Mason alarm question????

[aitch]

I fitted my mason alarm a few weeks ago and have not used the Bongo much since but at the weekend had to go backwards and forwards to Salisbury a few times.

When climbing hills on the A303 the alarm started to chirp but the gauge was still not up to it's highest (hot) reading also if a lorry overtook me and I flashed it to pull back in the alarm chirped and if I used the indicators the alarm chirped in time with the indicators!!!!

I have set the alarm at setting 4 do I need to set this higher or do I need to start to look for water leaks???

help please as I am confused by all the warning sounds coming from the alarm.

thanks in advance for any help.

[missfixit70]

If it's chirping along with the indicators & lights, that sounds like it could well be an indiction of battery issues to me, or it's possibly shorting somewhere?
I set mine so it chirps to remind me to keep an eye on the gauge as it starts to work hard, but it sounds like you may want to tweek yours up a bit.

[missfixit70]

Have a read through this one Aitch so you can see what other peoples Mason Alarms are doing - http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =3&t=35431

[aitch]

thanks Kirsty I will set it to 5 and see how it does for the next few outings and see what happens

[missfixit70]

I'd just tweek it up to 4.5ish for now, otherwise you may find the alarm point is too high to be useful, ie, it'll have already cooked before it beeps at you.

[aitch]

ok thanks will try that and thanks for the other link but not many peeps say where they have their mason set at??

[missfixit70]

The link was so that you could see how your gauge movement compared to everyone else, I think most people are somewhere between 4 & 4.5 on the alarm adjustment. Best just to slowly tweek it up to find the best alarm point for you.

[stilldesperate]

Good advice from Kirsty, Mine chirped at 4, at 4.5 it sometimes makes a noise on long uphills/hot days/fully loaded.

Not wanting to re-open the thread on settings, but see if that fixes the chirps.

SD

[aitch]

Thanks for your help peeps will try that and report back.

[brorabongo]

Mine does the same, I found it chirps when I you use anything that drains a wee bit of leccy. This is only when the alarm is close to....well.....alarming.

This happened with the old battery, and only today happened with a brand new battery. The alarm must just be sensitive to voltage drops. When my old battery was failing along with my alt, the needle on the temperature gauge was heading to the cold end the longer I went on.

[Dave Mason]

Yes, if your Mason alarm is close to sounding then it will chirp when any serious electrical load comes on, such as turn indicators, wipers or brake lights. If this annoys you then turn the blue alarm-level adjuster up by the tiniest amount you can - say from four to four-and-a-quarter and so on. By the way this adjustment does not affect how the gauge reads.

The chirping happens because the alarm is simply a very sensitive voltage detector. The voltage on the temp sensor is nominally compared with a fraction of the supply voltage. That fraction is set by your blue adjuster. I say nominally because it's not quite that simple, there are a few DC offsets in the comparator and odd things happen when the supply voltage surges suddenly. I have done all I can to eliminate the effect.

The supply voltage is the battery voltage reduced by voltage dropped in the car's wiring. This chirping effect will get worse if the battery is old or cold and if bad connections occur in the wiring, including the battery earth strap. However electrical-load-related chirping is not, in the first instance, an indication of any of these conditions. It might be if the chirping gets worse for no other reason.

If you urgently want a Mason alarm but are, rightly, worried about the current state of the Royal Mail service, then please email me at [email protected] and I will arrange despatch, at no extra charge, by courier (http://www.myhermes.co.uk) who will deliver conveniently into your letterbox without requiring your signature.

[aitch]

Thanks for the reply Dave makes more sense to me now and I understand a lot more - will increase my setting slightly and report back.

Cheers Aitch.