Door Lock dilemma

[Petervs]

I have a question about the main door lock(s). Some of this has been covered before, but I think this is a detail that has not yet been covered.

Here is the situation:

I have a 94 Marathon XLV which has essentially 3 separate door locking devices on the main people door. One is the automotive style lock operated by the handles on the outside and inside. It latches closed but does not have a lock.

The second is the solenoid or air operated latch activated by the switch on the dash, the switch by the door, or the key fob which also turns on the alarm system. You have to unlatch it with the same switch that latches it.

The third is a deadbolt that looks like the one on your house front door, and is operated by its own key on the outside and a knob on the inside.

When we drive, we use the solenoid/air lock, it pulls the door in a little tighter and reduces air noise. We also use it when we are in the bus overnight.

When we park and go out of the bus, we use the key fob to latch the door tight and activate the alarm.

So the question is this, Suppose you get back to the bus and the key fob is missing, broken, or whatever, how do you get in? The alarm company instruction book says you can deactivate the alarm that begins to go off when you enter the vehicle using a key by following several steps, but the Prevost has no car like keylock in the door that you can use that way.Yes, this has been brought up before, and the answer was to turn off the chassis batteries, then the lock fails open. But when I use the key fob to lock it, and turn off the batteries the lock stays locked and the alarm stays activated. I need to try turning off the chassis batteries when it is locked from the inside switches to see if those are powered by the chassis batteries as Prevost apparently originally intended.

Could the alarm (Trek Mate) be powered by the house batteries maybe, and that then activates the solenoid/air lock? This would be an easy experiment, but I did not want to do it on a very rainy day today. If this is not the answer, it seems that a disconnect switch located maybe in the drivers side electrical space would be a nice feature, just in case.

Just trying to consider the what ifs. Yesterday I reprogrammed a defective key fob, and while researching found the alarm company is long out of business, and if the remaining key fob dies, it might entail a great deal of effort to rewire/replace it.

Maybe someone else has dealt with this situation already?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Peter,

Your description may be specific to Marathon. My air lock is only actuated by the switches in the coach and it is not tied into an alarm system.

The deadbolt is key or electric switch actuated (from multiple positions inside the coach or the external keypad) and neither will actuate the alarm system. But I also have an alarm system key fob. Using that I can lock the coach (deadbolt only) and activate the alarm system. When the coach is locked using the fob, I can unlock it using the key or the internal switches or by turning the deadbolt knob from the inside, but opening the door will trip the alarms which can only be turned off using the key fob.

When I kill house power and then restore it I also end up with an activated alarm and need to use the key fob to de-activate it.

My alarm system is a Viper system if I recall, and I would surmise that if you wish to retain the feature and have support for the system that you replace it with another. The only problem I see is that these may be customized to a specific coach. Roger for example has a system that appears exactly like mine, but his is set up to also turn on interior lights using the fob. Our systems, when activated will also shut off the engine via the fuel solenoid which makes having a working system critical.

[truk4u]

Peter,

My key fob locks the deadbolt and sets the alarm (unless on valet mode). If I lose the key fob, I have a hide-a-key (Mango and Jdub won't find it) and when opening the door with the alarm going off, all I have to do is turn on the ignition and the alarm is deactivated.

The air operated lock will open when the chassis disconnect is thrown like Jon said and on mine has no other controls other than the button inside.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Peter,

I forgot to mention we also have an alarm system that I believe to be independent of the one controlled by the key fob. It operates from a dash three position switch. It can be engaged before we leave the coach due to a time delay, and turned off with the same switch upon re-entering.

That alarm also has a pager feature, and if we choose we can carry the pager, and it will alert the person carrying the pager if someone in the coach opts to send a signal to the page (such as beeping the page to mean the person is wanted). There is no voice page capability or text display.

That system was on my 87 Liberty and is on my 97.

[Petervs]

Well, the potential problem has resolved itself.

This system is clearly a Marathon installation.

The alarm key fob locks the bus with the deadbolt. So you can open it with the key, which sets off the alarm, which can then be turned off with the ignition switch or the key fob. It runs on the 24 volt house battery system.

If you lock the door from the inside with the solenoid/air switch, then it clicks to open when the 12 volt chassis battery switch is moved to off, but it does not unlatch . The door remains locked. Turn power back on and it latches locked again.

Since we do not have a dog, I am not too worried about these switches being activated while we are out. I have no problem with this overall design. It works great as is, and there is a back up method in case of problems.

Thanks for your inputs guys.

Peter

[Jerry Winchester]

Why do we need the location of the "Hide-a-Key" when we have the master code to the keypad? Silly Krakman, you're hosed, so you better just do an Al Cannoli and weld a hasp to that bad boy and lock it like that.

[truk4u]

Ah, as usual Turd Boy, I anticipated another unauthorized entry by the dynamic duo at some future date and now have a new master module authorized and inspected by A-1 and deemed tamper proof for nitwits!

[phorner]

Tom,

I sure hope you reduced the voltage to the "varmit entry rejection system"...

Or was the idea to brand the varmits' finger print into the bus for posterity???

[Jerry Winchester]

This

lock.jpg

Won't Prevent This

mike.jpg

[garyde]

Ah, as usual Turd Boy, I anticipated another unauthorized entry by the dynamic duo at some future date and now have a new master module authorized and inspected by A-1 and deemed tamper proof for nitwits!

Can you say "Settling torch"?