need help with disarming Westec 5000 sensor?

Question

How do you disarm one sensor in a Westec 5000 system? One window is giving a fast flashing alarm signal. The sensor is OK. I think that there is something wrong with the wire in the attic between the sensor and the main box.

Need to disarm a Westec 5000 sensor. WESTEC IS OUT OF BUSINESS and no one in my area works on them. Getting a quick flashing power outage alarm on one window. Bypass doesn't work. How to disable that sensor?

Answer 1

Call Westec's customer service. They should be able to help. If not, they can suggest that a technician come out to diagnose the problem properly. If you do this yourself, you could damage your alarm system permanently.

Answer 2

Westec being out of business is misleading. They were bought by Edison who was bought by ADT who was bought by Tyco (whew!). I have an older W2000 system and can still get support. ADT in Anaheim was helpful. There probably are other branches.

I have no specific knowledge of the W5000 and what follows is based on my W2000. If you're "bypassing" the sensor by shorting the signal leads where they go into the control box, the system may recognize that as a short rather than the resistance that it's looking for. Try a 1.5K resistor instead. This assumes that you know the difference between the power leads to the sensor and the signal leads. If you don't or don't know what a 1.5K resistor is, then you need to get a professional involved. Do you have a voltmeter? On my system the voltage at the system's input terminals is 1.17 in normal operation versus .67 when the sensor is actuated.

However the real solution is to get your wiring fixed. A volt-ohm meter (or a professional) would go a long way to sorting this out. Bypassing a sensor is compromising your security and making it easy to forget about a faulty system.