Final checks before instructing LV installer

[felixrosbergen]

Hi All,

I wanted to get confirmation on sme items before i have my meeting with the LV installer for my house and tell him exact what i want.

- For an indoor speaker or piezo screamer, can i run 22/4?

- For any ELK keypads all i need is cat5 right? Or if local code requires is 16/4 firewire (my installer should know). From what i understand the power for the keypads is coming through the cat5.

- For a outside siren ELK RT150 with SL1 Strobe where i want to be able to activate the siren and strobe separately (to not annoy the neighbors but still show that an event has happened when i come home) and monitor tamper can i run 22/4? I was thinking these are 3 circuits which could all use a common negative? Is the 22 gauge wire ok for the 1A draw of the RT150 at 12v?

- What is typical when sensing windows open for when your have 2 windows in the same opening (i.e. double wide window whith 2 sliding panels totalling 72" width) to run the wire over the sensors in series or to homerun each sensor?

- Should i ask for Normally Open or Normally Closed Door/Window sensors. I just want to know whats most common and allow monitoring of the circuit. I want the circuit to be intact when the window is closed and the circuit to be open when the window is open (or the wire is broken). I get confused with the read switches. Is the normally closed 'closed' when the magnet is there (thus window closed)?

Basically i am planning to instuct the LV to run the following from the alarm panel location:
- Run Cat5 to all 5 keypad location
- Run 22/4 to indoor speaker location (for initial announcement, later on announcements will go through whole house audio)
- Run 22/4 to outdoor siren (RT150 with SL1)
- Run 22/4 to several Motion sensor locations on ground floor (2nd floor i will do from attic later)
- Run 22/2 or 22/4 (whatever he wants) to windows and doors and install recessed window and door sensors. At least on ground floor and possibly on upper floor if the price is reasonable.
- 16/4 for whole house audio speaker from basement to each set of speakers with cat5 to keypad locations (16/4 runs through the keypad location as well to maintain flexibility). I'm most likely going with Nuvo (so wouldnt need 16/4 by keypad) but want to keep is flexible. I may change my mind to Logitech Duet with a multizone amp of some kind.
- Is cat5 to doorbell chime location enough? From what i understand the from and back doorbelt and transformer wiring all comes together in the chime box. I plan to either A) split the doorbells from the chime and make the doorbells inputs to ELK and the Chime an Output. OR disconnect the chime use the ELK indoor speaker as doorbell.

All LAN and CATV is taken care off already by running 3/4" conduits from basement/attic to LV mudrings in all rooms. For ALC lighting I have conduits from attic/basement to switch locations and have extra gang at switch location to allow for scene switches and cat5 wiring. This is all done bu the electrician, but the electrician wont do the alarm/speaker stuff. I already have extra cat5 to thermostats and doorbell.

 

[tmbrown97]

No expert, but here's what I know:

- For an indoor speaker or piezo screamer, can i run 22/4?
Yup - in fact, 22/2 is just fine.

- For any ELK keypads all i need is cat5 right? Or if local code requires is 16/4 firewire (my installer should know). From what i understand the power for the keypads is coming through the cat5.
Cat5 is best, especially if home running with a DBH. If code absolutely requires firewire, you may be better off daisy-chaining the keypads, because with just 4 conductors, you can't really home run them all (unless you only have 2).

- For a outside siren ELK RT150 with SL1 Strobe where i want to be able to activate the siren and strobe separately (to not annoy the neighbors but still show that an event has happened when i come home) and monitor tamper can i run 22/4? I was thinking these are 3 circuits which could all use a common negative? Is the 22 gauge wire ok for the 1A draw of the RT150 at 12v?
22 Gauge at 150ft. 12V should be good for about 4 amps, so you're fine. The concept of the common negative is one that I put out recently in a different thread, and while I don't see any reason it wouldn't work, I'd love to see Spanky's thoughts on that. I guess testing would tell. Keep in mind, the 150RT draws 1.2 amps out of the box, and the elk does 1 amp... you must do the millimiser to get it down to 700ma so as not to overload the panel.

