Elk door chime

[WCG]

Hello all, first post here, love the site.
 
My personal residence had an old reliable FBII-XL1219 alarm panel and over Christmas she rolled over. 
 
Installed an Elk M1G, turned on the chime at the keypad and my wife hates it, I personally don't mind the chime, it was enabled on the old panel and admittedly it was much quieter.
 
Elk tells me there is no way to turn down the volume or change the tone and they offered no workarounds.
 
I am sure this group has a solution.

 

[Del91574]

There used to be a way to adjust the tone of the chime...I'd have to dig through old documents from about 2005, but I swear there was, unless they did away with it in a later firmware.
 
Volume, no.
 
Have you considered using system speakers and possibly a rule and recording an acceptable sound and adjust the volume accordingly for the wife?

 

[WCG]

Thanks DELInstallations for your response.

As a real newbie to Elk I may be asking a real obvious question but is there an Elk speaker that will fit inside the existing 2-gang boxes that I have used for the keypads?

Will any other hardware be required?

I appreciate your help.

 

[tmbrown97]

Depending on the keypads you used - the KP2 supports an Elk SP12 speaker through a cutout in the back.  It does require an additional pair of wires, but it is a very nice solution. 
 
You can adjust the keypad beep/tone in RP, but I don't think it affects the chime tones.
 
I too had a problem with the volume - I found just opening up the keypad and putting something small over the piezo opened; in my case I used one of those small circular bandaids - it muffled it a bit and helped, especially for the bedroom keypad.

 

[WCG]

Work2Play - All of the keypads are the M1KP variety, what is nice about my retrofit is there is plenty of CL3 wire left at each of the four 2-gang keypad locations.  The old FBII required 10 conductors to drive the keypads, so I could install a very small speaker behind the keypad in the NM 2-gang box.  Any ideas?

 

[Del91574]

Rather than kludge a speaker behind the keypad and free air or monkey it, why not drop a SPF-12 down below the keypad on the wall?
 
In the OP's case, assuming you're bringing the input and output back to the panel, without a retrofit hub, that's 8 conductors used out of the 10 conductor...so only 2 would be left for speaker usage.

 

[WCG]

I did use a retrofit hub so there is plenty of extra wire, at least 6 conductors in each box.  The SPF-12 would work great, but the aesthetics will not fly with the family.  The speaker needs to be hidden.

 

[tmbrown97]

Got a picture of what you have to work with today?  I'm sure there'd be a way to make it work if you need to.  I understand the appeal issue - wouldn't fly in my house wither.
 
And for accuracy, in traditional wiring 6 conductors are used in a normal daisy-chain configuration.

 

[Del91574]

In the case of using a retrofit hub, you should bring the I/O from the KP back to the panel...I've always found uses for them.

You could put a SPF-12 behind the keypad, but you really should find a way to mount it, otherwise the rattling or cabling against the cone is going to sound horrible compared to the boss telling you to not put a flush speaker in the wall.

 

[Neurorad]

I swear I've read of adjusting volume on the chime.

Muting the piezo mechanically (as with a round Band-Aid, as W2P mentioned), has worked fairly well with my non-Elk alarm, but that's a sub-par solution.

I really need an answer to this same question myself, for the M1.