Customer with valcom 3 zone control,seperate valcom power supply, valcom feedback eliminator, about 25 valcom 24 v speakers. In one noisy area I added one horn (had two before). Ran a homerun back to the zone control. Shared a zone already in use. Customer ordered more horns for the noisy area.Not lound enough yet. This past week the general contractor disconnected the old horns on that zone, now the new horns are too loud. That would point to a bad wire or horn, right, or do I look futher ?

Thanks Gary S.

No, it's probably a bad horn. There is a distance limitation in Valcom powered horns, IIRC it's about 600 cable feet at 24 awg. Start reconnecting the horns one at a time and you'll probably find the bad one.

Carl

Carl.

This zone is less then 450'. I will be replacing the horns with a different color when the remodel is complete, maybe that will correct the trouble.

Thanks again Gary S.

Gary,

If the volume increases on a certain number of horns after other horns are removed, this would indicate a power issue. Let's say I was using a 1 Amp, -24Vdc power supply, which will power a maximum of (4) 5W horns. If I have (6) horns on this power supply, each horn will not have a full 250mA current to pull from the power supply. This will result in the horns only outputting at a certain volume level. If I were to remove (2) horns, the volume level of the remaining (4) horns should amplify, given each is able to consume is 250mA current to produce nearly 100% efficiency.

To test this theory in your application, I would suggest measuring the DC voltage at a horn at idle and during a page. At idle the voltage should read 24Vdc and during a page the voltage should be no less than 19Vdc.

Typically, a bad horn will not negatively affect any other horns on the same cable run or power supply.

Good luck and keep us posted with your results.

Valcom Tech Support

Great answer! .... I have always been very happy with your support when i call as well.