Napco clock drift

Hi,

I've had a Napco Magnum 1000 for about 16yrs already. Overall, the system works perfectly well - everything it was setup/designed to do is precisely the way it works. Except for one thing.

The daily phone verification has a problem and has always had this problem since day one. Ever since the system has been installed, the clock seems to drift a second or so every day. If the system is programmed to dial out at

4am, every few months (never really checked it carefully, but might be a question of 6-8 months or so), it drifts back to 9pm or 10pm where it becomes a nuissance to the people living in the house. At which point, the dial out timer has to be reset back to 4am, and that works for another series of months before the same issue repeats itself.

I was wondering if anyone else has ever encountered that kind of issue in the past, and if so, what can be done to rectifiy it, instead of having to manually reset it every time it drifts too much.

Can a faulty/flaky transformer be responsible for something like this? I know in theory it shouldn't, if the crystal on the board responsible for the digital clock is accurate, but I'm out of ideas. The whole alarm system is on a UPS, so I am certain that the input current is glitch free.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Eric

Reply to
Eric B.
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I know some systems (DSC 832 for one) have an option in programming to choose between 50Hz and 60Hz. I know nothing about Napco systems, but this panel may have the same option and it isn't set correctly to wherever you are in the world.

- Chris

Reply to
CH®IS

I installed Napco systems for many years. What you are experiencing is common. You can power cycle the system early in the morning, causing it to send a test then and start working its way back through the night. That will give you a few months before it gets into your waking hours again. There is no permanent fix except to replace the panel and keypads with a newer model. IMO it's not worth the expense though.

Reply to
Robert L Bass

I was afraid of something like that. Thanks for the info.

Eric

Reply to
Eric B.

a goodly number of early panels used a internal crystal to set a time standard and with crystals their not all the same and some do drift.. and if they used an R/C or L/C ox ckt then they really drifted.. most of the newer panels use a time standard off the a/c input so they tend to remain more accurate over the long period, but even they can drift, just not as noticeable.

Reply to
RockyTSquirrel

So it's a count-down timer not a real time clock right or no?

Reply to
Crash Gordon

Make this a rule and all gets easier.

If you want a clock that keeps accurate time them by a clock from a clock manufacture not a alarm manufacturer. If you want an good alarm panel don't buy it from a clock manufacturer. If you find both from the same manufacture then feel blessed, be thankful and move on.

Taaaaa Daaaaa

Have a good day.

Les

Reply to
ABLE1

No, it's a clock timer. The problem is the clock apparently (I can't confirm this is the source of the problem but it appears so from observation) advances each time there's a CS report. As a result each day's report is usually a few seconds to a minute or so earlier than the last.

When I ran a small central station alarm company I used to program every residential system for daily test and every commercial one for open and close reports. A few clients who lived outside the local calling area preferred weekly tests. In those cases I noted a significantly longer time before the test signals would become an issue. Power cycling or accessing the panel remotely would reset the timer. I used to program each new system to report in at 5:00 am. That way it would take a number of months before it needed attention and each system would report at a staggered time so we weren't burdening the CS lines.

Reply to
Robert L Bass

ELK Products' M1G keeps accurate time and does a good job as an alarm, not to mention it's a home automation system.

Reply to
Robert L Bass

Ummmmm ..... and you would know this ...... how?

You've never installed one. You've never used one. You've never timed one over a long period of time to see if the clock drifts or not. You only sell them.

Reply to
Jim

Older Ademco panels had a problem; since they were timers, if there was a power outage the timer would reset to zero so we'd get daily tests all over the freekin place.

Reply to
Crash Gordon

If the clock were synch'd to the house current and this option were selected improperly, the real-time clock would run EXTREMELY fast, or EXTREMELY slow. Much more than indicated in the complaint. Therefore, not very likely to be the problem.

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

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