- What is typical when sensing windows open for when your have 2 windows in the same opening (i.e. double wide window whith 2 sliding panels totalling 72" width) to run the wire over the sensors in series or to homerun each sensor?
For ultimate flexibility, you could home run - but it's much easier to run NC contacts to a group or room and daisy chain them in series... when all windows are closed, you have a full circuit - if any one window is open, it'll open the circuit. In between the windows, you can toss in a 2200ohm resistor if you want EOL supervision as well. I like always knowing exactly which room has the issue without wasting more inputs than necessary. Home running each window and daisy chaining at the panel is an option too... It'll cost more though most likely and be messier. However, a break in a circuit could cause all windows to stop working (prob. non issue though - most wiring and contacts in my home are 24yrs old and work great).

- Should i ask for Normally Open or Normally Closed Door/Window sensors. I just want to know whats most common and allow monitoring of the circuit. I want the circuit to be intact when the window is closed and the circuit to be open when the window is open (or the wire is broken). I get confused with the read switches. Is the normally closed 'closed' when the magnet is there (thus window closed)?
NC is the norm. Closed when the door/window is closed...

Basically i am planning to instuct the LV to run the following from the alarm panel location:
- Run Cat5 to all 5 keypad location
- Run 22/4 to indoor speaker location (for initial announcement, later on announcements will go through whole house audio) *Speakers only need 22/2, but if you want to run 4, go for it.
- Run 22/4 to outdoor siren (RT150 with SL1) *See above note
- Run 22/4 to several Motion sensor locations on ground floor (2nd floor i will do from attic later) *Works fine... but my installer opted to use cat5 for some reason and basically run 2 wires to each contact... not sure why
- Run 22/2 or 22/4 (whatever he wants) to windows and doors and install recessed window and door sensors. At least on ground floor and possibly on upper floor if the price is reasonable. *22/2 is the standard, and all that's needed
- 16/4 for whole house audio speaker from basement to each set of speakers with cat5 to keypad locations (16/4 runs through the keypad location as well to maintain flexibility). I'm most likely going with Nuvo (so wouldnt need 16/4 by keypad) but want to keep is flexible. I may change my mind to Logitech Duet with a multizone amp of some kind.
- Is cat5 to doorbell chime location enough? From what i understand the from and back doorbelt and transformer wiring all comes together in the chime box. I plan to either A) split the doorbells from the chime and make the doorbells inputs to ELK and the Chime an Output. OR disconnect the chime use the ELK indoor speaker as doorbell. 22/4 is probably all you need here... but either should work. If you are going to use doorbell detectors, it's probably easier to mount them by the transformer so it's a minimal current contact being sent around the house rather than sending the current all the way to your panel and back. In ours, we ditched the transformer and the doorbell detector and just ran the doorbell switch to the 22/2 instead (wirenuts). Lost the button light, but who cares - porch light is always on.

All LAN and CATV is taken care off already by running 3/4" conduits from basement/attic to LV mudrings in all rooms. For ALC lighting I have conduits from attic/basement to switch locations and have extra gang at switch location to allow for scene switches and cat5 wiring. This is all done bu the electrician, but the electrician wont do the alarm/speaker stuff. I already have extra cat5 to thermostats and doorbell.


All in all, sounds like you're in good shape.

one more thing I'll throw out there... I too initially ordered the 150RT, but am now a strong believer in going with the 1RT instead. They both use the same speaker and enclosure... the difference is that the 150RT has a siren driver built in, so you send it power, whereas the 1RT is a speaker and it runs off the siren driver built into the Elk. When all your speakers use the same siren driver, they're all in sync (indoors and out), and you don't have to worry about the millimiser setting either. Plus, the supervision voltage on the 150RT is enough to make it tone constantly and audibly unless you throw a resistor across the terminals. If you already have the 150RT, the Elk44 is about $15 and it's the speaker inside letting you easily convert a 150RT to a 1RT (that's what I'm doing).


Good luck!

 

[felixrosbergen]

Hi Todd B, thanks for the response...

A few follow ups...

- For the doorbell the cat5 from alarm panel location to doorbell chime is alreay in..so if it works i'm going to leave it alone.

- For the motion sensors your installer usng cat5 seems a bit strange...what what i've heard using 2 condutors to do 1 conductors job isn't the best way of doing it. In the end it's all LV so it probably doesnt really matter... Would using single conductors on cat5 work or would the voltage drop and current be too high? I'm just thinking that if single conductors on cat5 works then you get 4 extra conductors for the same price (being installers labor cost since the actual cable cost of peanuts). The extra 4 condutors could be handy in the future..(e.g. replace motion sensor with POE camera, or use the extra conductors for glassbreak sensor or something).

