. All wires connected to AUX, and the 1640OU transformer wired to the correct spot, however, the transformer is dead per multimeter check.
The backup battery is a 12v 4AH, but the charge wires from the DSC1616 to the battery have been disconnected.
There is what I think is a 2GIG TAKE box in there, too, and that IS connected to the backup battery. Multimeter shows the battery still putting out over 12V, but I do not think it is being charged unless the TAKE can do that.
To me, it looks like they had a DSC module part of the original install, but then upgraded to the TAKE model. It looks as if the DSC1616 is not connected to the TAKE at all, but can’t tell exactly since most of the wiring to the TAKE are coming out of the wall from various areas around the house or over to the control panel.
Any ideas? Should I assume that the old DSC needs to be activated if only to charge the backup battery? Something I can check further?
The 2GIG‐TAKE‐345 does need it’s backup battery charged, it doesn’t do it on its own. That’s either done with the old panel using its auxiliary power output or with a separate 12V power supply/charger. If the old panel isn’t powered then that sounds like a likely culprit. Can you see what the wires connected to the 2GIG‐TAKE‐345 power terminals are connected to at the other end?
Hi Ryan, The TAKE 12v is going to the AUX on the DSC board, and the G is bundled in what looks like a large cluster of sensor wires. Similarly, the AUX on the DSC board has many sensor wires connected to the same screw.
Last night, I disconnected the DSC power transformer and was woken up at night with an alert that said I lost connection to seven sensors. I am fairly technical, so maybe if I had a general idea on how these systems are put together, I could help debug it even further, eventually getting into the programming, etc.
Based on what I’ve learned so far, the DSC board IS part of the system, so it should be getting power from a transformer. And, I should reconnect the battery to the DSC board. The TAKE is getting its power from the DSC board, so seems like the solution is a new transformer, unless there is some intelligence on it that turns it on and off, which I doubt. (since multimeter showed zero) It also sounds as if each sensor has some type of intelligence to identify itself, otherwise, how would the control panel know which sensor is triggered. Is the TAKE board doing the same thing as the DSC board, only with a certain type of sensor?
The DSC board is providing 12VDC power to the TAKE, power to any wired powered sensors like motion detectors, and battery charging for the large 12VDC backup battery. That’s all.
The TAKE has 8 zone inputs for the various wired zones, and the other sensor circuit wire just gets connected to GND (all GNDs are connected). The TAKE then transmits the open/close state of the sensor circuits wirelessly to the 2GIG panel.
Unplugging the transformer to the DSC panel would remove all of those, running the TAKE off the battery and the battery would drain down until the TAKE lost all power. If it is an old battery that might not take too long.
Plug the DSC transformer back in to resolve. If you had low battery before unplugging the transformer, you should replace the 12VDC brick battery.
I just watched a video on the TAKE I think put together by you, Jason. Nice job.
Here is the “as found” wiring for power. For now, will assume sensors, etc. are all correct.
Transformer powering the DSC board.
DSC board battery backup is DISCONNECTED from the battery.
TAKE is getting primary power from the AUX on the DSC BOARD.
TAKE battery backup is CONNECTED to the backup battery.
Unless the TAKE battery back up nodes also provide trickle charging, this sounds wrong to me. Essentially, the DSC would be just power to the TAKE whether it is on battery backup or AC, so my guess is that the TAKE should be disconnected to the BRICK and only the DSC should be connected to the brick.
Reconnected! The brick has two male ends on both the + and - so it was an easy fix – in fact probably set up that way and disabled by the prior home owner. I will monitor the battery level as it was still over 12v even if not being charged.
Still not getting any voltage reading from the DSC transformer on the multimeter, which is strange because the system appears to recognize it there. Brick is at 13.68 volts, and console still showing low battery warnings.
The DSC panel transformer is a 16.5 VAC transformer, not DC. Some multimeters may automatically differentiate when testing but most don’t and you would need to adjust the setting, are you testing with AC selected?
Low battery wouldn’t go away until either the next supervision cycle (if truly gone) or reboot.
No problem! Batteries do lose charge capacity over time (not necessarily going to see lower voltage, but less usage time) so if the battery is at least 5 years old it might be good to replace it regardless. Those bricks are fairly inexpensive. Can get them at hardware stores/online.
Jason, one last thing: Can you help me identify what 2GIG console/system I have? I want to download all the manuals and such so I can educate myself on this. I posted some info in OP, but not sure if that is all that is needed.
You have a 2GIG Go!Control (referred to as the GC2 now).
1.9 firmware is very old. That version can’t support 3G modules (1.9.6 was the required version for 3G), and only 4G LTE modules can be registered now. However the good news is you can always update the firmware using a 2GIG firmware update cable.
Hi Jason, Something else went wrong. Last week the battery went dead and the whole system shutdown. Well, main panel could be activated because no sensors had power. So, I changed the battery two days ago and it dropped to 3V during that time.
Power supply (at the wall socket) is putting out 29VAC, It is wired into the wall and goes someplace, I think it is powering the main CG2 panel, and then it is coming back to the DSC panel and I get 26.5 VAC at the AUX. I am not getting anything on the 16V AC punchblock on the DSC board (to the left of AUX) and there is no DC coming out of it to charge the battery. Any ideas? I did note that the power supply was putting out 17 VAC last time we worked on this.
Power supply (at the wall socket) is putting out 29VAC, It is wired into the wall and goes someplace, I think it is powering the main CG2 panel, and then it is coming back to the DSC panel and I get 26.5 VAC at the AUX
This is not correct.
Nothing on the system would be using a power supply which outputs 29VAC. That would fry the 2GIG Panel. The 2GIG panel uses a white 14VDC transformer.
So we aren’t ships in the night on this, can you post a photo and identify the AUX wires you are referring to where you test 26.5 VAC between the terminals?
Please also post a photo of the transformer where you read 29VAC output.
The AUX terminals on a DSC PC1616 alarm panel are an output. They output 12VDC. If you read 26.5VAC between them, something is very wrong, and it likely means you have a transformer wired up to the output.
If it is actually set up that way, there is a good chance the DSC board is damaged, but it is important to first identify where that voltage is coming from and unplug it. We can troubleshoot from there.
Problem solved. The AC DSC power supply had the positive pulled off the transformer. Now getting 17.2 on the DSC at the 16V connector, 12 VDC out at the AUX, and all other measures look good. Thanks again for the super fast reply, and have a great weekend. The other issue I had was I confused the DSC PS with the 2GIG PS and was reading the DC voltage as AC–life long learner here.
Aha, good catch, and yes that would account for the strange readings on the multimeter.
Glad it turned out to be a quick resolution! Yes, that would explain why the battery wouldn’t be able to charge up and why it was being drained so quick. It may take a while to charge back up but you should be good to go!
Question on the sensors wired into the DSC panel–are all the sensors Z-wave and using over air to transmit state to the GC2, so they are only “wired” to get power? I understand these sensors need wired power so they can also propagate the z-wave mesh. Thanks!