Smokes on non-main Elk Board issue

IVB

Senior Member
I can't get any smoke detectors to work on my Elk zone expanders. I ran an 18/4 from my main board's SAUX/VAUX to the 2ndary cabinet for juice, wired everything up, as soon as I enable the zone with a smoke detector, I immediately get a fire alert.
It's a 4-wire smoke detector, so I hooked up to both SAUX and zone.

When I repeat the same steps with the main board, all wires the same, resistor the same, everything is fine.

I tried this with 3 different smoke detectors, so I know it's not any given smoke detector or wiring run.

I'm baffled as to what the problem could be. Any clues as to what to try next?
 
Just a thought, but did you try a normal sensor on the expander to confirm it is working properly? To try and confirm that the expander is properly installed and there are no pesky 485 issues or wiring, etc. I remember I had an issue with an expander and it later appeared I had an issue with the cable I was using (or that is what it seemed to be).

That might be the other item to try (replacing the cable to the expander, although this is probably a long shot).
 
IVB

Let give this a try
Re-hookup the Smoke Detector to a zone on the expansion board. Setup that zone in RP as "10 = Fire Alarm" Let it give the alert. Acknowledge the alert on the keypad then Reset the Smoke Detectors.
 
Mike said:
Just a thought, but did you try a normal sensor on the expander to confirm it is working properly? To try and confirm that the expander is properly installed and there are no pesky 485 issues or wiring, etc. I remember I had an issue with an expander and it later appeared I had an issue with the cable I was using (or that is what it seemed to be).

That might be the other item to try (replacing the cable to the expander, although this is probably a long shot).
Well, I was *pretty sure* that I did have other working sensors on them, but I best go check. I've made enough shockingly stupid moves wiring this up that I don't want to assume anything.

The other idea I had to test out the longshot is to take the working detector off the main board, go downstairs with the same cable to the 2ndary cabinet, wire it up to an expander that's got working motion sensors on it. That way the only delta is expander vs main board.
 
Put a 2.2K EOL resistor on the expander zone and re-enroll all modules using Installer program menu 1. You should not have any fire troubles. Then connect your smoke detector. Remember the expansion zones are 4 wire smoke zones with a 2.2K EOL resistor.
 
Ah, thanks for that note. Forgive the newbie question, but does the resistor go across the A & B terminals? Or, does it go between one of the terminals and the wire back to the main board?
 
IVB said:
Ah, thanks for that note. Forgive the newbie question, but does the resistor go across the A & B terminals? Or, does it go between one of the terminals and the wire back to the main board?
Depends upon the sensor ---

N/O - resistor across A & B terminals

N/C - resistor between one terminal and elk panel

The Pod

(I just bought an elk myself and I'm having loads of fun learning all this new stuff too B) )
 
Ok, now i'm confused. I thought for a given zone, resistors always went on the device itself [ie inside smoke detector].

Further, I thought Spanky meant to do it across the A/B terminals that connect the expander to the main board, not the actual zone itself, and that's why I need to re-enroll all the modules.

Put a 2.2K EOL resistor on the expander zone and re-enroll all modules using Installer program menu 1. You should not have any fire troubles. Then connect your smoke detector.

Let me write down everything that I think I should do:
1) [already done, putting here for clarity's sake] Run the 18/4 connector from main board->Data Bus Hub in 2ndary cabinet, also run a 2nd 18/4 from SAUX & VAUX to 2ndary cabinet.
2) Run 18/4 from Data Bus Hub->M1XIN 16Z expander, also bridge the M1XIN A/B terminals with a 2200 resistor.
3) Turn on Elk, re-enroll all modules
4) Turn off Elk, add the 2 wires (N/O & C) from the 4-wire smoke to M1XIN on the Z60 & Neg terminals. Wire the 12V/- wires into the SAUX&neg lines.

Thanks for putting up with the extremely basic questions.

- Vivek
 
I thought termination of the Data Bus Hub is not needed as long as you use the RJ45 Terminator on the first unused port. Then all the devices that plug into the Hub are unterminated.
 
The 2.2K End of Line Resistor for the smoke zone goes across the normally open fire contacts on the smoke detector. This gives supervision for the fire zone. You may also want to add an end of line power supervision relay across the 12v power at the smoke detector to supervise power. The end of line relay contacts will be placed in series with the end of line resistor which will open the circuit if power is lost at the smoke detector.


The terminating resistor jumper on the input expansion module is only used if the expansion module is at the extreme end of the RS-485 data bus run which terminates the data bus. There should only be two terminating jumpers in place on the data bus. One at each end of the RS485 data bus run.


To make sure, turn the power off on the M1 and measure the resistance across the A and B terminals on the RS-485 data bus. A properly terminated data bus should read about 60 ohms +/- 10 ohms. 30 ohms means too many terminating resistor jumpers in place, 120 ohms means only one terminating resistor jumper in place.
 
toymaster458 said:
I thought termination of the Data Bus Hub is not needed as long as you use the RJ45 Terminator on the first unused port. Then all the devices that plug into the Hub are unterminated.
I think that one still needs to jumper terminate on the main board. JP3 jumper and then of course you still need to terminate the data bus hub using the RJ45 termination wire that came with the data bus hub.

regards,
 
Some progress, I suppose.

I just realized there's a difference between the Data Bus Hub and the Data Bus Hub Retrofit. I have the Retro version.

I now have a single device hanging off each RS485 branch. After reading the manual carefully and several times, I realized I'm supposed to put terminators all over the place. I now have terminators on:
- JP3 - main board
- JP 1/2/3/4/5 on Data Bus Hub Retrofit
- each Zone expander [hooked up to Branch 1, 2, & 3 on Data Bus Hub]
- keypad [hooked up to Branch 4]

The resistance is 74 Ohms, which is in the ballpark of what Spanky says is normal.

I still can't get the expander connected smokes to work. I'm going to recheck the wiring to make sure I didn't do anything silly there.
 
yep.

I may take the working smoke down to the basement tomorrow with the short cable, and plug into each zone expander to test whether each expander is actually working correctly. I've got motion sensors on 2 of them, they work fine.
 
Hi Vivek

If you have sensors on the Expansion unit working ok ...then you have an issue either with the zone configuration of the smoke detector or a wiring issue.....
Have you connnected the EOL as Spanky mentioned ..ie across the normally open contacts ???..............

Frank
 
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