Re: Keypad DOA

[JoeRaisin <joeraisin2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

motley me wrote:
>     	I ordered a replceent keypad(6150RF) for an ademco panel alst week
> and didn't get it till friday. well i go Monday to install it and LOW AND
> BEHOLD the damn thing was DRT(dead right there). When powered up the
> backlights would come on, but no beeps, no screen and key presses wouldn't
> register. So now i have to send the thing back and make another trip to the
> customers.
>
>     	Another thing, has any one else noticed how cheap the ademco keypads
> are starting to look? The pc board on the 6150rf was flimsy. I took it off
> to check the back of the membrane and pc lands and i was afraid to put too
> much pressure on the board.
>
>
> Anyone else had DOA problems?

I've seen it once.

Of course it only happens when you don't have another one.  We used to
carry a couple of each type of keypad - rotate them out on installs so
we didn't end up with a ten year old keypad bouncing around the back of
the truck.  Had a service call on a Saturday night way the out in the
middle nowhere - bad keypad (fix word). Only had one left on the truck
(couldn't have been more than a month old) and damned if it wasn't bad.

Shit like that always throws me for a few minutes, certain that I've
either misdiagnosed the problem or screwed up the wiring.  The kicker
was that there was a splice hidden somewhere around the house as the
wire at the keypad was different than the wire the panel.  22/4 at the
panel, Cat-5e at the keypad.  So I wasted some time making sure I had
the right colors.

I did have some other keypads so that customer now has an alpha keypad
and, since it was a fairly small system, 5 doors 3 motions & a low temp
along with one zone of fire it didn't take much time to program
everything in.

The guy and his girlfriend were thrilled with it, my boss - not so much.
    As far as I know the regional manager is still trying to figure out
how to get away with billing the customer for a service tech to go back
out and replace the alpha keypad with what the customer paid for.  I got
the impression that he was more pissed that I programmed the alpha than
the actual keypad since they were given that option and "chose not to
pay for that feature".

Heaven forbid a customer who probably only thinks about his alarm
company when he writes the checks has a positive impression of the only
service call he had during the 8-9 yrs he'd been a customer.