Afternoon All

Back in 2014 we had a Texecom Ricochet alarm system installed, cost a fair bit but it came highly recommended. We entered into a service contract, expecting to pay £170ish a year. Fine, sounded fair enough.

However, we seem to be getting regular battery faults in the sensors, which immediately prevent us from setting the alarm, replacing the battery itself is an very easy 2 minute job but sets off the tamper alert which we cannot reset without a special ‘admin ‘code.

I thought that our ‘service contract’ would cover this, but no apparently not and our provider charges a toe-curling £90(!!) to come and replace the little battery (they’re based locally so it’s not even a big drive) and refuses to give us the admin code, meaning that we have to pay £90 for a 2 minute job every time.

It’s a bit like buying a car and budgeting for an annual service only to find out the bonnet’s locked tight, the garage keeps the key and you have to pay £90 to have the oil and water checked.

Are there any independent alarm engineers out there who’d be able to reset the system and get us the admin code so that we can replace the batteries ourselves and tell the rip-off merchants to do one? I appreciate it may mean a new control panel.

Not being able to work on a system that I’ve paid all this money for is galling to put it mildly and being ripped of every time we do get a battery changed is infuriating.

Any suggestions? anyone done anything similar?

P.S. The alarm does nothing to reduce our home insurance so not having it ‘certified’ every year is not an issue.

Your PS is the key here. We cancelled our annual service thing which was a con, just a battery check. Insurance didnt go up a penny when we said we didnt have a serviced alarm anymore.

The default Texecom Engineer Code is 1234.

If you put the system into engineer mode the tamper won’t alarm when you replace the battery.

You can reset it by holding down a push switch on the main panel (alarm will obviously be going off) but reprogramming all of the ricochet devices whilst they’re mounted is a pita

Check that there is no external signaling on the system 1st. It will probably require a factory reset which is easy to do, make a list of all the Zones used and where they are.(example Zone 1 Front Door entry) write this info down and if local sounder only check your timers Entry /Exit times.You should then be able to do a factory reset .

I’m an alarm engineer and quite happily sort this for you? Where are you based?

If your not linked to a central station, there is no reason you should not be able to reset a tamper other than the service company being greedy shits. A half capable alarm engineer should be able to just reset the codes, get into engineering and then turn off the nessesary engineer reset options.

It gets a bit more tricky if the service company have locked the nvm, then you either need the existing engineer code or a new pcb in the main panel.

Chris

It gets a bit more tricky if the service company have locked the nvm, then you either need the existing engineer code or a new pcb in the main panel.

Hence a factory reset

Where abouts are you first part of postcode as any decent alarm tech should be able to reset the panel for you. I.E reprogram.
Make sure they set the engineer code to a number you want and will remember NOT 1,2,3,4

Thanks for the responses everyone,

stof41, that’d be amazing, I’d much rather have someone who knows what they’re doing in tow as this is very much not my area of expertise.

Of course I’d happily pay you for your time and trouble.

We’re in St Albans, if you or someone you can reccomend is in the area that’d be brilliant.

Thanks

They also have a helpful forum you can join

http://texecom.websitetoolbox.com/?action=categories

I’ve PMd you.