GE RCR-PET Problems

[sp8]

New to the whole security system thing, but here's a quick rundown of what's happening. Just finished installing a new Elk M1G system that has, among other sensors, 5 GE RCR-PET motion detectors. I ordered these detectors specifically for their pet immunity (the shop occasionally has a critter that manages to sneak in, bird, bat, that sort of thing). Anyway, everything is working perfectly minus these sensors.

By watching the led color codes on the bottom of the devices, I can see the detectors will catch motion but rarely trigger the infrared part of the sensor at the same time and activate the relay. In fact, the infrared hardly ever activates at all. These units have been installed according to the guidelines in the manual and at the correct height (between 7 and 8 feet). I know they'll trigger, since through testing them I've had the alarm trigger, but their performance is not nearly reliable enough to trust in any sort of application. I've tried walking slowly, normally, quickly, running etc etc in any attempt to get some sort of regular triggering but have had no luck. At the moment they are not only pet immune, but very nearly human immune as well as I've walked straight by them, as well as other people in the shop, on numerous occasions well within their range and had no trigger. To make matters worse, all 5 sensors behave the same way and are installed in a couple different environments. Some are climate controlled, others are not but all are installed indoors; so I'm not sure if this is influencing their performance.

I'm a bit new to alarm systems and was looking for a little guidance as to what might be happening here, any advice is appreciated!

 

[tmbrown97]

Couple of notes from the installation manual:

1. The walk test lights which indicate which side is being triggered only work for the first 30 minutes after the PIR is powered up; after that, you'll only see the red light which indicates both have been triggered.
2. You mentioned installation in a shop - these don't like to be mounted too close to metal walls.
3. Make sure the jumpers are set correctly - though it looks like the defaults should be good
4. I'm not sure pet-immune by itself will provide the false alarm immunity you're after once this thing is working correctly; even an 80lb pet immune detector can be triggered by a 10lb cat that hits the right field of view of the sensor. They expect pets to be down on the ground.

 

[Del91574]

I'm a little confused as why range controlled radar based units were chosen....those are usually installed for very specific reasons or criteria. Also, if there's movement in the upper levels of the PIR, that'll trigger any PI detector, even the RCR units.

With RCR, there is no such thing as "default" that works, there's always going to be adjustment.

If you've got metal around, that's going to affect the performance greatly. Basic PIR guidelines come into play next....movement across the pattern and not towards it. The RCR needs to be set for a smaller area than is actually covered by the PIR. You can't let the RCR portion "die" in a large room (room larger than the RCR) and the RCR needs to be set "smaller" than the actual room. Since you have multiple units, I hope that none are "looking" at each other or follow the "back to back" orientation.

 

[sp8]

Thanks for the quick replies.Based on what was said I don't think the install locations would cause an issue, except for one sensor. It seems I may have the wrong sensor for the application.