NetworX Panel & Smoke Detectors

[TaterTot]

I have a NetworX NX-6V2 alarm system that was installed when my house was built. All of the door and windows sensors are hardwired, along with the smoke detectors.

I recently decided that I was going to open up the panel and see how it was all wired up.

It appears that none of my smoke detectors are hooked up to the alarm panel (see picture below).
 
What I am assuming is the wires for the smoke detectors are all wired together (top center of picture) and not wired to the panel.
 

 I have 6 smoke detectors in my house, but I only see 5 wires there. I am not even sure these are the smoke detector wires.

Something else strange, I have a smoke detectors in 3 upstairs bedrooms, the upstairs hallway, master bedroom, and in the great room (so that is 6 total).

But the 5 wires are labeled: "Upstairs Hall", "Master", "Great", "Garage", and "Main".... Which does not quite match, so what is going on here...

Is there anyway for me to test to see which is which and also how do I hook these up to my alarm panel.
 
I have taken a picture of the panel instructions (below) that mention how to hook up the smoke detectors, I just want to make sure I am doing it right.
 
 

 

 

[TaterTot]

Ok, to add to the confusion... I just pulled 3 of my smoke detectors off the wall and they are "First Alert 9120B" detectors.
 
It does not look like they are wired into the alarm panel in any way. I just see the 120V connections.
 
So what in the world are the connections mentioned above??
 
I have no sensors of any kind in the "Garage" and the only thing in the "Upstairs Hallway" is the smoke detector....
 
How do I track this down? I am so lost at this point... Why would there be connections in the panel that are not connected to anything but themselves?

 

[pete_c]

The wires might be above your 120VAC smokes never connected cuz 120VAC ones were put in. 
 
Could be code in your town to have 120VAC smokes and the alarm guys just wired to the same area maybe?
 
You can maybe use a toner to check.  I have here; works for me. 
 
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=105&cp_id=10524&cs_id=1052402&p_id=8134&seq=1&format=2

 

[TaterTot]

The wires might be above your 120VAC smokes never connected cuz 120VAC ones were put in. 
 
Could be code in your town to have 120VAC smokes and the alarm guys just wired to the same area maybe?
 
You can maybe use a toner to check.  I have here; works for me. 
 
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=105&cp_id=10524&cs_id=1052402&p_id=8134&seq=1&format=2

 
I kind of thought that too, but none of the 3 that I pulled down had any of the kind of wiring that you see in the picture anywhere in the box... But then again would that be mixing high & low voltage wiring, so maybe it is up there - just not in the box. :huh:

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I thought cables to the smokes had to be firewire rated.  Can you tell via the insulation markings if this is so?
 
Also, I noticed that the yellow and green wires from some of the multi-paired ones were being used as active zones.  You would not mix zones with fire detectors signals.
 
What are those zones btw?  Might be a clue as to where the unused wiring is going to.
 
What is weird is why bundle the blue/white combo wiring together, especially if they are not being used?

 

[TaterTot]

If you look at the picture, there are 2 main types of wiring.... Some that the outer sheath is white and hooked up to the panel and the others that off-white and are not hooked up to the panel.
 
The off-white ones are the ones with the blue/white combo wired together and nothing else connected (i think these are 8 wire).
 
The white ones are the window, door, motion sensor, and keypad wires (these are 4 wire)

 

[pete_c]

I helped a neighbor in Florida replacing and installing a new Omni Pro II replacing their legacy panel a few years back.  That said I noticed that the wiring loops were done in the rooms in the ranch style home.  I removed and disconnected all of the cabling; tracing each wire one by one back to the panel.  I redid the roomed loops and ended up with about 6 zones.  Thing that really bugged me was it was really a mickey mouse set up.  The installer had literally pulled electric down from the attic leaving the bare wires and wrapping them around the terminals of the alarm panel transformer; then putting black tape on this setup.  I put an electrical box in the wall redoing the HV wiring such that it went into the wall and into the box.  It was really a bit of a fire hazard and it didn't make sense to me other than maybe it was done on the "cheap", non qualified installer and quickly?
 
Looking at your picture the cat5e appears to be of the older type with easier to see colored wires.  It does not appear to be plenum rated from what I can tell.  The blue and white wires could be loops related to zones.  Looks like the wiring guy mixed all of it together (smokes too?).  The 2 pair (4 wires) look to be of a thicker guage; same though guage as the cat5e wiring.  I never assumed that the smokes LV wiring would have been in the boxes above the smokes as that is a really not to any code that I know of; but maybe sitting loose above the boxes somewheres and maybe labeled?  Or they could be just sitting in a bundle above the alarm panel in the attic. 
 
