Good morning all,
I keep getting these random fire alert offline/back online announcements, usually in the middle of the night which is always fun to hear!
Sometimes it’s off line and back online within a few minutes. Other times it takes awhile, sometime hours to reset.
I changed the 9v batteries on all the smokes and the 123 battery on the repeater(?)
The panel has a hard power line. It doesn’t appear to be a power loss issue since I have many UPS’ and they would go crazy if we did lose power even momentarily (ask me how I know).
Checked, and also rediscovered the network on the 2gig panel. No errors or messages.
Any suggestions on what may be causing these alerts?
Thx in advance.
jose
“Fire Alert” is the specific name of the sensor in Zone 12 on your panel. It looks like it is programmed as a FF345 Firefighter audio detector, is that correct?
That device itself is what is having malfunctions. “Offline” refers to sensor supervision, the periodic heartbeat signal that the sensor sends out to let the panel know it is there and functioning. When the panel does not see this signal from the sensor it reports as offline.
Intermittent offline reports from a specific sensor are often an indication that the battery level is borderline low and the signal is not making it to the panel.
Did you replace the battery in the Firefighter with a brand new CR123? If you just did this recently I would wait for a bit and see if you get any more alerts.
Are there any large metal objects near the sensor or panel?
Hey Jason. Thanks for the fast reply.
This is a recent development with my system which was installed in 2015.
I replaced all of the sensors with new the batteries about a month ago. It didn’t solve the problem.
I checked further and someone recommended to wait 30 seconds before replacing the battery to dissipate any residual charge. It seemed to work for about a week, but it’s back at it again.
As for the large metal objects, there’s a refrigerator about 3 ft “behind” the sensor. The Control Panel is about 4 ft away “in front of” the sensor’.
Easiest would be to move the sensor away from the fridge.
I’ll give that a try.
But like I said earlier it’s been this way for almost 4 years without issue so I’m not expecting any miracles.
I’ll keep you posted.
Thx again
As for the large metal objects, there’s a refrigerator about 3 ft “behind” the sensor. The Control Panel is about 4 ft away “in front of” the sensor’.
That’s not close enough or positioned in a way that I would expect any issues. This would most likely be a battery issue. What is the date code on the battery placed in the firefighter sensor? It is always possible that a battery has sat on a shelf for a while before being sold.
If not a battery issue, it may just be an issue with the sensor hardware failing.
If the battery is brand new and has the proper charge it probably indicates a malfunctioning/weakening sensor radio. If the sensor is only a few feet from the alarm panel and this offline continues often I would recommend replacing.