Security System Selection
The specification of an alarm system can be a daunting task, even on a good day. However, alarm panels are not considered rocket science and can be installed easily, once you define what your requirements are. This section therefore is designed to take you through the piece selection process listing all the components required. It is possible to purchase pre-defined systems, however I have found over time that this is not the best way to go. Price movements in the DSC products make it unreasonable to create packages, and usually packages are created to hook you on the product, although some of the pieces may not be required or are inappropriate for your specific use. Go through the list below, picking out what is required and then I can offer discounts based on the total package
DSC is a good product, sold all over the world, been selling it for 15 years now. Generally, it does not fail, warranty returns are virtually non-existant. After all, how good is a security package that fails. Serious people, serious productOnce you have your alarm installed and up an working, You can get it monitored. A few things to know here about monitoring. Firstly, they will give you perhaps 3 false triggers for free before they might bill you for each false trigger, so get used to your panel BEFORE you sign up, unless of course you want to start paying extra money. Secondly, when you call up a monitoring company, they will want to send a person out, lets call him Guido, to inspect the system, for a nominal fee of course. This actually makes sense and is part of the due process, they want to make sure you put it together correctly, after all, they will be monitoring it. Here's the Kicker, there is a 4 digit code you punch in, called the 'dealer lockout code', without this code, you cannot re-configure/alter/change any part of your panel. Guido is good, and will punch in this code before you know it, but you are smart, let him do his thing and as he starts out the door, say something like, 'hold a second my man, I just want to change my exit delay from 30 to 45 seconds, hey, whats this ? I can't get into my panel. You have been warned. Is this fun or what ?
| 4 hardwired zones and up to 32 wireless zones | ||
| 6 hardwired zones and up to 32 wireless zones | ||
| 8-32 zones, hardwired, wireless | ||
| 8-64 zones, hardwired, wireless | ||
| 8-128 zones, hardwired, wireless, commercial strength, big houses, or for those that want it all | ||
| 6-16 Zones, hardwired, wireless options, basic residential, up to 8 keypads, 2 partitions, will do most houses | ||
| 8-32 Zones, hardwired, wireless options up to 32 zones, More popular, up to 8 keypads, 4 partitions, common panel, replaces the Power 832 | ||
| 8-64 Zones, hardwired, wireless options up to 32 zones, More popular, up to 8 keypads, 8 partitions, common panel, replaces the Power 864, not much between the 1832, other than more zones and partitions |
checkout page 3 for a great cross refference |
Once you have the panel selected, you will need odds and ends to get it up and running
| To supply power to the system, you need to connect it to the 120VAC. This unit is the easiest to install, just plug it into the wall and connect the output to the panel. Although easy to install, it is also the easiest to remove, or fall out. This unit transforms the 120VAC down to 16VAC which is then converted to 12VDC on the main board. | ||
| This is my favourite, but is hardwired. You may wish to add a switch to turn it ON/OFF, but it will not fall out of the wall outlet. |
| This is a minimum battery to put on the system. Battery selection should be an important consideration. A 4AH battery means you will get 4 amps of power for 1 hour, or 1 amp of power for 4 hours. The bigger the system, the shorter the battery backup time will be. Minimal cost cutting systems and "specials" have this battery, I hate them, but it does work and fits inside the can. Just remember that when you have a power cut, your system is dead in less than an hour. When the power is restored, especially to a dead panel, the motherboard does dual duty, running the system and charging the battery. This is when your panel fails. I have also been told, but not confirmed aka 'Mythbusters' that if you drain a battery like these to zero, its life expectancy is cut in half, get the bigger one below, not the place to be frugal | ||
| This is my battery of choice, where for a couple of dollars more you get nearly twice the battery duration. It also fits in the can. Batteries should be replaced every couple of years. | ||