- On the ELK RT150 vs RT1 i like your suggestion...i had read about the need for the extra resistor...is 22/4 still ok to drive the speaker?

- I also agree with your assement on the daisy chaning of window sensors...i think all doors shoudl be homerunned (since i may wont to use them as input for HA tasks) but al windows in the same room could be daisy chained in my opinion...the only think is that on a GUI you cant animate the individual windows...big deal....it seems like people spend a lot of time creating the GUI showing status of each device...but how often do you actually look at them. If i know that 'one of the windows in living room' is violated thats close enough since i need to go into that room anyway.

Thanks for your responses...i was pretty confident about my selections...but it's good to have a 2nd set of eyes before i instruct the LV installer and the sheetrock goes up.....i hate wall patching and painting ..

 

[felixrosbergen]

has anybody used ELK SP12F speakers?

http://www.elkproducts.com/products/elk-sp12f.htm

Is this thing loud enough so i can hear it throughout the lower (apporx 1200sqm open floor plan)?

I like the flushmount capabilities...i suppose if i don't find it loud enough i can always mount a SP35 right on top of the same single gangbox.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

- For any ELK keypads all i need is cat5 right? Or if local code requires is 16/4 firewire (my installer should know). From what i understand the power for the keypads is coming through the cat5.
Cat5 is best, especially if home running with a DBH. If code absolutely requires firewire, you may be better off daisy-chaining the keypads, because with just 4 conductors, you can't really home run them all (unless you only have 2).

FYI, with an Elk-M1DBHR (Data Bus Hub for Retrofit) board you can homerun all your keypads using just four conductors.

 

[IVB]

has anybody used ELK SP12F speakers?

http://www.elkproducts.com/products/elk-sp12f.htm

Is this thing loud enough so i can hear it throughout the lower (apporx 1200sqm open floor plan)?

I like the flushmount capabilities...i suppose if i don't find it loud enough i can always mount a SP35 right on top of the same single gangbox.

All based on now many, and how you power it. I use a handful of SP12F's in concert with an Elk-800 amp. I can't even turn the amp up all the way cuz it's too damn loud.

 

[felixrosbergen]

The idea was to have 2 in total. One in a central location on the ground floor and one in the upstairs hall.

Could both be powered directly from the ELK? I'd also have an RT1 with SL1 strobe outside.

Will this work or do i need an additional amp like the 800 you mentioned?

has anybody used ELK SP12F speakers?

http://www.elkproducts.com/products/elk-sp12f.htm

Is this thing loud enough so i can hear it throughout the lower (apporx 1200sqm open floor plan)?

I like the flushmount capabilities...i suppose if i don't find it loud enough i can always mount a SP35 right on top of the same single gangbox.

All based on now many, and how you power it. I use a handful of SP12F's in concert with an Elk-800 amp. I can't even turn the amp up all the way cuz it's too damn loud.

 

[IVB]

These are 32Ohm speakers, and the Elk mainboard can only handle a 4 to 8 Ohm load, so you need 4 speakers. You could either double-up or put 2 elsewhere (ie, near can).

If I were you, i'd homerun the wiring for those 2 speakers and start with using 4 connected to the M1. If it's too quiet (which I don't think it would be), you could always put an Elk-800 next to the M1G, and just move the wiring from the M1G to the 800. Pretty easy to do that after the fact, just make sure you've got room in the can.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Instead of 4 speaker...can't i put a 32ohm resistor or something parallel? I'd hate to buy 2 more speakers just for the purpose of making the M1 happy.

Looks like the ELK-800 is 2-16 Ohm as opposed to the M1's 4-8ohm. Would i be correcty to get that and then have 2 SP12F's parallelled of of it?

 

[IVB]

true, resistors could work, but the upside of 4 speakers total is you get the actual additional volume.

yes, the 800 can deal with just 2 SP12F's, plus you can dial-the-volume you want then too.

 

[tmbrown97]

for what it's worth, I use all SP12's... I have 5, but only 3 are hooked up today, and during my bench testing, I only used 1 and never saw any immediate problems with the fact that it was 32ohms...

