Help with Alarm Scanner, please

Well, I bought a blue scanner for my alarm today. I snipped off the original red LED light I had on there.

The red LED had a red wire and blue wire.

The scanner has a red, blue, and black wire.

I hooked up the red to red... blue to blue... and it started ... kind of working. The first light would blink then the next two (and repeated). The ground (black wire) wasn't even hooked up.

Anyway, I dunno why it is just blinking the first three lights. I even connected the ground and it still does the same thing.

I know the scanner works, because I tested it with a battery.

Could it be something with the alarm itself? I am really stumped with this... I can't even begin to understand it. The weird thing is that when I hook the red to power and the black to ground.. it won't work, but when I hook red to power and blue to ground, it works, but I can't get the switch to work with it because the blue wire is supposed to be for the alarm switch.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you so much!

The 3 wire systems are a constant power, ground and then the third is a trigger (-) from the alarm. Did the scanner not come with instructions ?

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Jeff
Velocity Custom Home Theater
Mobile Audio/Video Specialist
Morden, Manitoba CANADA

Heh, so what Xerxes is doing is powering up the scanner for the duration of the alarm's LED on pulse - that's why it only gets to three LEDS?

I take it from Velocity's comments that the scanner runs as long as it gets the occasional trigger from the alarm's LED output? Does this mean that these scanners do not shut off immediately upon disarm (slight lag)?

Nevermind that last bit about triggering off the LED.

yeah, it came with instructions.. I hooked the blue wire up to the trigger.. the red up to the power source.. even before hooking up the ground.. it started working for some odd reason, but just the 3 lights. When I hook it up to a constant power..(the red to +) (the blue to -) it starts the chaser lights immediatly. I would think I would hook the black to - , but it doesn't work that way. I dunno what to do.

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could it be that the alarm itself is not set up for the scanner alarm, because the last thing hooked up to it was just a single blinking LED?

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The guy at Advance Auto Parts said that the scanner is not getting enough power from the alarm. Is there anyway to fix that without getting a new alarm?

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From what I can understand.. my alarm just unground's itself when it is off. When I hook the blue wire directly to a ground.. it works just fine. The only problem is that it is not to the alarm ground that cuts out when ever you turn off the alarm like it is supposed to. It is almost like the alarm ground is not strong enough for the scanner.. which doesn't seem to make sence to me at all..

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What make/model of alarm is this? It sounds like this scanner does not need power from the alarm, just need a trigger from the alarm when armed.

What happens when you hook red to +12V, black to ground? What happens if you then take blue to ground?

your alarm LED is low power. other wise it would drain your battery over a period of time. i think someone had a post on here about using a ground when armed wire....i will see if i can find it...

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Good Luck
David
Ace Security
813-376-9778
Tampa
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