Resolving Issues with Security Gate Entry Systems

This school were having ongoing problems with their gates and they contacted us 3 times for help resolving issues with their security gate entry systems.

Resolving issues with security gate entry systems: The main problems;

We attended 3 call-outs to this school and discovered the following issues;

The intercom was not always working or was slow. This was likely caused by extremely poor connections of Cat5e. On inspection, they were found to be untwisted or extended in the terminal block, which goes against all recommendations of producing high quality installations. This caused the network on the intercom to run really slowly and sometimes to drop out.
The pedestrian gate was not opening on PTE (push to exit). 20 snails had made their way inside the control box and slithered over the exposed boards and electrics. This had caused damage to the ACU (access control unit) board, as well as shorting out the wires.
The vehicle gate was not closing, which again, was caused by snails infiltrating the boards and electrics and causing them to fail.

Each time, we removed the snails and tried to seal the external cabinet as much as possible but in general it was beyond repair.

Ultimately, we discovered the intercom, gate ACU, pedestrian gate ACU and 2 switches were like this.

Worth noting is that this system was not installed by Protech Solutions Ltd. In our experience, we can safely say that the damage done to this security gate system was possibly the worst we’ve ever seen.

Solution:
We obviously wanted to ensure the system was safe and secure and unfortunately, the system was beyond repair. So we ripped out the entire system and installed a new external High Level IP-rated cabinet to maintain the system’s IP (ingress protection) rating.

We re-terminated the cables to industry standards and re-routed them, whilst removing all redundant equipment and cabling. We installed inner IP rated ABS boxes with their own mid-range IP rating to organise and protect equipment and to aid in maintenance in the future.

Conclusion:

Had the original installation been done properly, and to industry standards, many of these issues could have been prevented. However, despite the low quality initial installation, the school could have saved time, money and inconvenience by PREVENTION and PROACTIVE WORKS with regular maintenance as opposed to REACTIVE fire fighting when problems arose.

The aim of preventative maintenance is to primarily pre-empt any issues that occur and to try to minimise the possibility of issues and failure in the future.

Find out more about our Access Control Service Level Agreements.

Do you need help with your existing access gates or doors?

Let us know what issues you are having and we will do the rest. We will advise you of the best may to help resolve the issues and if we can, we will resolve them.

Resolving Issues with Security Gate Entry Systems