Suggestion for Zones

[sbex55]

I could use some advise on selecting zones. I'm sure there is no one best answer but I'd like to start out on the right foot. All wiring is homerun. I have the following sensors planned:

10 Contacts (doors)
3 Keypads w/ internal speakers (wired to DBH)
5 Smokes (I ran 4-wire but I have not selected the sensors yet)
6 Motions (2 indoor)
4 Heat/Temperature
2 CO2
2 Water
1 Door Bell detector
1 Garage Door controller (probably wired to control)
4 Glass Breaks
3 Sirens (1 outdoor)
3 Thermostats (have not purchased XSP yet)
Some lighting automation

I did purchase an XIN and DBH to offload the main board.

Should I put the 10 door contacts on the main board or save these zones for other use?

Do I need to worry about response time anywhere?

I appreciate the help!

 

[Teken]

If you live in a cold climate than a low temperature sensor is a good idea. If you have a sump pump then a float monitor is also a good investment.

Otherwise a water detection for the sump, hot water heater, washer, dishwasher would be other areas to monitor. If you do not have a dedicated hold up / panic button for the closet than that is another zone.

Not sure if you're intending to use any sort of perimeter protection simply to be aware of those entering the protected area but that is another zone to consider.

At the end of the day ensure all zones are using EOL resistors, along with tamper detection turned on.

Teken . . .

 

[Del91574]

Zones are for protective/detection based items. I think, given the list, you're looking for more of a confirmation of what to order/put together as a system. I'd recommend adding an RB, another XIN and most definately an additional power supply.

If you're using ZTS' on the M1, then they'll have to be on the main board, if they're dry contact temps, then they can go anywhere. Some have field modified XIN's to allow analog inputs, but I personally wouldn't recommend.

I would not recommend adding separate sirens to the M1 and use interior speakers (adding a M1TWA to drive additonal units or another powered driver). Other than an outdoor siren/speaker, I think that it's unnecessary and counterproductive.

I would suggest buying an XEP for ease of use/programming the system and add the XSP's as the peripherals dictate.

I'm assuming that your CO2 detectors are actually CO, as detecting CO2 in a residential situation isn't common. That would be best suited to be individual zones. I would not put the smokes on their own zone, as that introduces another issue that most fail to address, power supervision, which compounded with performing a fire reset, will cause every fire zone to go into trouble at the same time. IMHO, not worth the issues it creates vs. locating 1 smoke out of 5 (or even more) to see which one generated the alarm. I really don't see why everyone is so hung up on always running a 4 wire fire loop (not cabling) for every install out there. Does it mean you can use any smoke detector, sure, but not many 2 wire detectors are not listed for use on a particular alarm panel, and if there's an issue, there's plenty of ways to fix that and maintain a proper fire alarm loop. If you had a residence that required enough detectors to justify multiple fire zones, there's far better ways of accomplishing a compliant install instead of running 5-10 zones of analog fire on a standard control panel.

I can't say I see the entire benefit of doing DEOLR's on an M1 in a residence, but to each their own.

 

[apostolakisl]

The biggest issue for you is that if indeed you home-runned everything, your smokes are going to be a challenge. If your walls are still open, I would get in there and daisy chain those guys. If it's too late. . . then you can use 2-wire smokes and daisy chain them at the panel using the extra 2 wires as your loop back. As Dell mentioned, having smokes individually zoned makes life far more complicated (and more expensive) than it need be. The smoke that initiates the alarm will have some sort of flashing light on it so that you know which one it was. If you were alarming a building with 50 or 100 detectors, that would not be the way to do it, but with 5. . . just walk around and find it, it won't take but 1minute.

Your heat detectors can be left as individual zones.

You can always leave your home runned lines in place and just add another set of wires hopping from detector to detector. Just label them so you know which is which.

 

[video321]

I would not recommend adding separate sirens to the M1 and use interior speakers (adding a M1TWA to drive additonal units or another powered driver). Other than an outdoor siren/speaker, I think that it's unnecessary and counterproductive.

