Elk Keypad/Thermostat wiring ???

Herdfan

Active Member
First, my wife wants a keypad in the basement, so I need to run the wire to it. So am I better off:

1) Running a home run back to the panel,
2) Daisy chaining it to the other 2 keypads, or
3) Making all 3 keypads home runs?

None is more work than the other as I need to replace the wire to the other keypads anyway.

And while I am doing this, I thought I would go ahead and integrate my thermostats. If I understand correctly they need to be daisy chained. Is this correct?

Thanks. I did a search, but did not find specific answers.
 
I like to make home runs...the structured wiring approach. This makes it easier for troubleshooting, testing, and making changes.

However, the Elk keypads need to be wired in a bus fashion with terminating resistors at the ends of the bus. Look at Page 7 of the manual. This can be done with the home runs but requires some splicing in the panel...and this makes the total bus length longer. Limit on bus length is 4000 ft.
 
mustangcoupe said:
unless you put in a ELK-M1DBH - Data Bus Hub
The data bus hub takes care of the splicing at the panel side, but you still need to tie certain cable pairs together at each keypad (documented in the manual that comes with the M1DBH). So, the total run goes something like:
Elk -> DBH -> Keypad 1 -> DBH -> Keypad 2 -> DBH -> Keypad 3 -> DBH
 
Use CAT5 cable and home run to the control is the best for trouble shooting. With the CAT5 you can run to the keypad with 4 conductors and return to the control with 2 conductors of data which will be wired to the next keypad...etc.

The data bus hub makes the job neater and for many easier to hookup.
 
Thanks for the replys.

I am going to do home runs and let the installer hook it up.

What about thermostat runs?
 
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