How did you plan your zones & wiring

[IVB]

Between smoke/heat/CO/window/door, I'm already at 37 sensors for my 1650 sqft/9room house. Before I run any wiring, i was wondering how to approach the wiring against the zones, so I don't end up with spaghetti wiring.

It looks like the biggest room has 5 sensors in it. Is there any value in me declaring that i'll allocate 5 Elk zones per room, i can do 3 rooms per M1XIN, so for 9 rooms i need 3 M1XIN's. Furthermore, i'll declare specific zones per room, for example:

Zones16->20: Family Room
Zones21->26: Breakfast Nook
Zones27->32: Kitchen
etc.

Question 1) I know there's zones that absolutely won't need 5 sensors, but i wonder if it would be better to take a step back and do this first. Did you do this?

Question 2) Is there a better way to approaching structuring the wiring other than going by zone?

Question 3) How do i handle overruns (ie i just realized i need another sensors here) - do I do 2 rooms per M1XIN now and allocate 8 sensors per room?

I might be overthinking this, but i've been bitten in the past due to a lack of pre-planning, this time it requires a crapload of physical wiring which is awful to redo, so I'd like to do some planning.

Thanks for your help.

 

[bfisher]

I was retrofitting an existing house - so I didn't do it the way you described. I basically determined what zones needed protection and ensured I was covered... Since it is an existing house, there isn't much chance of suddenly needing another security sensor I didn't know about when running wire.

As for "zone blocks" for each room - there is nothing wrong with that but not sure it's needed. I'm not sure what the advantages are in terms of ease of use... it's not like your wife will remember zone 23 is in the breakfast nook...

In my alarm keypads, I printed a small cheat sheet that shows zone number and names - so if there is an open zone, my wife can quickly look at the cheat sheet and see what window is still open, etc.

In general, I don't see needing the flexibility with your security zones that you do with your AV or networking, etc. Once it's in and working - you don't just suddenly add a new window or door to require rewiring

As for keeping the wires neat - I wish I would have done a better job. When I started, I wasn't running wires perpendicular - I would go shortest route. After a few wires, this started looking ugly, so I switched to running wires together and around rooms (instead of over rooms). This looks much neater (not that anyone but me will ever see it since most of it is in my basements ceiling). Definitely label your wires!! I used #'s and logged every wire start/end locations, useage, length, etc in a spreadsheet.

 

[elcano]

I just would focus in having a good strutured wiring system for each room. If possible, include enough wiring for all possible zones in each room. The zone number to which those wires are connected is not relevant. You just buy more expansion cards if needed.

 

[IVB]

Forgive the question, i'm still new to some of this.
I was planning on centralizing all the M1XIN's in a central location and homerunning the wire there.

By saying "having a good structured wiring system for each room", are you suggesting that I locate the M1XIN in the rooms in a box, and run wires from that back to the main board?

 

[Mike]

Interesting concept. Where that might be hard is how you hide the box with the expander. Probably saves you quite a bit of cable as well.

I'm not sure if there is another reason not to take this route other than not being able to hide the units/boxes.

 

[jlehnert]

1) I think you're overplanning a little bit. As you've mentioned, not every room is going to need sensors. Plan for what you know you need, then leave a few extra zones. I would be more worried about getting all the wires you need to support the sensors, than having the zones to support them. Additional zones are easy to add, but wires are not. As for how to arrange them, go with whatever make sense to you. Once the zones are setup, the order will not make a difference, as you'll be working with them by the name you assigned, not the zone number.

2) Again, do whatever works for you. Just pick a method and be consistant.

3) See #1.

As for home running all the alarm wires, you can but I wouldn't. Unlike the coax and twisted pair that needs to be home run, the alarm wires can be grouped into different locations. It will save wire, and installation time.

For instance, I have my main panel and one expansion enclosure (the HAI equivalent of the M1XIN) in the basement wiring room. They handle all the contacts on the main floor and basement. Another expansion enclosure in the attic handles the top floor, while a third in the garage handles the garage and driveway.

 

[elcano]

By saying "having a good structured wiring system for each room", are you suggesting that I locate the M1XIN in the rooms in a box, and run wires from that back to the main board?

No. I intended to say good strutured wiring system in the house, supporting all rooms.

The idea is that you have your main utility room where your alarm is located and home run wiring to there as appropriate. If you have a big house you could have other expansion cards in other formal or improvised satellite utility rooms. But since you are designing from scratch, the idea is just making sure that you have the wiring installed to whenever you are going to have your expansion cards. If you run out of inputs, just add another expansion card. Adding expansion cards to the Elk is so trivial compared to adding new wiring!

 

[Mike]

If you were to put an expansion card in the attic for example, any recommendations on how to 'mount' it? I'm wondering mostly about the temperature and humidity so am guessing a normal can is not appropriate.

Is there anything like the Caddx enclosure that would work well with that card? (I have one on the way anyway so I'll check, but I suspect it will be too small).

This would make it a lot easier to run door sensors for my upstairs for automation purposes.

 

[johnnynine]

I'm not sure what the advantages are in terms of ease of use... it's not like your wife will remember zone 23 is in the breakfast nook...

In my alarm keypads, I printed a small cheat sheet that shows zone number and names - so if there is an open zone, my wife can quickly look at the cheat sheet and see what window is still open, etc.

So the Elk keypads show a zone # and not a zone label? In other words I can't assign a text label to a zone like "Kitchen Window" to zone #7 and have the label show on the keypad?

If this is the case, then the Elk M1 could have some major WAF issues for me.

Johnny

 

[Steve]

The M1 allows a 16 character text label for each zone as well as a voice tag. No WAF issues there to worry about.

 

[johnnynine]

The M1 allows a 16 character text label for each zone as well as a voice tag. No WAF issues there to worry about.

Shew, I was scanning the elk pdf files for that bit of info! That could have been devistating to my overall plan of taking over the house with electronics!

 

[Steve]

Bottom of Page 32 if you want the actual proof . FWIW all names like users, zones, area, tasks, etc. are all 16 characters. Typically you would enter them in RP and not on the keypad.

 

[bfisher]

LOL - sorry - didn't mean to scare you. I don't use an Elk I have a Caddx system - and never upgraded the keypad (no need since we only use it to turn off the system when coming home - rest is done with my automation system (HVPro))