DEL gives good advice, but I disagree with this. While I wouldn't add a typical siren that is meant for outdoors and draws 1A for inside the house, what I would (and did) add are high frequency piezo sirens. They only draw a small amount of current and work great at trying to drive a burglar out. If you decide to use a piezo siren you may want to have them triggered only when the house is armed in away mode.

 

[Teken]

DEL gives good advice, but I disagree with this. While I wouldn't add a typical siren that is meant for outdoors and draws 1A for inside the house, what I would (and did) add are high frequency piezo sirens. They only draw a small amount of current and work great at trying to drive a burglar out. If you decide to use a piezo siren you may want to have them triggered only when the house is armed in away mode.

As long as the security alarm system is properly designed and deployed to supply the required auxiliary power to the extra sirens there is no problem at all.

With respect to extra sirens mounted on the exterior of the home. I believe this is one of the most valuable parts of the alarm system that should be integrated and deployed in a security alarm system.

When there is a fire, security breach, or personal emergency on site. Having a strobe indicator along with a properly mounted and secured siren is the only thing that will inform others of the problem(s).

What purpose is there for a interior siren?

Its to notify you, not others . . .

The sole purpose of the strobe and the exterior siren, like there is for the automotive alarm systems, is to indicate which building is in need of assistance etc. The problem people run into, is that the bulk of them are too stupid to adhere to the maximum ampacity the manufacture has indicated.

This is when things go wrong, or break.

Teken . . .

 

[apostolakisl]

My personal opinion on the sirens. If you can hear it in the entire house at a reasonable volume. . . .it is doing all it needs to do. The siren is not for fire . . . fire has sounders in each detector that will make you go deaf they are so damn loud and by code you will have a lot of them and they will be where it matters most. Unless you are trying to drive criminals out of your house based on painfully loud sound . . .then I don't think you really need tons of over the top volume. When the criminal hear the siren at any volume, he knows he is on borrowed time regardless of the volume.

And personally I don't see a huge point in external super loud sirens and strobes. It's not like the neighbor is going to grab the shot gun and come running over and take care of business. Over the top volume on the outside is going to tick your neighbors off when you have false alarms and accomplish nothing extra in the event of a real break in. Pretty much you want everyone on the premises, both the crook and occupants to know an alarm has occurred. Extra volume and strobes are only needed if there are folks who are hearing impaired.

 

[Teken]

My personal opinion on the sirens. If you can hear it in the entire house at a reasonable volume. . . .it is doing all it needs to do. The siren is not for fire . . . fire has sounders in each detector that will make you go deaf they are so damn loud and by code you will have a lot of them and they will be where it matters most. Unless you are trying to drive criminals out of your house based on painfully loud sound . . .then I don't think you really need tons of over the top volume. When the criminal hear the siren at any volume, he knows he is on borrowed time regardless of the volume.

And personally I don't see a huge point in external super loud sirens and strobes. It's not like the neighbor is going to grab the shot gun and come running over and take care of business. Over the top volume on the outside is going to tick your neighbors off when you have false alarms and accomplish nothing extra in the event of a real break in. Pretty much you want everyone on the premises, both the crook and occupants to know an alarm has occurred. Extra volume and strobes are only needed if there are folks who are hearing impaired.

My comments about the siren was not related to the smoke detectors. It was intended to address the importance signaling to first responders, neighbors, etc.

Outside of a actual fire (which the smoke & flames would be the indicator for a out of control fire) every second counts when the EMS / FD, Police need to locate your house in good and bad weather. Its sometimes the extra small things that will tip the balance of what the final outcome will be, whether that be good, or bad.

Teken . . .

 

[apostolakisl]

My comments about the siren was not related to the smoke detectors. It was intended to address the importance signaling to first responders, neighbors, etc.

Outside of a actual fire (which the smoke & flames would be the indicator for a out of control fire) every second counts when the EMS / FD, Police need to locate your house in good and bad weather. Its sometimes the extra small things that will tip the balance of what the final outcome will be, whether that be good, or bad.