If the panel is not being utilized right now for anything; then I would trace each of the wires one by one.  A bit time consuming but it will be worth your efforts.  It took me two days all day to do the wiring for the neighbors HAI panel.  The time consuming pieces really were just tracing the wiring and replacing a bunch of NC/NO switches and checking on the terminations (new resistors). The actual wiring pieces to the OPII panel only took maybe one hour or less connecting each zone one by one and using PCA to validate each zone.   You could do this with just a VOM and some alligator clips.  You could also label them one by one which would help you with your endeavor.
 
The "off white" cables appear to be definitely cat5 (or cat5e) wires with 4 pairs (8 wires) and the white ones definitely appear to be 2 pair (4 wires).  The blue and white cables maybe daisy chained loops or zones (IE: windows and doors for one room being one zone looped in the panel?) 
 
Personally I have seen two "camps" relating to terminations with resistors.  I have my two OPII panels terminated at the distal sides of the zones.  For me though its one pair/two pair of wires per zone per device with no loops in the midwest.  In Florida I have like 4 sliding glass doors and each one has four NC/NO switches looped to one zone (IE 4 zones one per sliding glass door).  The PIRs are also in separate zones along with each door that opens out.  All of the windows are in their own zone too.  Some folks prefer though to put all of the windows in one room to one zone.  I think though the older panels only had a few zones rather than say an OPII with a base of 16 zones and ease of adding more zones.  My old old beta test panel had something like 48 zones with build in X10 from the late 1980's. 
 
I have seen though the same you have with the terminations at the panel.  All of the documentation I read mostly saids to put terminating resistors at the distal side of the zone; so I did it that way.  But its easier when you have the terminating resistors in the panel.
 
BTW with all of the Cat5 in the panel you might be able to juggle a zone and utilize one cable for your network into the panel wiring.

 

[TaterTot]

I helped a neighbor in Florida replacing and installing a new Omni Pro II replacing their legacy panel a few years back.  That said I noticed that the wiring loops were done in the rooms in the ranch style home.  I removed and disconnected all of the cabling; tracing each wire one by one back to the panel.  I redid the roomed loops and ended up with about 6 zones.  Thing that really bugged me was it was really a mickey mouse set up.  The installer had literally pulled electric down from the attic leaving the bare wires and wrapping them around the terminals of the alarm panel transformer; then putting black tape on this setup.  I put an electrical box in the wall redoing the HV wiring such that it went into the wall and into the box.  It was really a bit of a fire hazard and it didn't make sense to me other than maybe it was done on the "cheap", non qualified installer and quickly?
 
Looking at your picture the cat5e appears to be of the older type with easier to see colored wires.  It does not appear to be plenum rated from what I can tell.  The blue and white wires could be loops related to zones.  Looks like the wiring guy mixed all of it together (smokes too?).  The 2 pair (4 wires) look to be of a thicker guage; same though guage as the cat5e wiring.  I never assumed that the smokes LV wiring would have been in the boxes above the smokes as that is a really not to any code that I know of; but maybe sitting loose above the boxes somewheres and maybe labeled?  Or they could be just sitting in a bundle above the alarm panel in the attic. 
 
If the panel is not being utilized right now for anything; then I would trace each of the wires one by one.  A bit time consuming but it will be worth your efforts.  It took me two days all day to do the wiring for the neighbors HAI panel.  The time consuming pieces really were just tracing the wiring and replacing a bunch of NC/NO switches and checking on the terminations (new resistors). The actual wiring pieces to the OPII panel only took maybe one hour or less connecting each zone one by one and using PCA to validate each zone.   You could do this with just a VOM and some alligator clips.  You could also label them one by one which would help you with your endeavor.
 
The "off white" cables appear to be definitely cat5 (or cat5e) wires with 4 pairs (8 wires) and the white ones definitely appear to be 2 pair (4 wires).  The blue and white cables maybe daisy chained loops or zones (IE: windows and doors for one room being one zone looped in the panel?) 
 
Personally I have seen two "camps" relating to terminations with resistors.  I have my two OPII panels terminated at the distal sides of the zones.  For me though its one pair/two pair of wires per zone per device with no loops in the midwest.  In Florida I have like 4 sliding glass doors and each one has four NC/NO switches looped to one zone (IE 4 zones one per sliding glass door).  The PIRs are also in separate zones along with each door that opens out.  All of the windows are in their own zone too.  Some folks prefer though to put all of the windows in one room to one zone.  I think though the older panels only had a few zones rather than say an OPII with a base of 16 zones and ease of adding more zones.  My old old beta test panel had something like 48 zones with build in X10 from the late 1980's. 
 
