Pre-wire for outdoor siren/strobe and indoor siren for ELK

[felixrosbergen]

Gents,

Can somebody defintively tell me the wire size and number of conductions to hook up:

- Outdoor siren and strobe (indepently controllable) with or without tamper sensor usage. Looking at ELK 1RT and 150RT but don't quite know the difference. Planning to use the SL1 strobe as well.

- Indoor siren, not sure which one to use (recommendations appreciated). Only need to use it as a siren, planning to connect ELK to whole house audio for announcements.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

MavRic

 

[rfdesq]

Gents,

Can somebody defintively tell me the wire size and number of conductions to hook up:

- Outdoor siren and strobe (indepently controllable) with or without tamper sensor usage. Looking at ELK 1RT and 150RT but don't quite know the difference. Planning to use the SL1 strobe as well.

- Indoor siren, not sure which one to use (recommendations appreciated). Only need to use it as a siren, planning to connect ELK to whole house audio for announcements.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

MavRic

I use 18/2 for the siren and 22/4 for the strobe and tampers. The difference between a 1RT and a 150RT, the 1RT is a speaker in a stainless steel enclosure and the 150RT is a siren in a stainless steel enclosure. Can't use speakers for UL installations. I don't do indoor sirens I use the ELK speakers. They still give you siren sounds but also voice messages. There are some low current piezo sirens available, search the forums here.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Thanks rfdesq. This might be the only 18/2 in the whole house..hopefully the LV guy has it in his truck....maybe i'll just mount the RT150 myself later rather than have the builder runs these wires.....especially since i'm now thinking i may need 2 RT150's. 1 for each side of the house...i was thinking about just doing one side, but that side is opposite of the neighbours...i kinda want the neighbour to be able to hear and see the siren...their bedroom is on that side of the house. I suppose during testing i will disocnenct that one so it doesnt flash or make noise when i screw something up and it goes off the middle of the night..it's bad enough to deal with the wife in those cases....hahaha

 

[rfdesq]

I like using two siren/strobe combinations and use it on all of my installs. If your contractor doesn't have 18/2 you could have him run another 22/4 and just double up on the wires.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I think a strobe is a great idea outside of the home. Remember to look up the Elk How-To on keeping the strobe flashing on an alarm until someone disarms the system (i.e. not tied to the siren which will time out).

This way the wife will know not to enter the house if she sees the strobe flashing.

Also, here is another idea for a situation that happened to people I know recently. They live in a rural area with minimal street lighting and signage. They had an emergency situation that required an ambulance in the middle of the night. The ambulance could not immediately find their home and actually turned down the wrong street driving right past their house. A strobe light would have helped this situation. I think one should be able to activate it manually via a function key or other method.

 

[felixrosbergen]

I think i can run the wiring for the exteriors myself later. For the interior siren (no voice needed) what wiring do need to run?

Shoudl i run multiple interior siren? Is the piezo volume adjustable?

My understanding is that the keypads do the chime and beep on exit, etc. For voice announcements i will use whole house audio. So i really only need the siren when there is an alarm situation.

I supposed a singel super load piezo woudl do the trick. Does they fit recessed in a 1 gang box and what wiren do they need?

 

[opie]

Thanks rfdesq. This might be the only 18/2 in the whole house..hopefully the LV guy has it in his truck....maybe i'll just mount the RT150 myself later rather than have the builder runs these wires.....especially since i'm now thinking i may need 2 RT150's. 1 for each side of the house...i was thinking about just doing one side, but that side is opposite of the neighbours...i kinda want the neighbour to be able to hear and see the siren...their bedroom is on that side of the house. I suppose during testing i will disocnenct that one so it doesnt flash or make noise when i screw something up and it goes off the middle of the night..it's bad enough to deal with the wife in those cases....hahaha

I usually run 16-4 speaker wire and 22-4 for the tamper. 16 Ga is overkill but I keep a lot of it on hand for D/A systems.