I have an issue with my Clifford AG5 system which has worked flawlessly for 3 years. I recently lost the confirmation chirp for arm & disarming. The unit is not in vallet and is not on the "off" setting for "Chirp Volume". This was verified with the Cliffnet Wizard software. When set to the Diagnostic page of software, in the SIREN section... CONSTANT sounds the alarm. But the ONE CHIRP does not activate the siren chirp.
The system arms correctly with the parking/brake light confirmation but the chirp is not signaling. The siren chirp does appear to be partially functioning, because when I set the alarm off, and disable it... it gives me the 3 chirp signal that a violation has occured.
Any suggestions would be very welcome. I am not an installer... but I do have copies of all the manuals and would like to troubleshoot this issue.
The following is the repair for the "No Chirp Confirmation" sound from my Clifford AvantGuard5 alarm system. The problem is directly related to the battery backup for the siren. Apparently when the battery fails you loose all audio (chirp) and visual (parking light blink) when arming and disarming the alarm. While searching online to troubleshoot this problem, I found many others that have/had the same issue. But there was only one reference to the siren battery backup as a cause. To test if this was the issue I decided to deliberately set off my alarm and disconnected the vehicle battery...the siren stopped immediately. It should have continued sounding off for about 20-30 minutes with the battery disconnected. So the backup battery appears to be the issue. Now that you know the cause you can either replace the siren completely... or just the battery backup.
I have put together this process of what I did to only replace the battery. I hope this helps others that are suffering from the same problem. The following fixed my issue and I now once again have a fully functional alarm system. Why Clifford doesn't list this in their FAQ's is beyond me... for what we pay for these things it would seem that this would be referenced.... Somewhere!
Michael Jakubowski Glendale, AZ
1. Remove the siren from the bracket that secures it to the vehicle.
2. Turn the siren so the wire cover is accessible.
3. Remove the screws and carefully pry up the cover and remove.
4. Remove the two larger screws from the back siren cover. Support the siren face as it is heavy and will separate easily once the screws are removed possibly damaging the two thin wires.
5. There is a very thin o-ring that goes around the siren speaker. Do not loose or break this as it would be difficult to find a replacement.
6. Looking inside the cover you can see the main circuit board and the battery backup (white cluster) . Be very careful with the siren speaker as the weight and short thin wires could easily fall causing damage or wire breakage.
7. To remove the circuit board and battery backup you have to carefully feed in the main siren wire through the cover hole until you have full access. Note the thin o-ring hanging from my thumb. Don't damage or loose this as it is necessary for a water tight seal to protect the circuit board and battery.
8. On the back side of the board is the "problem" battery backup that is no longer charging. The battery is held in place with two cable ties that have a hard plastic melted over them. I assume that this to to insure that they stay in place if the ties work loose. I figured the goop was probably from a "glue gun" used in arts & crafts.
10. Cut the wires about midway on the length. If you are handy with a solder gun I'm sure you could remove the wires that way... I am not very good with them so I will be doing this with solderless connectors and crimp them in place. Note the thin plastic spacer under the battery... it is actually secured to the battery and surely protects the circuit board connections from contact with the battery. This will be reused.
11. Here is the battery that I had in my siren. You have something else! Verify before you purchase what I list next. I tried to find this p/n : GP30AAK6Y6 online and was unable to find a source. I went to a local BatteryPlus store and they said they could build one but they were out of stock on the individual batteries. They said that Ni-Cd are pretty much non existent these days... they could order them and have them in about a week for me. I choose to look around before waiting a week.
12. I found info online showing that these are a daisy chain series of (6) "2/3AA" batteries (1.2V 300mAh). 6 x 1.2V = 7.2V . I found these batteries for a cordless phone that are 3.6V (1.2v x 3 ) a series of three same physical size but a 350mAh rating instead of the 300mAh rating of the original. Since this was all I could find locally I decided to give it a shot. I figured I would hook two sets together.
13. I cut the positive on one set and the negative on the other and used a crimp connector to create the "daisy chain" connection on my new set. The wires are so thin that I choose to crimp them together in one end of the connector rather than the typical assembly of one wire in each end of the connector. Note the original battery pack above without the plastic cover, showing the positive to negative "daisy chain" configuration.
14. Since the plastic cover for the original battery was secured to the plastic spacer to protect the circuit board I decided to just put my new set of batteries inside the original cover and secure with some electrical tape. This held the spliced wires securely as well.
15. I then spliced the new battery back to the circuit board in the same manner as above. The connectors used are from Radio Shack for telephone wiring.
16. Use a Hot Glue craft gun to seal the ends of the connector that were not used. Just a dab in the end will do.
17. Secure the battery back to the circuit board. Make sure to funky main black siren wire with one of the cable ties. I didn't do this at first and it didn't quite fit right in the siren cover... so I had to remove and fix it like it was held in the original setup. Good thing I took pics... because I needed them!
18. I held the splices I made with the cable ties as well.
19. Using the Hot Glue gun again I made sure to cover the cable tie sides as was originally done. I was not quite as neat though.
20. Slowly I positioned the circuit board back inside the cover. You have to slowly feed the main wire back through the cover opening to get it back in place.
21. Here is that thin o-ring again. Position in down around the siren speaker against the raised lip.
22. Carefully position the siren speaker and cover together making sure the o-ring is correctly aligned as shown above.
23. Secure the cover to the speaker with the two cover screws.
24. The original main wire cover had some kind of sealer on the inside notch. So I applied a silicone dap to aid in sealing the wire opening.
25. Assemble the wire cover with the four tiny screws. Mount the speaker back in place and you now will have the "chirp confirmation" that you use to have. You will also have a siren backup once again.
One last thing... make sure you take a drive for some distance. This is necessary to charge the newly installed batteries.
I found out after the vehicle sat for the weekend and the "chirp" disappeared again! All bummed out after doing the work and posting the above details.
After a couple days of driving to work (only a couple miles away) the unit started "chirping" again. Then it dawned on me that the charge on the new batteries ran out while sitting parked.
It has now been working flawlessly since getting the charge they needed.
Nice piece of info ther Mike J, My alarm is three years old as well, of course the last thing I read was the manual for the smart siren and right there it said if confirmation chirps cease, the recharging has failed. "See your authorized dealer" yeah right so I can pay for a new siren, I think not. I looked for info everywhere on the net and nothing so I just decided well lets open up the siren and see whats up. I found and removed the battery and did a search on the part number and only now did your article show up. HA HA. But good info on the battery replacement. Oh one more thing, for a very temporary fix without taking the batter apart is to just disconnect and reconnect the car battery, or to remove and replace the in line fuse of the siren. Before I found out what the fix was, I was just going to use a relay to connect and disconnect the power everytime a door opened. LOL.
