I got the Viper 790, and I was sitting in my house....and boom, the alarm goes off. It gave the indicator that the driver's side door was the area that was "breached"
So I go back to Circuit City, and the guy's theory was that when the car sits for a while, it "goes to sleep" and the voltage in the car dips. When it dipped, it caused the alarm to go off.
Does this sound right? Will it be something he can get around?
The Billy
So the car 'goes to sleep????' (laughing) OK I shouldn't rush to assume the installer was high when he did the installation. I suppose if he has done this alarm installation on exactly the same type of vehicle lots of times then he might have enough experience to actually know what he is talking about. This being said I am highly doubtful a slight voltage sag would cause a false alarm -- this is something the alarm manufacturer would want to guard against don't you think?
Unless you have a bad battery or a vehicle electrical system malfunction, I think the installer's brain went to sleep instead.
In general I would expect most problems that occur right after alarm installation to be related to the installation (or possibly a defective alarm 'brain'.)
Is there a switch on the driver's door that is tied into the alarm? (How else does the alarm know which door was 'opened'?
(There must be some kind of door sensor or switch. Did the installer add a switch or did he tie into the existing factory door switch? (Hooking into the factory switch sure is cleaner in my opinion -- I hate drilling holes in a pony.)
If he tied into the existing switch, is a diode required in line to isolate the alarm sense wire from the sense wire that goes back to the factory vehicle wiring? Did the installer make sure that the main power and ground connections to the alarm run as directly as possible to the battery? A flaky power or ground connection can cause all kinds of problems.
Unless you have a bad battery, I wouldn't expect the battery voltage to dip much. Possible exceptions to this might involve extreme weather conditions like severe cold -- especially in combination with a 'tired' battery.
You could try hooking up a trickle charger to the vehicle and see if the problem persists. This should eliminate the possibility of the battery voltage 'sagging'.
As for depending on door switches to detect an intrusion -- I have had several vehicles broken into over the years and the thieves are usually smart enough not to trip a door switch. I STRONGLY advise the use of what has been called a 'radar sensor' which is essentially a proximity sensor. This should be located inside the vehicle near the center looking either straight up (if mounted near the floor) or straight down (if mounted in the headliner) and adjusted to allow you to walk around the vehicle without tripping the 'warn away' alarm chirps.
When the alarm is set, the sensor will calibrate itself over a few seconds, and then if it detects that its surroundings have changed (for example, someone waves their hand over a convertible top in preparation to cut it with a knife) the sensor triggers and sounds the alarm. The units I have had installed in my vehicles first trigger a 'warn away' series of chirps (useful if the thief is not drug crazed, or the sensor sensitivity is a bit too high) and if there is a major object detection it sounds the alarm. I rather enjoyed being able to park my vehicle outside my house temporarily with the windows down knowing that the alarm would go off if someone tried to stick their hand inside the open window. :)
I never had a break-in to any of my vehicles after the 'radar sensors' were installed.
steve
The Billy wrote:
Hi , I had the 790 in my 95 GT. Loved the alarm.
If I remember correctly, the alarm goes into a power saving mode after 24 or
48 hours of sitting. You can tell by the flashing led. It will flash half the rate after the power saving mode. But I see no way how that can still trigger the alarm. Did you have the little hammer appear on your remote or did it say that your door had been opened?First you didn't say what car you had but here goes. In my 01 Mustang the alarm would go off every 15 minutes. After talking to the manufacturer (Alpine) there is a known problem in that the mustang sends a signal to check if the dome light is on. This signal is enough to make the alarm think that the door is open. My installer was able to fix the problem after I gave him the information. Tell Circuit City to call the manufacturer I'm sure they (manufacturer) has heard of this before. You could also call yourself if your so inclined.
I had a GM product at one time that had a built it power saving feature that would basicly shut off the battery. It only kept power to a few select circuits after a set perio of time. They claimed that as long as it had a good battery the car would always start. I tried it one night by leaving everything turned on that I could without leaving the keys in it. Came out the next morning everything was off and the car started right up. So its not as "high" as it sounds.
MadDAWG
I had this exact same problem with my '02 F-150. My '01 GT did not have the issue oddly enough. Apparently the Body Control Module is to blame according to my installer. When wired as in the manual on certain Ford's, the body control module triggers the alarm when it turns off. I think the guy told me that the BCM goes to sleep after about 15minutes after the last door is closed. To resolve it I think he wired the door triggers to the dome light relay instead of tapping off the door wire harnesses. This was after a couple hours troubleshooting and time on the phone with DEI's tech support. Hope this helps.
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