| For bigger systems, this is the biggest battery that will fit in a standard 832/864 can, but leaves virtually no space for anything other than the main board. If you go for this size, you may wish to add a second can to the system. |
| The tamper switch is used to monitor the door on the can, this then is set up as a zone. I'm always amazed at how many people forget to protect the panel | ||
| To mount the tamper, you need this little gizzy mounting bracket. On some off the Alarm panels, like the PC5020NK these are part of the kit, some others are not, if you order these and they are already in the kit, I'll adjust your order accordingly. | ||
| The Cabinet can be screwed shut, or you can put a lock on it |
Keypads are the principal method by which you configure and use the panel. In a compact system you may only have one keypad. In more comprehensive systems you may have many of them. In general, in multi keypad systems, the LCD5500Z is placed at the front door, as it looks good and is the keypad of choice for programming the system. The LED units are a pain, unless you have done this before. The "Z" denotes it as having a built in zone, usually assigned to the door contact that the keypad is next to. Other keypads are located at other entrance doors, such as backdoor, garage door entrances, and side door entrances. You may put a keypad in your bedroom, to arm when you go to bed. These secondary keypads are the LED series, unless you have the budget for the LCDS. Patitions are logical sub panels within the main system. An example of multiple partitions would be a building with multiple offices, such as a doctors office where each doctor has access to their office, but not to others. Each office has a keypad to that discrete partition, but is all controlled by the one panel. At the residential level, you may have 2 apartments, or a nannies quarters each with their own entrance
| 8 Zone LED Keypad | |
| 16 Zone LED Keypad. The Zone lights up when active, good visual. Allocate second row of leds for emergency only, top row, doors windows,motion | |
| 32 Zone LED Keypad. This gives you 4 rows of LEDS | |
| Liquid Crystal Keypad, Programmable Messages | |
| Liquid Crystal Keypad, Fixed Messages | |
| LCD keypad,fixed messages, with RF receiver, low temp sensor, Can be a cost effective way to add an RF receiver |
In the Fall of 2006, DSC introduced the new PowerSeries keypads, where I'm sure will replace the ones listed above, they are about the same price as the ones above, but have a curvy design. They Will work on the 832/864 systems, just as the keypads above work with the new PowerSeries 1832/64 panels. I guess it boils down to wether you want the linear looking keypads or these new curvy models. A good feature is that these keypads, most of them support English, French, Spanish. The term wireless keypad here means that the keypad is hard wired, but it will recieve wireless commands from keyfobs, etc. There is no such thing as a 'wireless' keypad
| 8 Zone LED Keypad. This has larger buttons, adjustable backlight, and a zone that can be configured as input or output. Zone can be used as a low temp warning sensor | |
| This looks the same as the nit above, except that it has the ability to receive RF from the Wireless transmitters, such as keyfobs, motions, door/window contacts, will support up to 32 wireless zones and 16 wireless keyfobs. | |
| 16 Zone LED Keypad. Has all of the same features as the other keypads, but is 16 zones | |
| Liquid Crystal Keypad, Programmable Messages | |
| Same as the above, but has a wireless receiver builtin for keyfobs etc etc | |
| Liquid Crystal Keypad, Fixed Messages, also called an ICON keypad, it does not have a programmable text based screen, but rather displays images | |
| 5501 flavour with wireless builtin | |
| These are small footprint keypads, good for back doors, garages, this one has idiot lights and will do up to 8 zones | |
| This is another small footprint unit, with an I-O terminal, does up to 64 zones, 8 partitions ICON based |
There are so many contacts to select from that I have listed the most common. Call me if you have a specific requirement Generally, there are two types: concealed and surface mount. Concealed require a little more effort, but they are invisible. Surface mounts are easier to install, but look ugly. Concealed are installed into the door and window jam, surface mounts are placed on the frame. Your window/door system will dictate the contacts. Metal doors and windows are again different. Some contacts have screw terminals and some have "solder tails" or "pigtails"
| This is the smallest version of the standard alarm contact, with screw terminals to give a neat finish, small size format | ||
