setting up alarm in detatched garage.

[newalarm]

Finally getting to installing alarm in my garage.

Have a M1G to secure the main house.

The garage will be set up as a separate partition so it can be secured while we are home. Also, I would want notification/alarm if any of the garage doors were left open, or broken into.

I already have a M1DBH in the house box. There are 2 keypads and a m1XIN connected to it. I may add a few more keypads in future and will most likely need a P212S Power supply (all connected into M1DBH).

In the garage, I am looking to install an additional M1DBH to the garage (in order to only have one Cat5 running to house M1DBH. I will plug one (or two) keypad, one P212S Power supply, and one M1XIN 16 zone expander into the garage M1DBH.

In the garage, i will install motions, heat detectors, and magnetic contacts on all doors, all connected into the garage M1XIN.

Just to confirm, each M1DBH would need a RJ45 Termination plug, at the last slot, correct?

Alternatively, I may forgo the additional M1DBH in the Garage. Wanted to get feedback as to this setup.

 

[chrisexv6]

My garage is detached as well (kinda....there is a roof covering the space between main house and garage, but no walls in that space).

I was thinking of putting a zone expander and can in the garage itself, so I can get away with running just one Cat5. BUT, looking around it looks like its not a BAD thing to actually use CAT wire for contact wiring. I used 22/2 for sensors inside my house....you can get CAT6 that is 23 gauge, so its not really far off. Doing it that way, you can get 4 2-conductor sensors on one CAT pull. Im not getting really fancy out in the garage....just a standard door sensor for the entry door, and a few sensors so I can get accurate status on the garage doors themselves, and open/close them from the keypads. I figure 2 CAT runs will be more than enough. Its not that far in my case, so I dont think I have to worry about the wire runs being too long.

Depending on how far away your garage is, you might consider something like this. But once you start to eat up 4 conductors (motions, etc) it might become more efficient for you to have a separate expander right there to wire too. I might even change my plan to do the same, depending on how inexpensively I can get another zone expander.

The idea of a keypad out there, IMHO, is more bad than good. I dont want anyone to be even close to being able to arm/disarm the system if they make it into my garage. Im not treating it as a separate partition, though, so I can see why you want one out there.

 

[newalarm]

Our garage is directly on an alley on multiple sides. So we want to make sure that it is secure when we are home. Without alarm, we could be home and we would never know someone would be robbing us blind....

The M1DBH is meant to be run of Ethernet wiring (I am using Cat5e). All other wiring will be industry standard 22/4, 22/2, or larger for sirens and speakers.

 

[chrisexv6]

If you are going to have the keypad and power supply out there, then yes I personally would run the DBH.

You actually have me re-thinking about not putting a keypad on my garage now, thanks! I dont anticipate being "robbed blind", protecting my stuff is secondary to protecting the people in my house. Tools, cars, etc can be replaced.

 

[newalarm]

Yes, of course, but none the less, being robbed is no fun. It may be more of a headache to set up separate partition in your instance, though keypad good if you drive into garage. Then you can turn off alarm.

 

[gatchel]

I don't use DBH units. I wired my garage direct running the data lines through a surge protector at each end where the wires enter each building. In a garage how much are you going to add or change? My wire enters the garage, hits the surge protector in an Elk can, runs to the 212S, the XIN, then the OVR then out of the can to the keypad with the termination there. It doens't get any simpler.

Also, if you are going to power the garage devices separately with a 212S you have to break out the +12vdc lines and get the power from the 212 while keeping the negatives tied together.

As far as terminations, there should only ever be 2 points of termination on the Elk bus. One at each end of the wiring.

 

[chrisexv6]

Yes, of course, but none the less, being robbed is no fun. It may be more of a headache to set up separate partition in your instance, though keypad good if you drive into garage. Then you can turn off alarm.

yeah, and more future proof if I go the DBH route like you are. Then I can attach anything I want, not just contacts to a zone expander.

How much is another DBH? I actually dont have ANY in the system right now, but since a keypad cant connect to a zone expander Ill have to install one. Or the other option is a CAT5 for keypad and a separate CAT5 for zone expander, which is also do-able.

 

[newalarm]

I think the DBH was around 30$ I can give you my contact where i order if you want.

 

[newalarm]

How exactly are the bus address settings set up? Does this correspond to the position (j1, j2, j3) on the DBH? And if not, how do i find out the enrolled devices?

LATER EDIT>>> Never mind. figured it out... it was in the manual as usual. Little rusty on this. Found that the p212s is a Type 1 device (as keypads are) and can't have the same number as a keypad. Default for p212s is 15 and I left it there. I had some trouble wiring to the DBH but that is simply because i forgot to jump it and had placed wires in wrong place on P212s. It enrolled fine after that.

 

[newalarm]

I ended up setting up the P212S in the house and am planning on running a power cable to the garage. I needed additional power in the house can anyway, and 2Amps would have been overkill for the few devices in the garage. Plus i don't need to buy additional P212s, which is good since they are not cheap.

Question, what gauge wire should I use for a run of about 100 feet from P212S to the garage can?

 

[gatchel]

I ended up setting up the P212S in the house and am planning on running a power cable to the garage. I needed additional power in the house can anyway, and 2Amps would have been overkill for the few devices in the garage. Plus i don't need to buy additional P212s, which is good since they are not cheap.

Question, what gauge wire should I use for a run of about 100 feet from P212S to the garage can?

http://www.secoelect...torVoltDrop.asp


At 100 feet you are probably looking at 12awg or 10awg to maintain less than %5 voltage drop at a 2 amp load.

 

[tmbrown97]

Reading this thread, there are a few things I want to point out for you all.

First off - you can have one run off your DBH out to the garage and run a few items out there without necessarily needing another DBH. I did that in my garage with a keypad, input expander, and output expander. If you understand the one-way-path of the databus, it's quite simple. You'll need a login to Elk's web-site I think - then check out this link for details.

Second - for the P212S - it's a great expander - make sure you pay close attention to the installation manual - there are specific instructions about how to have it take over powering the databus items down the line from it.

And third - just purely for information; the comment above that "With Cat5 you can have 4 pairs of inputs/outputs" - well, you can actually get more than that. All Negative terminals on the M1 are shared - so as long as you don't exceed the current draw of the wire used, you could theoretically have 7 contact sensors on a single Cat5 by joining all the negatives; or you could have a positive and negative plus a combination of 6 inputs/outputs - use the positive/negative to power motions and also connect your inputs and outputs to the same negative. It's more flexibile than you might think!

 

[newalarm]

Thanks Work2Play, that was really helpful. I was not aware of the ability to adding additional items off one cat5 connection to DBH.

Thanks also for the power heads up. I had not seen that, but also have not yet gotten to plugging anything into the P212S.

I was also not aware that the negs were common. That will be helpful. However, my run to garage box is 100' so I am dealing with some resistance loss. I will need to rethink my install based on all this.

I did a quick calc, on the wire gauge required (found calculator online). I am looking to have a low load in the garage, probably 100mA. At 500mA, I get a 0.658 voltage drop, or 5.48% drop at 12volts. Does this make sense?

 

[tmbrown97]

Won't your garage accessories be powered off the aux supply? If so the current will basically be nilch; the negative from the house and the negative from the power supply will all be linked to balance out the reference ground; then the load on the conductors back to the house should be pretty insignificant; as for sensor trips, the Elk uses a pretty wide range for each of the values (open/short/etc).

 

[newalarm]

What do you mean by aux. supply? I think you lost me here...