I recently purchased an Asian Wolf (great name!) alarm, the 8000rs, go to- http://www.asianwolf.com/caralarms.htm you can check it out a little. The first alarm was completely toast, either by the installer or just DOA, so after 2 months and $25 for repair i was ready to have it installed again. I had a diffrent installer at the same shop go over the install, and then a little work on my own and we have the alarm up to about 95% perfect. The problem i am having is that the door open indicator never goes out, it just dims alot. The alarm is aware that the doors are not open, but the light on the dash just never goes all the way out. I figure this problem is probably with the installation, probably some wierd way the XB is set up, that makes the way things are normally installed a problem. I would appreciate any info from any of you alarm gurus, if there is a connection i need to check, i would appreciate any specific test method for that. I am no alarm installer, but im not helpless either. thanks for anything!

 

What causes the door open light to stay on is called a door pin/trigger, try disconnecting the alarm an see if it still stays on, If it doesn't then it is the alarm, and the next step is to test wire values.
Door Trigger red/white -(neg) top of fuse box, 9 pin plug

Make sure the wire reads 12V then drops to 0V when you open the door.

 

Did the alarm come with domelight supervision, it turns the domlight on when you disarm the car? Tuning69 will know where im going with this one, becuse the domelight supervision wire usually gets tapped into the door trigger wire and sends a + or a - signal to the door pin to turn the domelight on. It could be that this alarm is always throwing this to the doorpin wire and causing it to stay on. Does the alram go off when you open one of the doors after the alarm is armed? But definately try what Tuning said that will narrow it down some what for you.

 

i had a customer bring one of those to my shop for installation. I took one look at it and turned him down. The thing looked like garbage. No offense or anything, i hope you get the problem fixed. The advice given should help. I would first remove teh door trigger wire and see if that helps...

 

Thanks for the tips guys, im going to test these things out in a few mins here. First im going to test the range on my remote tho. I have fresh batterys and hope this thing works from way far away.

 

ok, im just doing some testing right now. The door trigger, red white wire on the fuse box, reads .5v with the door open and 9.5v with the door closed. i get those readings at the fuse box as well as at the alarm. is 9.5 bad? the battery power at the alarm reads about 12.8v. when i tested the dome light wire at the alarm i got 12 volts while it is triggering the dome light (right after disarm) then it drops to 10mv and starts climbing up about 1mv every second. really dont have any clue what this means. this voltage change doesnt seem to affect the brightness of the light on the dash at all. To answer another ?, yes the alarm does trigger when i open a door, and when the alarm is unplugged the door open indicator does function as it normally does. Another thing the alarm guy mentioned is that the alarm does not trigger when the alarm is armed and you try to start the engine, remember the starter is disabled so nothing happens, but the alarm does not go off either. I also noticed that when the alarm is armed the button to unlock the doors inside will not unlock, i think that is a good thing tho. again thanks for any help at all.

 

Honestly dude... at this point.... I would take it out. This many problems related to the install of an alarm, bad news. Go get a DEI product, you will be much happier.

 

well at this point i paid for the alarm and the install, and im far too cheap to rip it out and throw it aside then pay for another one. I think what im looking at is how to get it running as good as possible. right now the alarm functions just fine, just want that darn light to go out. if i unhook the dome light output should that probabaly fix the problem? i dont really need the light to turn on. just an idea, or does it sound like a problem with the brain itself. I dont mean to sound like a subborn a$$, its just i pretty much need to work with what i have .

 

You never know till you try, try unhooking the dome light supervision and see what it does. It is possible it is the brain but you have to troubleshoot it out until you narrow it down to that. Give it a try and let us know what you find out, and i agree you spent money on it and its hard to just throw it away. So do what you can do to save your money from being thrown away.

 

Other people have issues with the door light staying on and rectified it with diode isolators, could be some back feed that keeps the light dim, so maybe try having them use a diode on the door pin.

 

honestly the scion is one of the most straightforward alarm/remote start/keyless installs I've ever done (aside from maybe an early 90s accord). Of course I only install DEI products because they're THE alarm company...but basically what I'm getting at is that the scion is so straightforward that it must be your alarm that is the problem...either that or multiple installers are incompetant...and while that's possible I highly doubt it. I would definitely try the diode isolation of the door triggers and/or domelight supervision...but in reality what good is an alarm that half works?? With an alarm of that quality, what guarantees do you have that it won't just stop working at any time? This would especially suck since your car won't start if the brain craps out.I mean I understand you don't want to throw your money away...but looking at that website (which looks like it was somebody's first attempt at html) makes me think that you at least knew what you were getting into when you bought it. I'd say you should take advantage of whatever return policy that place has and see if you could work out a deal with the shop to get a real alarm installed.

PS, I don't know about ASIAN WOLF, but every alarm I've ever installed, the alarm is supposed to go off if you try and start the car while the alarm is armed.

 

well i will look into the diodes for the door triggers and dome light. just a quick ? as to what value diode to use. I am going to get some to put on tomorrow night. thanks for all the help, it wouldnt surprise me if both the installers were incompetent. thanks for alll the ideas, i appreciate it.

