Sensors and Arming....

noshali

Active Member
I think I read somewhere that if one of the zones is violated then the ELK cannot be armed. I just want to make sure that is not the case. The reasons are 2 fold.

Scenario 1
Lets say the garage door is open as the entire family is planning to take a trip. The last person sets the "Armed Away" and comes to the car. The garage door is still open and will be closed. I have been playing with the DS10a and will move to GE caddx sensors but don't want to till I ma sure that it is not going to cause any problems (arming if garage door is open).

Scenario 2
I want to setup 2 PIR sensors in the living room for occupany etc. I have the elk keypad 2 feet below one sensor and will show as violated if I want to arm or disarm using the keypad. Arm stay is what I use everynight before going upstairs so hope that will not cause any problems.

If that is the case then what is the workaround. I haven't explored bypass yet but wouldn't that basically leave the zone unsecure?

regards,
 
I've been working with my Elk for about 2 weeks, and there is a checkbox when you set up a zone that lets you set it as Force Armable that I believe will allow you to arm it even though it's violated.

Matt
 
mdonovan said:
I've been working with my Elk for about 2 weeks, and there is a checkbox when you set up a zone that lets you set it as Force Armable that I believe will allow you to arm it even though it's violated.

Matt
Enabling "Force Armable" on a zone does allow the system to armed, but it requires the arming code to be entered twice and quick arm is not allowed. Therefore, it is not WAF friendly. There is another thread around here where we have requested Elk to create a "don't care" zone option to allow easy arming.

Yes, "force arming" equals "bypassing" the zone, but only temporarily. Once the zone becomes secure, it becomes monitored like all the other zones.
 
Thanks for the replies. I want to add a sensor which is normally open. Meaning when the door is fully open the magnets are next to each other other wise the normal state for the sensor is to be open.

DO I just choose the normally open option in setting up the sensor and it will arm or do I need to something else.

Regards,
 
noshali said:
I want to add a sensor which is normally open. Meaning when the door is fully open the magnets are next to each other other wise the normal state for the sensor is to be open.

DO I just choose the normally open option in setting up the sensor and it will arm or do I need to something else.
A "normally open" sensor and zone would have the switch be OPEN when the magnet was near it. It doesn't really matter if the door is open or closed to the sensor, what matters is "where is the magnet". In the alarm world, "normally" means with the magnet close to the switch as that is the way the system is "normally" armed.

Yes, it is very easy to change a zone configuration in the ElkRP from normally open to normally closed & vice versa.

I have an interior door that has a mag switch installed by the previous owner. I have no immediate plans to use that sensor, so I told the Elk that it was a normally open zone, since that door is normally kept open (i.e. magnets away from each other) to avoid having to bypass it all the time. If a burglar ever did manage to penetrate the perimeter without violating anything and was silly enough to close that door, then the alarm would sound. If I ever wanted to close that door and monitor it, all I would have to do is change the zone type.
 
Here is the way I will setup my garage doors. Using 2 Caddx wireless sensors, both secure will indicate the door is properly closed, none are
secure indicates the door is opening or closing. Only the upper one is secure, indicates the door is open. The M1G can moniter the status of these sensors, so many combinations of rules can be written.

It would be easy to check the status of the garage door after a fixed time to detect if the door was left open after the system was armed in the away mode. If the door was open, shut the door. If the door didn't close then page the owner with a message that the door is stuck open.

Cliff s
 
Here is the logic I use:

Garage door closed:
Sensor 1 closed (magnets together)
Sensor 2 Open (magnets apart)

Garage door OPEN
Sensor 1 Open (magnets Apart)
Sensor 2 Closed (magnets together)

Garage opening and closing or stuck int he middle
Sensor 1 Open (magnets Apart)
Sensor 2 Open (magnets Apart)
 
Noshali,
You will need to wire the two switchs on the garage door in parallel to work right.
 
Spanky,

Now that you brought this up. By parallel you mean that I would have to have the wire from both sensors go straight to the panel (independent of each other). Similar to wiring speakers in parallel to keep the load down.

The question that I have is that can 2 sensors be connected to one zone. If one is nomally open and the other is normally closed and vice versa. Or for that matter lets say I have 2 door contacts (2 different doors) that are wired parallel to 1 zone. How would one know which contact was violated.

regards,
 
A normally closed burglar door switch is Closed when the magnet is close to it. To put multiple switches on one zone you must wire them in series. ie. from one zone terminal on the M1 to one side of a switch. The other side of a switch to the next switch and so forth with the last switch lead coming back to the other zone input terminal on the M1.

If any switch opens, as in a door opening, the entire circuit will be open.

You cannot tell which switch is open using one zone input with many switches connected to it. This is why the M1 has a lot of zone input capability to tell which door is violated.



On your garage door the wiring is different. The switches are wired in parallel, each side of the switches comes back to the zone input terminals on the M1. This way if either switch is closed the zone input is closed. When both switches are open, as when the door is going up, the circuit is open.
 
Hi

On your garage door the wiring is different. The switches are wired in parallel, each side of the switches comes back to the zone input terminals on the M1. This way if either switch is closed the zone input is closed. When both switches are open, as when the door is going up, the circuit is open.

Wiring them in parallel will only allow a door opening message and will not indicate if the door is fully opened or fully closed ...???

Much better i think to connect them to seperate zone inputs on the ELK and this should allow , door closed ,door opened ,door opening + door closing reporting ....???

Frank
 
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