I need to read up on this further, but what little I have read so far about the Visors is 'alarming' in it's own right. Why would Jaguar design something so deadly to the vehicle, into something that is routinely beat about, yanked on, slammed back into it's retaining clamps, etc., by the occupants of the vehicle? Is there a suitable location on the Visor Wiring to add a Fuse and an Enclosure, that would 'blow' and isolate the Visor's Voltage from the Computer Modules and Components, to protect them from the damage that the Visors are capable of inflicting?

 

"The good news is that they can be disconnected without causing any other issues - quite a few owners have done that anyway, particularly anyone who wants to lock and/or unlock their car in the middle of the night without waking up all the neighbours !!"

Does this mean that when the batteries go bad the whole system will malfunction?
My alarm begins to sound ~15 minutes after I lock the car with the keyfob.

Thank you
Gary

 

My alarm begins to sound ~15 minutes after I lock the car with the keyfob.

Gary - is that the "main" alarm (the horn) or the security sounder that you refer to. From my (very limited) experience, failing NiCads or rusted connections in the security sounder can cause that sounder to operate on a fairly random basis but .......... again with not much personal experience - I don't think the "main" alarm system is affected and the sounder can be totally disconnected with no other issues.

 

Does anyone have a picture of the unit itself, not just the inside. One in situ would also be magnificent!

 

This is with it out of the car.


Edit : I think some US cars - where security would seem to be less of an issue - were fitted with "passive" sounders (i.e. "non-intelligent")
These use the same case and connector, but do not contain rechargeable NiCads and have a less sophisticated operation.





If you put the car steering on full left turn, remove the small access panel in the liner at the front, and look through (with a torch) - you can see it bolted to a bracket below the headlight unit.

 

Thank you so much DevonDavid!

 

This has been a most enlightening thread...
Is there a way to know if my vehicle has an intelligent or passive sounder without having to get into the wheelwell... from something that was said I'm assuming the UK vehicles will have the intelligent type and the US may have passive sounders?
My own sounder worked fine when I got the vehicle back in Feb 2011, then over a couple of years it used to work most of the timeb when locking and opening the car... then in 2013 it started to get erratic working only occasionally and then stopped altogether.. Oddly talking about water ingress mine has been cosseted and kept out of weather and used sparingly in the wet has now just completed 80,000 in its 18yrs.. one of my neighbours has an XJ8 that sits out in all the weather the UK can throw at it and has covered intergalactic mileage and his sounder chirrups every time he presses the fob... lol

I'm another of these strange folk who like everything to work as was intended... so considering trying to locate a new - er one and knowing whats there already I suppose is the best starting point.

 

Not sure of the location of the sounder in your XJR, but active/passive does appear to be market-specific & I don't think it's noted on a build sheet?

Issue with any replacement is that it's just as likely to be sufffering the same problems as the one you already have. It's age as well as water ingress because Nickel Cadmium batteries (like all rechargeables) deteriorate over time. To some extent it's the luck of the draw. Mine too still chirps cheerfully after 18 years, but it will die if I don't do some PM.

I'd remove it and either attempt the repair or just leave it out and seal up the connector.


HTH,
Mike

 

That'll be the sound of an upset cat locked out in the rain.

Graham

 

I think all UK cars have the "intelligent" sounder.
Might be possible to get your arm, with a phone camera on the end of it, into the access hole at the front of the wheelarch. Take a couple of pictures of top and bottom of the sounder - you might have to pull it round a bit - probably won't be in focus but maybe enough to read the writing ??

 

Nice write up, wish I had found it sooner, just done a write up in the general tech section about this on my s type and my removal of it.
My passive siren wasn't intelligent as yours was.

 

Well, I got a locksmith to come out and cut a trunk/door dumb key for $50.00. For another $50.00 they made it smart (Started and allowed car to drive). But I really wanted the fob. Got it outta the trunk.
The car was wrecked by me when my decisions and the “TRAC” differed as what to do. The Insurance company wanted to total it. I pulled out of the claim but they still wrote it as a total!
Wife told me to convert it to a track day car. I don’t trust the upper axle as the upper link enough to actually push it hard enough to do that.
So I have a 2000 BRG XKR CONVERTIBLE that’s for sale!

