Re: pir false alarms

["Roland Moore" <roland@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Is it possible that a fly triggers the pir?
I have never seen or heard of one of these Pyronix Magnum Ultra brand
detectors before. I would think that if a fly could trigger that detector
then you would have a whole different set of problems. Birds, bats, rats and
other pests yes; flies I would have to say unlikely.
>Can this problem be due to bad adjustment of the pir or the use of the
>wrong lenses?
In a word yes. But only showing up after over 21/2 years of working properly
probably not. (If it was armed even semi-regularly) I looked it up and it
says the Pyronix Magnum Ultra has a pulse count feature. The customer didn't
mention if any adjustments were tried there. Also it appears that the lens
can be masked, but the end user says nothing about trying masking, or if
there was a problem that needed to be masked.. I don't know what catch
performance the end user was looking for, but if pulse count didn't solve
it, and dual tech did, then that may indicate some problems. What global
changes were made in the house? Did the customer take to installing mobile
art? Installed a new heating system perhaps? Did a neighbor take up a new
ham radio hobby? If all three detectors failed in a short span of time and
they were all installed at the same time it may indicate a bad batch lot
came from the factory. That isn't unusual. A call to the factory rep with
the serial numbers could answer that. It could be too that the whole Pyronix
Magnum Ultra line shows that kind of problem and the installation company is
moving customers experiencing problems to a better solution. It could be
that the tech wanted to use pulse count and the customer wanted max catch
performance. It could be (most likely) that these are very inexpensive
detectors that tend to fail over time and can't handle certain environmental
problems.
If the end user wanted to have an answer to the false alarm riddle instead
of just a solution AND was willing to pay for tech time to get it then he
didn't get what he wanted. If he wanted a good solution and not an answer to
the riddle (to save money) it seems like he did get one. For the very small
delta these days in single versus dual tech it seems the customer may have
ended up with better detectors for the long run. I don't think the customer
is necessarily getting short changed by the company giving him service. If
he received a one year waranty from the service company and completely
understood that up front why expect 5 years now and feel somehow cheated? If
he wanted 5 years coverage he should have purchased a maintenance contract.