Smoke alarm problems

[joebob]

The AC supply to all the smoke detector alarms in my house seems to have disappeared. I have checked the connections to all alarms, and have checked all distribution box circuit breakers, as well as all GFCI's. The alarms all flash a red LED wich indicates loss of AC power.

Any suggestions?

[Rewired]

The first thing I would do is take down one of the units and check with a meter for voltage between hot and neutral, as well as from hot to ground and neutral to ground. This way it will possibly point to if its an open hot or an open neutral, unless of course somehow the cable feeding everything is completely severed somewhere.

IF you find you have 120 volts from hot to ground, and some voltage ranging from zero to something well below 120 from hot to neutral, as well as any voltage GREATER than zero from neutral to ground, thats a sure sign of an open neutral and you should be checking all your neutral connections in the circuit, if all you have is zero volts, its in a hot wire somewhere, (either a bad connection or even possivly a "tripped" breaker" where the breaker says its "on" when in fact it really is tripped off).

A.D

[HayZee518]

Most of the daisy chain wired detectors use a three wire cable. The 120 volt hot is black to neutral and the signal circuit for the detectors which is DC uses the red and shares the neutral with the AC.

[joebob]

quote:Originally posted by HayZee518

Most of the daisy chain wired detectors use a three wire cable. The 120 volt hot is black to neutral and the signal circuit for the detectors which is DC uses the red and shares the neutral with the AC.

Found a bad connection - seems to be working fine now. Thanks for the help