I spent Monday faffing about with the alarm system. I suspect that it is a very good piece of kit, but the documentation that comes with is is absolutely dire. It's not been written by someone for whom English is their first language, there is no proper manual (not even on line) and the Easy Start manual has entries in the Table of Contents which do not exist in the actual text. I used to write technical manuals and this is the worst I've ever seen. The instructions for mounting the sensors, for example, are for a previous model and bear no resemblance to the product in the box.
Also, instead of an Easy Lock turn-button, which the old model had, to fix the circuit board into the body, the later model has the CB screwed in place. The screw is about 5 or 6mm long and thinner than a meccano bolt. It's sited hard up against the battery housing, so you can't use you fingers to manipulate it into position very easily. So there I am, up a ladder, trying to insert a tiny, tiny screw horizontally into an inaccessible hole. If I dropped it there is not snowball in Hades chance of finding it. It's a fantastic triumph of accountancy over engineering.
The unfortunate guy whose job it is to man the customer support desk could not have been more helpful, so I do have the proper manual as a PDF, but it is still for the old model of sensor, but at least the English is English. When I pointed out the inadequate nature of the documentation he did not seem the least bit surprised.
So at least I now have the info I need to configure it how I want it.
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Ray came today, to do the outside lights. I was expecting to do those myself, but he wanted to come over so who am I to argue? As usual, it was Ray up the ladder while I was Gopher-in-Chief. I can't complete the front cladding until I have the window frames in place, so this is a temporary mounting. So we put up some blocks to fill what will be the void behind the cladding.
But then we realised that the cable needs to come out in the middle of the mounting, not under the bottom. So we replaced the blocks with two pieces of slate lath with a gap in between.
I'd bought the lights themselves a few months ago when they were closing my local Homebase. There is a backplate and the main unit fits over it and is fixed with two tiny, tiny decorative nuts. Which we dropped. So two of us were on our knees sweeping the mud and what is left of the grass with a magnet. Eventually I spotted it, it had bounced quite a way and landed in the snow ridge formed when yesterday's snow slid of the roof.
I'd bought a double switch plate, so I could have both switches just inside the door. Unfortunately I had cracked the back box when I dropped something on it and as we removed the switch plate the back box broke, so I had to make an emergency visit to Screwfix. By the time I had got back, Ray had finished the rest of the cabling and the light was fading. We fixed up the switch, turned on the leccy and - nothing. The MCB trips every time we switch it on. Unfortunately it was getting too late to find out what the problem was, so I have an outside light circuit which I can't yet use but it is not affecting any other part of my electrics. It's a pity, because it would be very useful. Still, it's nearly there and will look very nice, I think.
Eye on the clouds by maddpete, on Flickr
Dungeness sea cabbage by maddpete, on Flickr
but I must admit you got me beat with that
