That old church alarm panel finally bit the dust after 22 years

I was swapping out a dying system at St. Mary's in downtown Portland last Thursday and the ancient panel literally smoked when I touched a wire. Had to redo half the zone plan on the fly. Any of you guys run into a panel that old where the labels don't match anything anymore?

2 comments

2 Comments

ryan6539d agoMost Upvoted

Kinda gotta disagree with you there man. 22 years is actually pretty young for one of those old church panels. I've pulled panels out of basements in Seattle that were running since the late 80s and the labels were handwritten in pencil on masking tape. Half of them were just "basement" "hall" "storage" with no way to tell what was what. That smoke when you touched a wire just means the backup battery finally gave up and the caps were holding a charge. Not saying it was safe, but I'd take that over some of the field modified messes I've seen where someone just shoved a wire nut on a bare copper ground. You did the right thing swapping it, but that panel probably had a few more years in it if you had been careful.

garcia.charles9d ago

Used to think you were wrong on this but I've seen enough old panels to know you're spot on. Those masking tape labels are a nightmare but the hardware itself is usually still solid.