DIY ELK M1 Install "What's that wire" Challenge

[sleeve]

So I'm upgrading to an M1 from a child's play thing aka Vista 10P. As I pry the wires off the old board that I can identify and tag them, I find myself left with a confusing wire and I need suggestions.

The wire appears as a four conductor at the panel, with red and black to aux power, yellow to zone 6 lo and green to EOLR then zone 6 hi. I have already identified the keypad wires and they appropriately use aux power and the keypad data lines on terminals 6 and 7. All other wires that enter the panel have their yellow and green wires cut down to hide in the outer insulation. There are no other wires chain spliced onto yellow or green, unlike the remaining five zones that need to support 27 sensors and have several chained splices per zone.

Here's the kicker. The smokes throughout the house are all Firex FADC 120v AC with battery backup. They take AC neutral, AC common, and they're wired with 14/3 with red used as the intercommunication to make the whole house scream. Three conductors. I've opened every one and I see no 20 gauge four wire anywhere. All of the detectors are Firex FADC, all installed at the same time. The house is 2006 construction. There is no smoke detector relay in the panel box, buried in the wall behind it, or in either breaker panel. I put a toner on the wire and could not pick up tone in the smoke detector j-boxes.

I've lived here about two years and pretty much discovered every inch of the place including the attic. I'm stumped on what could be connected to this wire and I'm not at the point of drywall destroying curiosity. I'm certain that until I know what it is, it isn't touching the new panel.

Getting access to the installer is not an option, it was subbed out to subs that no longer exist after the housing crash and the prime contractor on the subdivision is bankrupt and dissolved. I'm on my own.

For now, it's no biggie, I'll just keep it disconnected as I progress through the project. I may stumble into what it is by process of tracing sensors to wires as I tear apart the splices used to fit the whole house into 5 zones.

That's my story, have at it. I could post pictures, but I'd need to dress the wires a little for it to make sense, it looks like Rapunzel at the moment.

 

[JonW]

If you have exposed wiring anywhere, you may be able to trace it with a tone generator. Alternatively, you may be able to place a continuity tester on it with a sounder and test all zones in the house. It's possible they wired some zone to it that wasn't chained into the other 5 zones. How about the garage door or some other entrance that they didn't want to generate an alarm so they put it on it's own zone?

 

[Neurorad]

maybe a motion, or glass break sensor?

try the toner again, with the probe to the wall in possible locations

can you figure out if the cable is traveling up toward the ceiling, or down toward the floor, behind the panel?

maybe a siren/sounder that you haven't found yet? gotta be somewhere, if you haven't found one yet

if the alarm is still functional, try setting off the alarm to find the siren; prob in the eaves of the house somewhere

 

[jaysonc]

I had similar mystery wires in my house as well. In the end they were pre-wiring for motion sensors and keypad panels that were never installed.

The original alarm company my contractor subbed for the work installed an extra 4 conductor wire for a bedroom keypad and an extra motion sensor on the second floor.

After I closed on the house they called me and tried to up-sell me on these features. I guess the wire was cheap to install before sheetrock and they had a good track record of selling the upgrades.

You may have the same thing.

 

[sleeve]

I'll hit it with a toner again and poke around some random walls. I'm in two story no basement construction, so I get limited intel on midfloor wiring.

I totally buy the idea that this is a pre-wired upsell, though. The place was built in a housing market that supports that, is a typical Floridian subdivision, and was built by a developer who would absolutely prewire upsells.

Thanks for the quick responses and good ideas.

 

[JonW]

I can see a builder doing pre-wire for an upsell, but I can't see them actually attaching it to the panel like it was unless there was a sensor at the other end.

 

[Digger]

I'll hit it with a toner again and poke around some random walls. I'm in two story no basement construction, so I get limited intel on midfloor wiring.

I totally buy the idea that this is a pre-wired upsell, though. The place was built in a housing market that supports that, is a typical Floridian subdivision, and was built by a developer who would absolutely prewire upsells.

Thanks for the quick responses and good ideas.

If the wiring was connected to the panel it was probably connected to a device such as a motion detector or glassbreak. If the panel is still operational unplug the phone line and short the Zone 6 where the wires are connected and see what comes up on the keypad display. It should help you track down where the wires go.

 

[mustangcoupe]

I am guessing a motion detector, is there one in the attic?

 

[Steve]

If its a 4 conductor wire and 2 wires go to power and 2 to a zone it pretty much has to be a powered device like a motion or glass break sensor. Some of those sensors can be pretty small and flush mounted somewhere. Or maybe it got hidden behind some furniture you put in? You'll never track the wire inside a wall with a toner without knowing at least where to look. If you do find it that way, immediately go out and buy Lotto tickets.

 

[Neurorad]

I've had 3 houses with alarms installed professionally, and each one had a motion detector covering the foyer/front door area. Start there?

