Where to start? Intercom fault finding.

th_walking_dude · Mar 22, 2015

Hi All

Hoping one of you kind people could give me a few pointers with a job I am going to look at next week.

It's basically fault finding on an intercom system, a tenant in an apartment can't hear when people are buzzing up to them, that's about all I know so far.

I'm afraid to say I don't know much about intercom systems, the job is part of a maintenance contract I have with a property management company so it's not really something I can easily avoid and to be honest as it's a weakness I would rather get stuck in, get good at it and make it a strength but ideally without making a fool of myself in the process!!!

Having lived in an apartment myself I know how crap handsets can be so it is quite likely a dud handset but it would go against the grain to go around blindly changing parts without knowing why.

So if any one has any faultfinding tips or hints would be really appreciated.

Can't find any good resources online.

Also I don't suppose there are really any books which touch on this too much but if anyone could recommend anything that would be great.

trev · Mar 22, 2015

Don't have a great deal of experience with these things but surely the place to start would be belling out the cables from the door to the flat in question.
Eliminate things one by one and what you're left with has to be where the problem lies

ruston · Mar 22, 2015

And corrosion and weakness on the contacts. The cable is easily snapped.

PS , check the transformer output if the fualty one is on the long run.

Leesparkykent · Mar 22, 2015

If it's not ringing the phone in the flat, the 1st thing I would check would be the button for that particular flat whilst checking for loose broken contacts.

th_walking_dude · Mar 22, 2015

ruston said:
And corrosion and weakness on the contacts. The cable is easily snapped.

PS , check the transformer output if the fualty one is on the long run.

I like the transformer idea, that would be fairly straight forward. If there's a break in continuity that sounds like it is going to be a pig! I wish I knew what handset it was so I could swap that over first to rule that out. I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill in my head about this but I don't like not knowing what I'm doing, Thanks for your advice so far gents.

trev · Mar 22, 2015

Borrow a handset from an adjacent flat and swap the handset from the flat with the fault for that one. That will rule out one thing right away

ruston · Mar 22, 2015

If the rest are working the fault is usually local to the failed one.

th_walking_dude · Mar 22, 2015

Leesparkykent said:
If it's not ringing the phone in the flat, the 1st thing I would check would be the button for that particular flat whilst checking for loose broken contacts.

Thank you, the button was what I thought about when the lady was telling me about it. Are these generally interchangeable parts or would you swap the panel over? Thanks to the wonders of google maps I can see the panel is only small, maybe 5 or 6 buttons on it and the flat number is low so probably ground floor and hopefully near the panel!

trev · Mar 22, 2015

Mate, apply the same methodology that you would when diagnosing any other type of fault. You'll be fine man

th_walking_dude · Mar 22, 2015

I know your right, just have to start with what I know for sure and fill in the blanks! best way to learn that's for sure.

Leesparkykent · Mar 22, 2015

th_walking_dude said:
I know your right, just have to start with what I know for sure and fill in the blanks! best way to learn that's for sure.

I haven't fitted loads of them, but when I put them in small blocks of new build flats I'm doing I use a make called bell systems

probably a far cry from the best but all the parts are changeable speech unit, buttons, etc. They are also easy to fit.

th_walking_dude · Mar 22, 2015

Leesparkykent said:
I haven't fitted loads of them, but when I put them in small blocks of new build flats I'm doing I use a make called bell systems

probably a far cry from the best but all the parts are changeable speech unit, buttons, etc. They are also easy to fit.

That's awesome you've (all) been a massive help. I have seen those online. sods law they have an install from the 90s and I won't be able to get parts although having looked at those systems I don't imagine changing the whole panel wouldn't be too terrible.

ruston · Mar 22, 2015

As long as all cables ok ,it's a gift

Leesparkykent · Mar 22, 2015

Make sure you take a set of these with you.

51 PIECE SECURITY / TAMPERPROOF SCREWDRIVER BIT SET | eBay

th_walking_dude · Mar 22, 2015

I have some spare time tomorrow so spend a bit of it looking at those Bell manuals, should give me a solid understanding of how they work, even if it's not a Bell brand I'm sure it will be a similar set up.

Thanks again