Re: Window Screen Tamper

["ABLE1" <royboynospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"nick markowitz" <nmarkowitz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:d0660178-3bff-4948-9132-5d8c055e9788@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On May 22, 5:55 pm, "ABLE1" <royboynos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I have a customer with alarm window screens. One of the screens has high
> resistance on the loop. I have been told that it due to a bad tamper
> switch. Presently the resistance is 125 ohms. A couple of weeks ago it was
> 14 ohms.
>
> My question is if I am reading this resistance what is going on with the
> tamper switch?? And what will happen long term. Will it eventually go open
> or will the resistance go to K ohms or M ohms??
>
> TIA
>
> Les

> You probably have a corroded switch and it will get worse. screen
> needs replaced.

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the response.  There is a whole lot more to this story.  I
installed 5 screens at this house about 2 years ago.  Since that time I have
had to get 4 of the screens repaired.  One twice and two once.  Now I have
another.

The last time was about 3 months ago and at that time I had the screen
company take all five of them and repair the one and check the others.  I
was told that they placed all of them in a tank of water and all was good.
When I got them back and before install the resistance was from 3-5 ohms.
Then another alarm two weeks ago.  This is the one that was repaired about 1
year ago.

I have these screens on wireless sensors NX-650's and when the resistance
climbs it is an alarm.  I just swapped out the old transmitters with the new
version that requires a 4.7k resistor to be in series with the contact.  My
hope is that the additional resistance of a bad tamper will not cause an
alarm as before.  I have tested the transmitter with a pot and increased the
resistance up to 10k without a trigger.

If I understand it correctly the "tamper" is supposed to be a "magnetic reed
switch" wired in series with the screen wiring.  What is going on that I
would failure so many times on so few screens??  Is it that the reed
switches are not of good quality and have leaked thus causing corrosion or
that the solder connection to the reed switch leads have gone bad??  How
should I specify that the repair be made to "hopefully" stop this from
happening again.

I know I need to get the screen repaired, but, I am just trying to
understand what is going on to make a decision as to what my next move
should be.

It is all rather frustrating to say the least.

Any additional thoughts now that you have "the rest of the story" would be
appreciated.

Thanks,

Les