Connecting driveway gate to Elk M1?

[AnotherOne]

I have a gate about 900 feet from the house. There's a phone cable running to the gate with a twisted pair connected to the controller such that when the pair is shorted together the gate opens. This is connected to Out 3 on my M1, so when an alarm condition occurs, I can open the gate for the fire / police. Another twisted pair goes to the "phone" on the gate so someone can call the house to get in - you press "9" on the phone to open the gate.

So, today I discovered that the pair going to Out 3 has an interesting characteristic. When the gate is closed, it has 29.3 Volts on it and when the gate is open (via "9" on the phone or "###" on the phone which says just open the gate and keep it open) is has 0 volts. I figure this has very little current since it's on 20 guage wire 900 feet away.

So, I'd like to get this into an elk zone so that I can have rules for the gate opening and closing and being opened at night.

What's the best way to connect this to an input sensor on the M1 - would I use an Elk senisitive relay and a resistor to get the load down to 24 volts or is there a way to directly connect it to a sensor. Note, it will still be connected to Out 3 so this would be added on in parallel to the out 3 wires.

Thanks.

 

[carry15+1]

Why do you need another input? Can't you just use the Elk to do something when output #3 is ON and something else when it's OFF? Seems you already have the status in the Elk, unless you're trying to use another set of contacts to VERIFY that the gate is actually open.

 

[Spanky]

You can use the analog sensing of an input. Put a 10K ohm resistor from an input terminal on the M1 to the positive wire going to the gate. Put a 6.8k from the same terminal to negative. This will reduce the input voltage to the M1 to less than 14 volts. Look at the zone voltage level on the keypad menu 8. Write some Rules so that when the analog level is greater than 8 volts approximately then...... and another Rule if the analog voltage is less than 3 volts then.....


You will have one heck of a lightning rod running 900 feet so beware.

 

[AnotherOne]

Why do you need another input? Can't you just use the Elk to do something when output #3 is ON and something else when it's OFF? Seems you already have the status in the Elk, unless you're trying to use another set of contacts to VERIFY that the gate is actually open.

Because the phone is used to open the gate, not the security system. When someone presses the call button, you have a short conversation with them and if you want to grant them access, you just press the 9 key from the phone, you don't go run to a keypad and press some function key. We just use out 3 to make sure the gate is open when an alarm condition occurs.

 

[AnotherOne]

You can use the analog sensing of an input. Put a 10K ohm resistor from an input terminal on the M1 to the positive wire going to the gate. Put a 6.8k from the same terminal to negative. This will reduce the input voltage to the M1 to less than 14 volts. Look at the zone voltage level on the keypad menu 8. Write some Rules so that when the analog level is greater than 8 volts approximately then...... and another Rule if the analog voltage is less than 3 volts then.....


You will have one heck of a lightning rod running 900 feet so beware.

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Just to make sure I understand this completely, let's say the positive gate wire is yellow and the negative gate wire is blue. So I put a 10k resistor between the yellow wire and the input zone. And then I put a 6.8K resistor between the blue wire and the input zone. So both resistors are going into the same input zone and nothing goes into the "negative" portion of that zone. Right?

And What wattage resistors should I use, 1/2 watt?

And fortunately, we live in the Seattle area and lightning storms are very infrequent. We do have a surge protector on the phone lines, but not on the pairs that runs to the gate.

 

[AnotherOne]

You can use the analog sensing of an input. Put a 10K ohm resistor from an input terminal on the M1 to the positive wire going to the gate. Put a 6.8k from the same terminal to negative. This will reduce the input voltage to the M1 to less than 14 volts. Look at the zone voltage level on the keypad menu 8. Write some Rules so that when the analog level is greater than 8 volts approximately then...... and another Rule if the analog voltage is less than 3 volts then.....

Okay, I think I'm understanding what to do. Let me make 100% sure I'm reading this correctly.
Take a 6.8k resistor and go from the zone positive to the zone negative.
Take a 10k resistor and go from the zone positive to the postive leg on the gate wire.

Right?

 

[asteinmetz]

Is there a wireless solution for this sort of thing? My mailbox is 500 ft from the house and a "you've got mail!" notification would be nice. Seems like some solar powered transmitter might be attached to the box to detect door open/close and would be equally useful for a gate.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Is there a wireless solution for this sort of thing? My mailbox is 500 ft from the house and a "you've got mail!" notification would be nice. Seems like some solar powered transmitter might be attached to the box to detect door open/close and would be equally useful for a gate.

Do you happen to have a W800 X-10 RF receiver by any chance? If you do I have a suggestion you may want to try.

 

[AnotherOne]

Okay, I got this mostly working.

I got a bit concerned about the lightning thing, so rather than hook it directly into the panel, I've used a mini box to hold everything. In the mini box is an ellk-912 relay connected to out 7. With the gate wires running into the Normally Open terminals. Also, the gate wires go into a 4.4k resistor and a 12v led. Taped to the led is a photo-resistor (got this info from the How-To section on monitoring status lights) which goes to a zone on the m1. This way the gate wires are totally isolated from the M1. When the led is on (gate closed), the zone voltage drops to 4 volts, when the led is (gate open) off the voltage is 13. Setting the zone to EOL enabled seems to make it work fine, though there's a OPEN+ error since there's really no EOL resistor, just the photo-resistor.

Thanks for all the advice and I'm on to the next project.

 

[bobr]

Is there a wireless solution for this sort of thing? My mailbox is 500 ft from the house and a "you've got mail!" notification would be nice. Seems like some solar powered transmitter might be attached to the box to detect door open/close and would be equally useful for a gate.

Art,

I use the dakota alert motion sensor and they have a battery operated contact sensor(see link below) with a 500' range. I have been using the outdoor wireless motion sensor for more then a year and it works great. I bought the contact sensor for a mail box sensor as you mentioned, but haven;t gotten around to hooking it up. Range wise, the sensor is 480' from the house, and the rcvr is inside the house.

The rcvr has built in relays to hook up to the elk.

http://www.dakotaalert.com/catalog/product...;products_id=74


Bob

 

[bobr]

You can use the analog sensing of an input. Put a 10K ohm resistor from an input terminal on the M1 to the positive wire going to the gate. Put a 6.8k from the same terminal to negative. This will reduce the input voltage to the M1 to less than 14 volts. Look at the zone voltage level on the keypad menu 8. Write some Rules so that when the analog level is greater than 8 volts approximately then...... and another Rule if the analog voltage is less than 3 volts then.....


You will have one heck of a lightning rod running 900 feet so beware.

Spanky,

I have many "lightning rods" connected from the m1 to sensors around the property. Opto isolating all of them doesn't seem practical. Some of the wires are also used for video feeds from cameras connected to baluns(not to m1).

Would the elk 951 work for this application?

Bob

 

[Spanky]

The biggest problem with running underground wire is the induced transient when lightning strikes. As the lightning current travels through the ground and across the buried wire, a large transient is injected into the control equipment. 10 feet from the control with a good earth ground is where a lightning suppressor would be ideal.

 

[jim3342]

Is there a wireless solution for this sort of thing? My mailbox is 500 ft from the house and a "you've got mail!" notification would be nice. Seems like some solar powered transmitter might be attached to the box to detect door open/close and would be equally useful for a gate.

Do you happen to have a W800 X-10 RF receiver by any chance? If you do I have a suggestion you may want to try.

BraveSirRobin,

I have the W800 x-10 rf and I'm interested in hearing your suggestion?