I have a vista 20 P panel with a 6160 rf keypad. System appeared to be working fine, communicates with the central station etc... however; randomly the check 100 rf will display on the keypad and will beep. All wireless door contacts seem to be working properly and trigger the system when activated. Have two 5804 remotes unsupervised and it will also show the check 100 rf occassionally when trying to arm system with them. At present the keypad is displaying check 100 rf and both the red and green lights are blinking. I have replaced the 6160 rf keypad with a new one, tighted all connection in the panel and am at a loss as to what the problem is since it doesn't always show this. The central station is receiving a 333-100 message. Any help would be appreciated
You're obviously aware that the CHECK 100 RF message means that there's a Trouble condition with the RF Receiver, which is integrated into the PCB of the 6160 Keypad. It sounds like the Vista-20P Panel is intermittently not hearing from the RF Receiver.
The first thing to check is the wiring and connections at both the Panel, Terminals 4, 5, 6, & 7; AND at the KP. Keypads are connected either with wire terminals with tiny screws, or with a plug that pushes onto pins, in which case the plug leads(wires) should be SOLDERED to the cable wires joining the KP and Panel. You checked the connections in the Panel, and when you switched out the 6160 RF Keypad, you presumably made sure those connections were tight too.
Question: The Panel terminals 4, 5, 6, and 7 are for all data bus peripheral devices, like zone expanders, VIP Phone modules, Cellular modules, and several other options. How many peripherals do you have connected there? Those terminals sometimes get a lot of wires under the screws and it's easy for a loose wire to hide in a bundle of tight wires; and tightening the screw on the bunch doesn't necessarily make a better connection on the loose one.
If the wires on 4,5,6, & 7 are bunched, tug at each individual wire to make sure it's securely fastened. You don't have to yank it like a gorilla, just give each one a firm tug.
Another possibility: Another keypad (if any) or other peripheral sharing the 4,5,6,7 buss can sometimes get flaky and cause enough interference to garble the RF Receiver's data flow and generate a CHECK 100 message. Try disconnecting any other devices from the buss long enough to see if that stops the trouble. If it does, then add them back on, one by one, to see when/if the trouble returns.
Please let me know the outcome.
EDIT: Are you using a Wireless Keypad in your system, i.e., another keypad that has no wires from Panel to it?
