Need help with Ademco home security system

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

I cannot find an online manual for the Ademco keypad in my house. There is no manual for it in the house and the damn thing goes off about every 12 hrs. It wakes me up sometimes in the middle of the night. I have to walk to the far end of the house to turn it off. I cannot figure out how to remove the cover without breaking it and I'm just about to the point of doing that and replacing it before I move out. I'm losing my mind with this thing. Anyone know how to permanently disable it? Actually, there are online manuals for it, but they're not on the Honeywell site and they cost about $15. I refuse to pay this. My property mgt. is not real responsive either.

RANDY P · RANDY P's Garage

If it's one of those old $hitty ones from the 70's with a master key my GF's condo one did that out of nowhere. I actually pried the master face open far enough to get a screwdriver in therea and punched out the piezo siren.

left it with a relay clicking, then that went away after a day.

If it's a later one with battery backup find the AC source, unplug it then find the brain pop it open and yank the battery backup.

Time to be a butcher

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

I got it. Of course, there's no model # on the outside, so I browsed eBay until I found one that looked like it. I also found a manual for it. But I had the wrong model number and, of course, the instructions for removing the cover were exactly the opposite of the correct ones for the model I actually have. I came very close to breaking the cover off and then found that I have the 6150. You have to press down with about 100 lbs. of force on that model, whereas the other one you have to press up. And of course it's hardwired with no batteries. So I printed out the manual, noted the wires colors, which were different from the ones I actually have, disconnected it all and will revisit this the day I move out.

Do security systems really scare away someone who's willing to risk getting shot to break into your house? I don't get that. Those commercials are just insulting.

Frightened woman: "Someone just kicked in our door!"

ADT rent-a-cop/boiler room/phone operator: "I'm sending help right away."

Yeah, that'll save you.

Joeaksa · 07-21-2008, 05:59 PM

We need to find some independent person to work on these things in our area. I am tired of paying ADT for doing nothing.

Right now mine is monitored but need to find a local monitoring company as well...

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Maybe that can be my new job.

stomachmonkey · 07-21-2008, 07:56 PM

Rick,

Do you have FIOS or similar phone service from a cable provider?

They sometimes reboot their systems which will trigger a line cut on some alarm systems if their time out is set too short.

In the early days FIOS was doing this daily around midnight.

Also any power fluctuations in the cable system can trigger line cut.

"Copper" phones have power supplied by the telco which is always up, "fiber" phone systems are tied to regular house power.