| This is the small version of the standard alarm contact. Screw terminals to give a neat finish, small size format | ||
| This is popular, smaller profile than the screw terminal size but you have to solder or crimp the wires at the end of the pigtails. This is for when the wire emerges from the wall to the surface mount jack | ||
| Concealed screw is a good way to go, makes for a neat finish. Cable emerges through hole in frame. Make sure the screws are tight and not shorting with exposed cable leads | ||
| This format ispretty popular over the screw as being cheaper, but you twist the pigtails to the alarm cable feed. Make sure they are twisted tight, carefull when you pull through the wall. Contacts can be painted, invisible | ||
| For load switching, or those that want a roller plunger action | ||
| Metal doors are a special issue, wider plastic housing, these work, also good if you have a big hole to fill in | ||
| 2 inch gap, loose fitting doors, windows. low tolerance applications | ||
| Drive your car over these | ||
| Garage Floor mount, detects the door being open or closed, beware of doors that rattle in the breeze |
Variations in Motions is endless, here are the most common, with the most popular being the BV300DP, The 'D' means digital, not to be confused with the analog unit, BV300, which, is also a popular unit. Remember when mounting a motion that the traffic has to walk across the beam, not into it. There is also a term known as 'walk speed' such that if you crawl, slowly, or run quickly in frontr of a motion it will not trigger. Do not place motions looking at windows, bright lights, directly over hot air registers. I have listed the most common items here, if you have a specific indoor/outdoor application, send me email Doug Harper Outdor applications are funs, especially here in Canada with a 9 month season known as 'winter', not to be confused with the other 6 month season called 'construction'
| Analog, but with about a 40 foor range, Cheapest we have. | ||
| This is the current generation of the above, but now digital, which makes them more reliable than the old analogs. | ||
| A PET is an animal from 4 inches long, to 16 inches high, and up 100 pounds, unless its a cat, and you have shelves | ||
| In big houses, offices, big room environment or commercial this is the motion of choice. Your PET can be up to 2.5 feet high(0.75m) and up to 85 pounds(38kg). 40 foot range | ||
| Handy, but total optional mounting bracket for the BV series of motion | ||
| Walls | ||
| If you want to go from the ceiling and cover off a broad area this will do the job, but they do assume you have a high ceiling to start off with, otherwise wall mount could be more effective | ||
| This is a good combo, ceiling mount pir and a glass break detector | ||
| Microwave and IR in the same box. Dual techniques, harsher environments than the above motions. Good for garages, where cars generate IR |
This is the noise and flashing light section. DSC panels, out of the box limit you to 55 watts. This of course can be changed by adding additional boards and power supplies, 55 watts gives you enough noise to wake you up. Alarm panels can only make noise for 3 minutes before they shut down. You may wish to mount them inside the cold air return duct and let them bounce around when they fire off. Placing them in the duct causes the sound to go throughout the building with being able to figure out where the sound is comming from. Some of these can be set to produce two different sounds to distinguish between fire and burglary
| Commonly used to mount on the wall in conjunction with the louder SD30 siren below. As it is visible, it may get ripped off the wall in the event of a buglary | ||
| Small siren for those that want to make some noise, but not to rock the neighbourhood. This is a weather resistant siren, not intended to be placed outside,flapping in the breeze, but are OK in the garage | ||
| This is the most common siren that I sell. Makes a lot of noise. Again, not a weatherproof unit, bit is weather resistant. To place out doors you need to mount it in a case. Dual tone siren, one sound for fire and one sound for burglary. | ||
| This cabinet is designed to be placed outdoors, to be used as the enclosure for the 20 and 30 watt horn type sirens The unit,being made of steel, that is painted will rust and leave rust marks down the side of the wall if exposed to direct weather. It should bemounted with a tamper for the door and a tamper on the case, such that the case cannot be removed from the wall without signalling an alarm condition | ||
