My GunVault is haunted. WTF?

[Lauria]

I have a GunVault mini deluxe. It's got batteries in it, and it's plugged into an outlet.

Every time I turn on my bedroom ceiling fan, it beeps at me. Then there's about a five second delay, and it beeps three times like an incorrect key has been entered.


(When you unplug the unit from the wall, it doesn't beep or do anything at all.)


Does anyone know what's going on with my GunVault?

 

[Turbocharged]

I suspect it's related to a power fluctuation.

 

[Keystone]

Your guns recognize the fact that the fan coming on means someone is in the room, and they are trying to get out and satisfy their bloodlust for killing at random. Your GV is just trying to warn you so you can get away.


Is there anything else on that outlet that flickers? Old wiring might cause voltage drops when the fan comes on, kicking in the battery backup.

 

[SMagee]

Needs an Exorcism

 

[sportycliff]

Your guns recognize the fact that the fan coming on means someone is in the room, and they are trying to get out and satisfy their bloodlust for killing at random. Your GV is just trying to warn you so you can get away.

 

[Ma$$hole]

You're guns aren't safe. I had my safe blessed. I should really hold onto those for you... you know... for the children (guns).... It's only for the best...

 

[n1heu]

Ceiling fan = inductive load on circuit especially during start up. Put a small UPS at the outlet, you will be able to use the safe during power outs and it will resolve your power dip problem.

 

[WaldoOneFive]

Ceiling fan = inductive load on circuit especially during start up. Put a small UPS at the outlet, you will be able to use the safe during power outs and it will resolve your power dip problem.

+1.
What he said.

 

[wheelgun]

+1.
What he said.

This doesn't quite add up. Inductive loads cause spikes when you turn then OFF - they don't usually cause problems when turning on. That said, it's still possible because there's more to a ceiling fan than just the motor - the speed control circuit could be generating spikes. Also, most smaller (i.e. cheaper) UPS's don't do much filtering of the live AC power, so it's not guaranteed that they'd solve this. You'd really need a dedicated line filter for that type of thing.

I would be interested in hearing what happens when you plug a large resistive load in on the same line - something like a space heater. If that causes the same symptoms, then maybe you have some lousy wiring in your house. I mean, plugging in a large load should cause the line voltage to dip a bit, but the Gun Vault power supply should be easily able to ride through such things without any issues. It wouldn't hurt to check the batteries in your unit either.

.

 

[Keystone]

My guess is that, rather than an inductive load, the current over the wire drops to the point that the GV switches to battery power, and the beeping is an alarm saying it is on battery power, and then the all clear alarm.

 

[Lucas McCain]

The fan is generating noise on the AC line. The crappy cheapo power supply for the gun vault cannot reject the noise and passes it through to the gun vault. You can fix it by installing a bypass capacitor on the power supply line or get a better wall wart.

 

[n1heu]

Inductive motors have large inrush current on startup, sometimes up to 20x rated max. It is transient and clears as the field in the core is saturated after a few turns but none the less it exists. Ever use a vacuum cleaner and watch your lights dim momentarily on power on? The safe unit is seeing this dip and switching to battery power for the duration. There are many fixes possible but the easiest and the one with the added benefit of back up power is a small UPS. Or live with the beeping.



Disclaimer: I am an electrical engineer, any advice I post although given with the best of intentions is based on my own research or experience and may be incorrect. If you think that I am wrong, do us both a favor and contact a real electrician.

 

[Lauria]

My guess is that, rather than an inductive load, the current over the wire drops to the point that the GV switches to battery power, and the beeping is an alarm saying it is on battery power, and then the all clear alarm.

I thought it was this as well- except when I unplug the GunVault from the wall and force it to switch over to battery power, there's no beep.

 

[Lauria]

Inductive motors have large inrush current on startup, sometimes up to 20x rated max. It is transient and clears as the field in the core is saturated after a few turns but none the less it exists. Ever use a vacuum cleaner and watch your lights dim momentarily on power on? The safe unit is seeing this dip and switching to battery power for the duration. There are many fixes possible but the easiest and the one with the added benefit of back up power is a small UPS. Or live with the beeping.



Disclaimer: I am an electrical engineer, any advice I post although given with the best of intentions is based on my own research or experience and may be incorrect. If you think that I am wrong, do us both a favor and contact a real electrician.

I'm okay with the beeping, although it took several months for me to figure out that it was caused when I accidentally turned on the fan- I got the GunVault in November and haven't turned the fan on at all, but sometimes in the dark I accidentally hit the wrong switch. For a while I was convinced it was a light/dark thing since it was only happening when I was going to bed very late at night- turns out that very late at night I'm tired and hit both switches instead of just the light.

Are the power fluctuations drastically shortening the life of the vault?

 

[terraformer]

Are the power fluctuations drastically shortening the life of the vault?

Likely not. The EPS (wall wart) on the safe, is it small and light (like the EPS on a cell phone) or large and/or heavy like it has lots of metal in it?

 

[GaryO]

Don't use logic, the safe is haunted and I think it should be thoroughly filled with holes from armor piercing ammo!

 

[wheelgun]

It's very unlikely that the power fluctations would damage the vault.

What happens when you unplug the power supply from the wall? Does the vault produce the beeping?

 

[terraformer]

What happens when you unplug the power supply from the wall? Does the vault produce the beeping?

No, it was stated earlier on, the safe behaves differently when the device is unceremoniously unplugged than when the fan turns on. Frankly, the description of the beeping seems to suggest the firmware is resetting. That is why I asked if the EPS is a switcher or a linear supply. I wonder if it's a switcher that can't react quick enough to power quality issues on the supply side and doesn't buffer enough of it's output (ie; a cheap switcher). An alternative could be not the loss of power, but a spike on the DC side of the switcher as the fan drops back to normal operating consumption. Lastly switchers are susceptible to ripple which is caused when something changes the supply current/voltage (ie; the fan) on the supply network (the home's grid).

 

[wheelgun]

Well, if the beeping doesn't occur when uplugging the unit, then it's almost guaranteed that it's noise that's causing the problem, not dipping of the AC line or the DC output of the supply. So filtering on the AC input is probably the best solution, usually more effective than trying to filter the DC output, especially if this is a common-mode noise spike.