 

No info on what diodes to use? I'll probably have to get them from an electronics shop or radio shack since there are not too many alarm shops right around here. as for 2 incompetent installers, well they couldnt figure out how to get the parking lights to flash, and 10 mins with the alarm at home and i had it. the flashers get their power from the remote start plug on the alarm, probably because all those wires are thicker for the remote start. since i didnt have the remote start hooked up they didnt give this plug any power which = no flash. one last question (i have never worked with an alarm befoere) when i diode the door sensor or the dome light which way do i place the diode for each one and would i want to place the door sensor wire diode closere to the alarm or closer to the car (from where the dome light is tapped into it). does this matter at all? thanks so much guys. while i agree that this alarm is sorta cheesey, i wouldnt say its nearly as bad as the asian wolf website. on another note, how does the alarm tell that the car is being started? is there possibly something they didnt hook up which would be why that feature is not working?

 

yeah...as for the diodes, just get standard silicone diodes (the ones commonly used for alarms are IN4004 diodes) that can handle a decent amount of current, 6 amp diodes are what are commonly used in alarm installs. You could probably get away with 3 amp diodes but 6 or higher would be better. As for the direction, it is gonna depend on the polarity of the triggers/switches you are trying to isolate. Basically, the line on the diode is the cathode...so whenever the voltage is lower on that side than the other side (anode), current will flow (voltage difference must be greater than .7 V for a standard silicone diode but that shouldn't be a problem since you're dealing with 0 or 12 V).

Okay, I know it may be hard to understand without a picture so I'll try a couple examples. The door trigger on the xB is red with a white stripe and is (-) polarity which means it's at 12 V with the door closed and drops to 0 V when it's open. So, the diode should have the line (cathode) on the trigger side and the anode on the alarm side. This will stop any current from passing back through the wire from the alarm. If they have the domelight supervision hooked up it should most likely be hooked into the door triger wire as well so again you'd want the diode with the cathode on the trigger side. As far as position of the diode it doesn't really matter, do whatever is easiest for you.

For your last question, are you referring to the alarm not sounding when you attempt to start the car with the alarm armed? If the starter kill is working then the alarm should sound...at least that's the way all the DEI alarms are. I have no experience with asian wolf whatsoever so the starter kill may not even trigger the alarm, they may assume that if someone got into the car that the alarm would already be sounding...just a thought but i have no idea.

 

draw him a pic in paint haha

 

thanks guys, ill pick some diodes up and see what happens. I will keep ya posted. as for the alarm not sounding when i try to start the car, it will not start because of the ignition kill, but the alarm doesnt go off unless i trigger the shock or glass break sensor.

 

New Audiovox alarms do not go off when you try to start the car while armed. It just doesnt crank since the starter kill is engaged. Id open your eyes a bit, there are other alarm companies out there that makes very good alarms. I used to have a one track, DEI brain but trust me, the more you put in the better youll become.

 

I never said that I've never installed other alarms...but whenever somebody asks me what kind of alarm to get, 99% of the time I will tell them to get something DEI. I have personally found that they have the best and most reliable alarms and alarm accessories. They also have THE best support in alarms, maybe even in the entire 12 volt industry. No doubt there are other good alarms out there, audiovox alarms have alot of nice features on some of them but IMHO they aren't the highest quality alarms, I've had more than one come back with some defective part (not installer error), and I've had alot of issues with other audiovox products (video, terk/xm stuff). I do happen to like compustar alarms because they're one of the few companies that make an alarm that's designed to work with manual transmission vehicles.

But honestly, people have their preferences and experiences with different brands. In the grand scheme of things it all comes down to the install that determines the effectiveness of an alarm.

 

So I picked up some diodes from radio shack, put one on the door trigger and viola! No dim little door open indicator. $.79 solved my problem. My alarm went from being a flaming pile, to a pretty decent alarm in just about a week. It seems that most of my problems were probably related to the "professional" installer i paid to install my alarm. anyways now i guess in my quest to make things better than they are must continue. Anybody know how to get more range out of this? It would be really cool if when i was parked way far away at the movie theater I woud still be able to get a page if someone was messing with my car. Is there any standard way to go about this?

A big thanks to everyone who helped me get my alarm up to snuff, its greatly appreciated. On a side note, can i use the dome light output to power a set of say colored leds or something when i disarm my alarm (if the current will not exceed 500 ma?).

 

Glad to hear everything worked out. First, about the range...I don't really think there is any way to boost the range as it is really based on the frequency that the alarm/transciever operate at. Generally the higher the frequency, the longer the range...and there are also some different technologies used by companies (spread spectrum, etc.) that are supposed to extend the range. In all my experience, alarm companies over-state the range of their alarms (like they tested the 'max' range on a football field or something with no obstructions or changes in elevation)...so even if you were to have a more mainstream alarm you'd never see the max distance.

Having said that, there are a couple things that can negatively affect range. One is the placement of the antenna. Generally it should be at the top of your windshield if possible, and definitely avoiding any antenna/defroster grids. Also, if you have any type of window tint with metal in it, that can negatively affect the range.

As for the leds, that shouldn't be a problem even if the draw is greater than 500mA...if that's the case you'll just need to use a relay.