 

Long awaited update
due to a number of issues never got around to fitting the sounder .. I took the secondhand sounder apart and the batteries were in poor condition .. I soldered flying leads on to the tabs and then filled the unit with Magic Gel IP68 300ml from Raytech (brilliant stuff). available from electrical suppliers and ebay Photo :-


The flying leads are simple 3.5 mm jack socket. (ebay item).
Once I repaired the replacement decided to repair the original ! the battery pack will be fitted via a jack plug.. when fitting complete will post photo.

https://www.raytech.it/product/low-v...ic-gel?lang=en

 

Thanks for this thread. Started looking into the batteries, and realized that there are 6 ea of the 1/3 AAA batteries there. Did some research, and found a normal size AAA battery that is 3.7v. Two of those should easily replace the 6 1/3 AAA batteries, and be easier to install. If link is dead, look for AAA 3.7 Volt Lithium Ion 10440 Battery with Tabs . Do you think this would be a reasonable substitute?




https://www.onlybatteries.com/showit...t1=27&uid=1912

 

Hi, its the charging circuit that could give you problems ...

While NiCd batteries may be trickle charged at a rate of around 0.1C, this is considered too high for NiMH batteries and it is generally accepted that for most NiMH batteries trickle charging should be accomplished at a rate of about 0.05C.

Smartphones and tablets contain protection chips to prevent overload happen. Once the lithium-ion battery reaches 100 percent of its capacity, chargingstops.

My Question is will the charging circuit in the sounder have this? probably not .... You may end up with more problems. My theory is keep to the original battery type NIMH and have a separate battery pack mounted on the rear of the unit via a plug and socket, then in 5 years simply change it when exhausted ...

hope this helps Paul

 

Good perspective Paul. I think I will go with your remote battery pack idea.

 

It has been a while since the last post but does anyone know the functional differences between the two types of sounders? I would like to hear the chirp as the car is locked / unlocked and am not worried about having the alarm sound with a disconnected battery. Many thanks!

 

Thanks for those contributing to this thread, and for those detailing the stripping of the rubber, demonstrating it to be possible. I have a LNC 2620 AC intelligent sounder, that gave me the fault of a repeatedly blown fuse 3, and all the associated problems thereafter. My unit let out the magic smoke, so replacing the nicads will achieve nothing, but I think I know what my blown component is, having dug out the rubber around it, maybe, so I'm going to make an educated guess and replace it. As I looked at how my nicads were anchored down, I assumed that the intermediate half way connection was to provide 3.6V for the electronics, and the final 7.2V, for the full pack voltage, was to power the sounder. Just a guess, but it looks like that to me.

@paul 737 Did you connect three wires, all the way to your remote battery pack, and was one a 3.6V halfway tap off? Also, did it finally work?

I appreciate this is an old thread, but hopefully you'll recall. I can't break it anymore than it is broken, so I'm not too worried, but if you just took only the 7.2V to the board, from your pack, then it will save me some effort. Looks like you have three wires, so I suppose that would explain it, but I can't quite make it out.

Thanks in advance.

Sutty

 

I see now that Paul hasn't been active for over two years, so I don't suppose he'll look in. I've possibly got a working sounder available on eBay for around £15, and if so, I'll run with that as my solution but I'll continue with my experiments on the old one, just for grins. All other issues were immediately resolved, by removing the sounder, as I'm sure you're all aware.

 

Hi Sutty,
I took mine apart after it croaked, & even though it hadn't started blowing fuses, the internal damage was quite severe. I was expecting some kind of piezo transducer, but it turned out to be basically a domed tweeter in a plastic housing.

There is a BD131-type device on the pcb that drives it. This either went short or switched hard on (it fell off the pcb during 'disassembly') and the resulting current heated up the voice coil and melted the whole thing beyond redemption. I put it aside at that point since the pcb is salvageable, hence it's still in a bag 'o bits awaiting attention.


I did try to buff it out...


The centre tag on the batteries is just used to retain the other end of of the cells and is soldered into an island on the pcb.