Back in 2019 I had a panel go haywire on a install in Phoenix

Was wiring up a brand new Vista 20p in a 3000 square foot house and the thing started beeping random zones after I powered it up. Turned out the screw terminals on the board were loose from shipping and I had to tighten every single one before it behaved. Anyone else run into factory defects like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowan_hayes17d ago

My buddy Dave had a Vista 20p do something similar back in 2018. He was wiring up a house in Mesa and after he got power on, the keypad started flashing random zone numbers like it was possessed. He spent two hours checking all his wiring, re-terminating everything, then finally found a loose screw on the board where the transformer connects. He said it wiggle just a little bit and caused all kinds of ghost zones to trip. He ended up having to go through with a small screwdriver and tighten every single terminal on the board, even the ones that looked tight. After that it worked perfect, but he said it made him look bad in front of the customer for a while.

cora_perez17d ago

Man that terminal strip on those Vista boards will get you every time. I've seen more guys waste hours chasing gremlins only to find it's just a screw that was one quarter turn loose. Sounds like Dave learned the hard way that "looks tight" and "is tight" are two different things in this line of work. You gotta wonder how many of those "possessed" alarm panels are just loose screws trying to save face. I bet if you tightened every screw on every Vista board in the country you'd fix about 40% of all tech support calls overnight.