| These are the tampers that go with the outdoor enclosure. You need 2 tampers, one for the door and one for the box on the wall | ||
| This is a really slick Stainless Steel enclosure, solid, with tamper, designed for outdoor use, small, loud, will not stain the wall | ||
| This is the strobe light for the ELK150RT |
| This is optional, its a wiring block that in an emergency, and if you have wired it properly, will allow the alarm panel to drop the internal phone line, seize control of the phone line and initiate a phone or some communication event on the phone line | ||
| Pop a few of these on basement windows, or hidden windows, garage door, shed windows, confuse everyone These are reversable, stick to insode or outside surface window | ||
| Look the same as the ones above, but in FRENCH | ||
| 22AWG wire, 4 conductor, in a reel box, standard cable | ||
| 100 or 200 foot runs are ok, but its a mess. Get a whole box, keeps for years, easy to use |
You now have a working panel, powered up, keypads, motions, contacts, sirens, all hardwired, under your control
This is the part where you start to spend some money, as the complexity goes up. So here are the primary add-on expansion boards
| These remote expansion ports allow for savings in cable pulls, 8 zones per card, to add an extra 8 zones you add another card. These 8 ports cards are connected through a single 4 wire cable to the main board. | ||
| The most popular expansion board. Quite the device..its alive. Complete panel control of your alarm panel over the Telephone, arm, disarm, temperature. Includes an X10 telephone transceiver and scheduling system. Worth every penny. It talks to you and you respond by pushing numbers, password protected. | ||
| All of the above alarm panels will dial out to a series of numbers when they are triggered. They do not play you a message, as the panel is attempting to connect to a central monitoring station. What happens is your cell phone wll ring, but nobody will be on the end of the phone, you hang up and it dials back, depending on how you have it configured. If you have call display, you will know whats going on, otherwise the repetition of the phone ringing will give it away. some people want to hear a message played which is why I have this unit. You will not be able to determine the problem by calling back, unless of course you installed the Escort Voice card, which explains why it is such a popular unit | ||
| To add wireless to a DSC panel, you have to add an external receiver, connected via the COMBUS(4 wire) to the main panel. Allows you to add 32 zones of in a mixture of anything wireless. The wireless receiver keypad 5501Z433 is another way, but has some restrictions. This is the rock solid method, and can be had with keyfobs in kit form 5132WKK1 and 5132WKK2 | ||
| This device allows you to control central heating and cooling systems and configurations. it comes in several models, the 300 is a common seller EMS100 , EMS200 , EMS400 , EMS500 The unit works witht an escort with the TC option - temperature control. This allows you to phone the building, and this voice talks to you about the status of the place, including the temperature and furnace situation. Indoor and Outdoor , probes can be added to measure other hard wired remote locations. Not a cheap proposition to get up and running. Electric baseboards are another issue, which would require an output module to drive contactors, which is messy, but reliable. You could add the X10 Gateway PSC04 to the EScort card and send ON and OFF commands to Power Switches controlling the baseboards, much neater method. Small 120vac relays would be added to the switched side and fead back into the panel as a zone, giving you a power on/off confirmation. Either way, a great Add-On toy to the system | ||
| This is a common add-on board for those of you that have the need for more power It provides 1A @ 12.5VDC auxiliary power for additional modules and devices Includes 4 fully programmable high current outputs - rated at 1 A @ 12VDC, fused - will provide 3 A short term if battery backup connected. Each output will sink up to 3A Output. Output #1 can be used as a supervised bell output - 700mA max. Each output programmable to activate for any of 24 options Connect up to 1000' away from the main panel via KEYBUS/COMBUS. Fully supervised for : tamper, low battery, AC power loss, and auxiliary power trouble . Maximum 1 module per system Module current draw : 20mA @ 12VDC. To round this card out, you would usually mount it in its own Cabinet with a Lock, Tamper, Tamper Bracket, Battery, and Power Supply |
Congratulations, we have both made it to the end of the page, which leads me to my favourite part
