Re: Complicated Napco MA2600 Internals Issue

["Roland Moore" <roland@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The MA 2600 is a very old panel. Many early Napco panels had RF issues.
Early MA-800 panels could pick up nearby AM radio stations. MA 1000 series
were a pain to many HAM operators as well.
Any panel with a polling loop or analog loop can generate some nasty RF in
certain environments.
Even if you weren't having RF issues I'd suggest upgrading from the MA 2600
since it is beyond legacy status.

"Katie Wasserman" <katie10543@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1172555045.971922.83580@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> I've been reading some of the expert posts here and I know that you're
> the right group for this one.....
>
>
> I have a Napco MA2600 system in my house and find that it generates a
> lot of RF noise from below 300KHz up to 2MHz.  Bad enough for
> listening to AM radio but I recently got interested in ham radio and
> that makes the problem much worse.   The RF noise is coming not just
> from the AC line but from all the contact wiring throughout the house
> so it's not easy to get rid of.
>
> My solution is to shut down the alarm system completely and although
> this works it's a pain to bring it up and down so I've set up a system
> to do that remotely.  The "system" is a remotely control relay that
> cuts off the low voltage AC into the control panel and simultaneously
> the 12V battery supply.  The cutoff function works great!  But when
> the system powers back up it sets off the alarm unless the AC is
> applied first followed by a delay of a few seconds then the 12V
> battery can be connected up.
>
> I suppose the I could ehnace my relay circuit to add the needed delay,
> but I just assume not even bother with the 12V battery and run the
> system without that.  Of course you can't just pull the battery on
> this system since the controller is busy with alternately charging and
> checking it all the time and if it finds it's not there it won't let
> you arm it.  There's no detail on the charging/checking battery system
> in the manual.  If I had a schematic I'm sure that I could figure it
> out but finding one seems to be an impossible task.
>
> So I'm looking for ideas along the lines of one of these, or maybe
> something entirely different.
>
> 1)  There's obviously an "AC power good, ready to accept 12V battery
> voltage" signal somewhere in the panel.  If I can access that point I
> can use it to control the relay for the 12V battery and not use a
> fixed (and unreliable) time delay.  Where is it? There's some mention
> of an optional PS3002 power supply that hooks into the control panel
> through lugs E7 an E18.  Could one of these be the point that I'm
> looking for, I haven't done any circuit probing yet.
>
> 2)  Faking out the battery check with a dummy battery of some sort
> doesn't seem to be a workable solution, since if it really thought the
> battery wasn't  there when the AC power was applied it would set of
> the alarm. Turning off the battery check completely seems like it
> would work but I have no idea how to do this.
>
> 3) Find some magical way to eliminate the RF noise.
>
> 4) Throw the whole thing out and buy a different system.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Katie
>