12 September 2016
My Clifford alarm had lost its confirmation chirps but still worked perfectly which was down to the internal siren battery failing. Clifford say it’s not a user replicable part and want £70 for a new siren. I did my usual and had a search around the web and after 10 mins a plan was hatched.
Siren located in my engine bay and unbolted from its mount.
Then I removed the four screws from the main wiring feed.
Next up removed the two screws which secure the siren.
Pop the siren off and recover the rubber weather seal remembering to refit the seal on reassembly. Inside you can see the failed battery secured to the circuit board with trendy zipties.
Carefully feed the main wiring through and slide the circuit board out then remove the battery by cutting the wires one by one close to the battery.
The replacement battery looks huge (top) but is the same voltage with more power than the original (bottom) so will hopefully last longer. It was £10 and is for a Gtech vacuum, you can get them off Amazon or eBay. You could also use two old style cordless 3.6v battery packs and solder them together if you want to keep the same power battery and smaller battery size.
Install spade connectors on the battery wires coming off the circuit board then reinstall back into the siren housing. Tight squeeze not forgetting to pop the plastic sheet under the battery so it doesn’t short on the soldered circuit board contacts.
All done and tested with the confirmation chirps now working on the alarm allowing an audible lock/unlock and alarm programming table confirmation when setting features. This also means the alarm is officially Thatcham 1 approved again as the siren will continue to sound if all wires were to be cut.