 

[JimS]

What was zone 6 on the old system? Unless it wasn't used it seems like you should have this info but since that is so obvious I guess you don't. Triggering zone 6 and seeing what is reported was a good suggestion. Even if the old system has been removed it could be hooked up enough to get this answer if you still have the hardware. You could try an rf signal generator and a radio - might have a bit more range than other signal tracers. You might carefully look for sensors. Do you have a complete list of sensors? If you are only missing one you can do it by elimination.

Good luck.

 

[sleeve]

It is a motion sensor. Thanks for pointing at the glowing red thing in the corner of my family room. Fortunately my post count allows the obvious to elude me. I'm going to need to regulate my pace of posting or else I'm going to lose that excuse.

Can anyone point me to a good resource on wiring an rjset? I have an OnQ interface and it's been beaten on by an alarm monitoring company and a phone company to the point that I now need to exceed their collective knowledge and get it redone right. I had what I thought was a correct seize setup on the old alarm, but once I pulled the phone wires off the old panel and I still had dialtone on both phone lines, I knew there has to be some phone company screw the alarm guys rewiring at play.

This is the phone interface: OnQ 364725-02. It supports wiring a security system and offers a quick bypass on/off switch. I can't post links yet, but on the resource page on the vendor's site, there are pinouts in the PDF listed there. I expect I'll use those pinouts to build an rj45 plug based on the telco and house tip and ring I currently send up to the alarm box on raw cat5 wires. The loose wires converted to a plug will then plug into the rjset. Inside the rjset, I'll color match the spades from the rjset cable to their ring terminals. I'll plug the rj45 plug from the rjset cable into the elk-952 surge suppressor control in jack. I'll plug the 952's plug into the OnQ's rj45 jack. I'll flip the security bypass switch to off.

Does that make sense?

I know I may need to figure out what the telco tech did, but I know the hot pairs at the demarc and I can refresh myself on t568a pinouts since it's been a few years, but it all sort of flows like water down a hill so I should be able to get the punchdown whole wheat without losing too much hair. What I'm not entirely clear on with the OnQ product linked above is whether that rj45 jack is where the telco line is first brought into the interface or whether it comes in on the line input punchdown and when the security bypass switch is set to off, then the rj45 jack is used as a passthrough sending the telco line to the alarm and receiving the house phones pair back from it with dial tone as long as the alarm does not need to seize.

If the rj45 jack was an input, then when I set the security bypass switch to off, I'd get no dialtone when I have no plug inserted into the OnQ's jack. I do. That tells me that regardless of the security switch setting, telco inbound comes into the punchdown. I have to also guess that since the security jack is a jack, you should be able to pull the plug and still have phones. What I still don't get is why is it that when I disable the security bypass and I've got nothing in the rj45 jack on the OnQ, I still get dialtone? I'm not seeing anything advanced enough on the OnQ for it to know that there's no plug in the rj45.

 

[Steve]

The OnQ 364725-02 is a video distribution amplifier??? Don't blame that on your post count

 

[sleeve]

Steve, I believe I'm saved on this one. It's a combo module. It's got a 1x9 telco punchdown with a security bypass and, yeah, they threw in a side order of video. If I could post links, I could show a different URL where there is a good zoom on the module's telco panel.

 

[Steve]

Ok, sorry about that, I just read the title. I see it now. So, I will make some assumptions - the OnQ will act as your phone distribution to the house plus your RJ31x. The 'security jack' being the RJ31x. It looks like there are different models, either 110 block or RJ45 but the concept is the same on either. First I would simply test that the distribution block works properly. To do that, unplug the alarm from the Security jack and move the switch to ON. If everything is wired properly you should now simply have dial tone on all the phone ports. In this scenario you will have the phone in from your telco demarc/NID going to the line in on the OnQ and all your phone runs plugged into one of the nine ports on the OnQ block.

Ok, now once you know phones work fine its time to plug the alarm in. You should use the pinout/diagram on the top of Page 7 in the ELk Manual. It's easier to follow than the OnQ manual where they are color blind. Take the RJ45 cable that came with your M1 RJ31x and cut the spades off of the Gray, Brown, Red and Green wires and connect the Gray to R1 on the control, Brown to T1, Red to Ring and Green to Tip. Plug the RJ45 end of that cable into the Security Jack on the OnQ and flip the switch to OFF. If everything is wired right now then the M1 phone circuit should work and it should seize the line. You can check the M1 by doing the *** and see if it picks up. You can now check to see if it seizes the line during an alarm/communicator call out (assuming all that stuff is setup right in the M1). When you are satisfied that all works then insert the 952 (unplug the RJ45 from security jack on OnQ and plug it into the 952. Then plug the 952 back into the OnQ security jack. It should continue to work as tested.