I have seen though the same you have with the terminations at the panel.  All of the documentation I read mostly saids to put terminating resistors at the distal side of the zone; so I did it that way.  But its easier when you have the terminating resistors in the panel.
 
BTW with all of the Cat5 in the panel you might be able to juggle a zone and utilize one cable for your network into the panel wiring.

 
Thanks for the detailed response! ray:
 
The reason I thought the cat5 wiring was a part of the smoke detectors in the first place, was because the "Smoke Alarm" terminals on the panel do not have anything hooked up and that cluster of 5 cat5 wires are not hooked up to anything but themselves...
 
Unfortunately, I have no attic access above any of the smoke detectors to be able to see if any of wiring is just sitting above the gang boxes... (not sure how I would then go about tracing them)
 
Also the off-white (cat5) wiring is labeled in the panel. It is labeled "Upstairs Hall", "Master", "Great", "Garage", and "Main" -- HOWEVER, I do not have any zones or sensors of any kind in either the "Garage" or "Upstairs Hall" so that confuses me a little.... In fact, there is no sensors of any kind anywhere upstairs.... (except for the smoke detectors). Also, this does not quite answer the questions about having 6 smoke detectors and 5 sets of wires... h34r:
 
I found the contact info for the company that wired the Alarm,,,, I am going to try to call them and I will let you know if they are any help (I am not counting on it)...
 
 
ETA: I contacted the company and they just wanted to charge me $100 to send someone out to "investigate"... no help whatsoever...

 

[pete_c]

not sure how I would then go about tracing them

 
This is where you get a toner (I put a link to one above from Monoprice).  They do work well.
 

Also the off-white (cat5) wiring is labeled in the panel. It is labeled "Upstairs Hall", "Master", "Great", "Garage", and "Main" -- HOWEVER, I do not have any zones or sensors of any kind in either the "Garage" or "Upstairs Hall" so that confuses me a little.... In fact, there is no sensors of any kind anywhere upstairs.... (except for the smoke detectors). Also, this does not quite answer the questions about having 6 smoke detectors and 5 sets of wires...

 
Could be that they were not utilized, then removed and then the holes where painted over.  A guess that it might have been easier to remove the PIR's, then push the wires through the hole, spackle and paint versus trying to pull the cables out.  But you really don't know what they did. 
 
The smokes and wires for the smokes might have been connected in the vicinity where the 120VAC smokes where then also pushed back up into the attic.  Who knows?  But maybe also in order to pass inspection when the previous owner was selling they might have been requested to put in 120VAC smokes.
 
That said a toner might help if the wires are still there.  PIR's would have 4 wires and NC/NO maybe just 2 wire connections.  As you already have the smokes in place and they are functioning I would concentrate first on the other wires and ends trying to maybe find them using a toner.
 
Depending on the alarm company.  They might just have a invoice that states something about the alarm and sensor in a list.  They could also have a drawing of the layout.  Ask them.  If they do it would help; if they do not then they would probably check the wiring with a toner too.
 
In Florida we did a tear down in the late 1990's of a home we had purchased in the 1980's.  The contractor subcontracted an alarm installer that did all of the prewire before the house was done.  Initially I called for a quote for the alarm installation some 8 years later.  They did have drawings and all of the alarm info.  But they wanted close to $4000 to install a panel and sensors.
 
That said I just tested the labeled cabling, installed sensor in the doors and windows and installed PIRs and keypads and an HAI OPII and all was well.
 
Actually doing it myself it was much cheaper and I got the HAI OPII with all of the bells and whistles.
 
When I looked and helped (installing a new OPII) at the neighbor's house in Florida; the old panel wasn't being used.  Instead of removing the PIRs and stuff they had painted over them which made it a bit of a PITA to install new devices.  I did have enough slack though in all of the wires to be able to install new sensors. 
 
The toner is like $35 or so.  I have had mine for some 15 years and use it today.  Basically you connect one side of it to ground and the wire you are looking for.  The toner/probe tone is adjustable.  So you kind of guess where the other side of the wire is and listen to the tone.  The pitch of the tone will change the closer you get to the wire you are testing.  When you get one take a piece of wire or use a long extension cord putting one side  under a rug looking for the wire with a toner.  You will find it right away.