Elk M1DBH located in guest house (far from M1)?

[philgrocks]

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking at a new install of the ELK M1 system in a large home and guest house.

House:
- Locate M1
- Add a M1DBH for the house keypads and a M1XIN for extra zones for the main house

Guest House
- Add M1DBH for the Guest house keypads and a M1XIN for the zones in the guest house

So there would be two home runs... One going to the M1DBH in the main house and the other going to the M1DBH in the guest house.

The distance from the M1 to the guest house M1DBH is about 150 feet.

But in the instructions for the M1DBH it says
"We recommend the M1DBH be mounted in close physical proximity to the M1 Control where possible. Two or more M1DBH boards may be connected in a single daisy chain by closely following the diagram at bottom of this page."

--
Is what I'm proposing a valid configuration? The alternative would mean lots of runs between the main house and guest house for zones, keypads, etc.

Thanks for your help.

Phil

 

[Ira]

In a previous home, I had a DBH (and expansion boards) located in a shop about 175' from the M1, and another DBH (and expansion boards) in the home's attached garage (about 70' of wire between it and the M1). It all worked fine. The "first" DBH in the chain was in the same cabinet as the M1. The logical layout was M1 -> DBH (in same can) -> DBH in shop -> DBH in attached garage. The shop and garage cans also had auxiliary power supplies. I ran cat6 cable between all of them.

 

[RAL]

From a logical wiring point of view, I don't see a reason why it would matter where the DBH is located. It is just creating a daisy chain for the data bus wiring. There are no active components on the circuit board. For the M1DBHR, it's a different matter, as it essentially is a repeater for the data bus signals, and the incoming signal quality matters.

You don't need the DBH to avoid running zone wiring back to the main house. Just put a zone expander or two in the guest house and keep all the zone wiring local. You can put expanders in the guest house whether you have a DBH there or not.

 

[philgrocks]

Super helpful! Thanks @Ira and @RAL very much!

In the guest house I was planning two M1KP2 keypads. So I thought it would be easier to have the M1DBH as a Hub for the zone expander and the M1KP2 keypads.

Great to hear both ideas. Gives me confidence I can make this work.