So as I started responding to this post, much to my wife's chagrin, decided to test out the volumes of this thing - including while under alarm... I set the max to 7 and starting to 4... I'll be making a permanent change to 5 progressing to 7.

I have to say - it was loud enough to gets its point across. Now, if the kids were in their room with the stereo up, they may not hear the fire siren... My three are behind keypads, so obviously muffled considerably... But I'm not sure if I'd rely on 2 of them solely... My house is 2500sq ft, fairly open single floor with a speaker in the hall, in the front entry, and in the master br, behind each KP2. I'll be adding another between the kitchen/family room at the very least just so I can understand the voices better, as well as one on a switch in the garage and possibly the same in the back of the house. That's why I went with these - so I could use more of them around the house for general even volume rather than obnoxious where they're located and dispersing from there.

If you're only going for two speakers however, you would probably be happier with the larger speaker. You can run the two and be at 4ohms, and be done. Either way though, I'm sure the onboard power would be plenty - I doubt you'd need another amplifier.

Also not sure what you're doing for keypads, but if you do the KP2's, the box has a place to take an SP12 off it's mounting plate and screw it into the back-box of the KP2... This works on both the flushmount or surface mount boxes (with flushmount, need a hole in the wall for the speaker back)... That's how I did my keypads. They give good volume right at the keypad... and figuring my keypads were spread out, they do decent sound disbursement around the house. Plus when arming or playing with the keypad, the voice feedback is right at your face, rather than around the corner and hard to hear. I've heard you can use the last 2 wires of the Cat5, but I decided to run an extra pair of 22/2 to the speakers to be safe.

 

[felixrosbergen]

I thought thr keypads themselves always had some speaker capability already built in.

If mounting the speaker at the KP2 (the only type of keppad i plan on using since it can be recessed, do i need to run 22/4 for the speaker in addition to the cat5 or does the speaker get driven from the PK2?

The good thing is that i could easilly take the SP12 out and replace with bigger speaker if needed later.

Do i have LV box location where i can add a SP12F later....can i take it from it's plate and mount it into a decora size plate?

For now i think i will stick with a single SP12 dowstairs for the purpose of pre-wire, it all should hook into whole house audio later anyway. On the upstairs i can add one later if the whole house audio doesnt work out.

From what i understand it seems it's recommend to use relays and a separate amp for announcement rather than trying to make the paging function work. Could the ELK-800 drive several sets of 8ohm speakers (Polk RC7's)?

 

[tmbrown97]

Unfortunately, the KP2 does not have the built-in temperature sensor, Functions 5 & 6, and most importantly, the speaker. It also can't do an internal prox reader if that matters. But, it's the best looking and only one that can flush mount. The speaker is in no way driven from the keypad - it's completely separate and run off the panel.

You should run an additional 18/2 for the speaker. I can't think of what the extra pair would do for you... There's still an unused pair out of the Cat5 - and I've read from one poster that it's been OK for driving the speakers, but I didn't want to go that route just in case... There's also an input and an output off each keypad you can use for close-by activities, or can loop back to the panel with that extra pair.

Not sure what you're asking about the LV box... but the SP12 speaker is actually attached to the cover plate - it fits into a single gange box. Because it's the speaker and cover, you can't really toss it into a multi-gang box or adapt it for a decora cover (unless you're really handy and creative). It's actually kinda plastic-welded to the faceplace, so if you want to pop it off to mount into the recessed KP2 box, you pop a screwdriver under the edge to break it off, and it's not going back. On the recessed box, there's a place you punch out for the speaker - and either the speaker or the box (don't remember which) came with the 4 screws needed to mount it.

As for the Elk800 - other people can probably speak to better experience, but that's only a 10-watt amp... I couldn't see putting more than one pair of those speakers on it...

 

[felixrosbergen]

Thanks all, had the meeting with the LV installer today and was well prepared.

Great to have such a supportive community, i hope to be able to provide rather than take advice soon as my systems get off the ground.

 

[allen363]

Thanks all, had the meeting with the LV installer today and was well prepared.

Great to have such a supportive community, i hope to be able to provide rather than take advice soon as my systems get off the ground.

How did you go about finding a lv installer? I've requested a referral through Elk on several occassions but get no reply. I am in the northwest Chicago suburbs and could really use somebody to wire up the place while I install the panel.

Thanks for any assistance you or anybody else might be able to provide.

Allen