3 windows off one wire for security system?

[ahreno]

I have a few locations where i have a bank of 3 windows... they each open separately. I'm curious how to setup the contacts. I would rather not have them each be a separate "identity" and would rather they all be considered one. I just need to know if one of them in the bank is open not which one specificially.

How do i wire for this? Do i run one cat5 to the window then split off that with 24/2 or 24/4? Can i just run 24/4 to the window bank and wire them in series or some other way?

Help?

PS. I currently have a bunch of cat5 and 1000' of 24/4 and would prefer 24/4 usage over cat5

 

[personalt]

I have a few locations where i have a bank of 3 windows... they each open separately. I'm curious how to setup the contacts. I would rather not have them each be a separate "identity" and would rather they all be considered one. I just need to know if one of them in the bank is open not which one specificially.

How do i wire for this? Do i run one cat5 to the window then split off that with 24/2 or 24/4? Can i just run 24/4 to the window bank and wire them in series or some other way?

Help?

PS. I currently have a bunch of cat5 and 1000' of 24/4 and would prefer 24/4 usage over cat5

To do this you just need to make one big loop. Run 2 wires to window one Red & Green lets say. Red goes to the contact on window one, leave green unused for now. Take another wire and connect it to the second contact on window one and connect that with one side of the contact on window two. So between the windows you only need a single wire(if you use 24/4 you will just leave 3 wires unused). Take another single wire and connect it to the other side of the window contact on window 2 and then connect it to one side of the contact on window 3. Take another single wire and bring it back to the green wire that you came up to the first window on.

This is assuming you have NORMALLY CLOSED window contacts. on normally closed window contacts the alarm is expecting that if it sends a single down wire A it gets it back on wire B. In essence a normally closed contact will pass the signal on if the window is closed. With normally closed contacts you would just wire them in a big loop so if any window is opened the loop breaks. This would be considered wiring in series.

For normally open window contacts the alarm triggers if a siginal down wire A comes back on wire B. For that you can take a red/green off the alarm and connect it to the two contacts on the first sensor. Take another red and green and connect them to the other red and green and alarm sensor wires and connect that wire to the next contact. You would do the same going from sensor two to sensor three. To clarify, at sensor one you have the red from the alarm touching one side of the sensor connected to another red wire which takes you to sensor two. same with green.. The idea here is that when any window opens it connects the red and the green. This would be considered wiring in parallel.

you could google wiring in parallel or wiring in series for some pictures, as they say a picture is worth 1000 words

 

[Neurorad]

 

[ahreno]

Thats awesome and helps so much! How do i know what size resistor needs to go in?

The only other area of confusion i have is where to run the actual physical wiring... meaning the wire comes up through a small hole in the window sill and connects to the sensor. Then would i run wire back down the hole, through the studs and up the bottom sill in the next window? I've never actually seen a window sensor so perhaps they come with a small piece of wire already connected that i feed through the hole...

 

[Neurorad]

Brave Sir Robin (BSR) has a how-to on this forum, somewhere. Awesome write-up.
found it - http://www.cocoontech.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=739

Manufacturer of alarm panel defines size/resistance of resistor.

I think Elk and HAI use 2 different ones, and I think one or the other (or both) gives you the option for 'unsupervised' (no resistor).

Leave a few inches of slack where the resistor is connected, so that you can pull the resistor out of the hole (with the recessed sensor) that you've drilled in the window sill (keeping it attached to the sensor), for future replacement.

Some sensors come with leads/wires, or you can buy them without the leads. A well-known company is GRI.

ASIHome.com offers a good selection of GRI products, and is cocoontech rated '4-stars'. Tony at SetNetPro.com carries GRI, also, and he's well-known for customer service.

A lot of people don't use a resistor (end of line resistor, EOLR) for home alarms. Most people think it isn't worth it.

A somewhat useful alarm forum:

http://forum.doityourself.com/electronic-a...ity-devices-87/

Another useful website:

http://www.structuredhomewiring.com/Alarm.aspx