Teken . . .

I would disagree about first responders being neighbors. . and do you really want them to be. In all of my years of having security systems never once have I had a neighbor come running over when the alarm went off (and likewise I never ran over to their house either). We all assume (probably rightfully) that the cops have been notified. And if bad guy didn't run away with the alarm sounding .. that is a bad sign and having your neighbor get involved just adds one more life to the risk. I would say that perhaps if you live in one of those little isolated towns in Alaska or something it would be different. But in routine suburbia. . . leave your neighbors out of it.

Mostly neighbors get annoyed at loud alarms. And if you annoy them often enough and they are the complaining type, you can get fined. Police and fire are all gps'd up so even if they don't know your street they will go to the right place right off. But in all of the suburban living I have ever had, the cops and fire guys know their beat pretty well.

Also, I would set the alarm siren time-out to no more than 5 minutes. Some areas will even require that.

 

[video321]

What purpose is there for a interior siren?

Its to notify you, not others . . .

You obviously have never heard a high output piezo.

. . . fire has sounders in each detector that will make you go deaf they are so damn loud...

And a piezo can be 30dB louder than that

 

[Ranger Digital]

Im going to have to research on why 4 wire smokes all on their own zones wired back to the can is a bad idea. Thats been brought up twice in this thread. I dont see why its a bad idea.

Ive done mine that way with an external power source. Should I rip it out? lol

 

[Del91574]

Wire up the 4 wire smokes, install power supervision relays. Wire all to either the same reversing relay or switched power source (or both). Have the panel perform a fire reset. You'll see the issues and problems.

Sure, there may be workarounds, but who wants to have 5-10 separate methods to silence and reset a fire alarm. Making the system harder to use isn't a benefit.

 

[sbex55]

Thank you all for the great advise! This information clears up several questions I had. I will update my design as follows:

- add low temperature sensors (probably one indoor and one outdoor)
- add a panic button in the master bedroom closet
- add an RB, another XIN and additional power. I already purchased an XEP but forgot to mention it in my original post.
- Indoor Siren: Use speakers for indoor 'sirens' and rely on the smoke sounders for fire. I will also consider adding a few screamers.
- Outdoor Siren: I agree I need to take my neighbors into consideration. I will look for a 'reasonable db' outdoor siren and set the timeout to 5 minutes. I will also add an outdoor strobe and (hopefully be able to) set the timeout to 15-20 minutes.
- Wire all my door contacts to an XIN since it doesn't seem that I need to worry about response time. This will provide reserve on my main board.


My smoke detection plan needs help. I will start a separate thread for specific questions.


Regarding power: I understand appropriate power is very installation specific but I'm wondering if someone could give me some power suggestions so I could allocation appropriate 'space' in my cabinet. Will I need one additional power board and a battery or should I get 2 boards and 2 batteries for expandability/reserve or ... ?


Thanks again!

 

[Teken]

You obviously have never heard a high output piezo.


And a piezo can be 30dB louder than that

Power output is only one factor, and they are governed by dB output. You will never see a piezo provide anything past 130 dB. Most are 90 - 110 dB and like smoke detectors its the operating frequencies which get peoples attention.

Case in point smoke detectors.

Do you think they are 130 dB??

Not . . .

Teken . . .

 

[Teken]

Regarding power: I understand appropriate power is very installation specific but I'm wondering if someone could give me some power suggestions so I could allocation appropriate 'space' in my cabinet. Will I need one additional power board and a battery or should I get 2 boards and 2 batteries for expandability/reserve or ... ?


Thanks again!

Any system if wired with the correct relays can provide the power output to sustain multiple sirens. The run time is dependent upon your needs, assuming you're trying to maintain UL standards.

Things that will affect your run time is the actual load(s) your system poses on the battery system. So you will need to design and make the appropriate load calculations to determine what your expected run time will yield.

Bare in mind this assumes a lot of variables about how fresh the batteries are, and the ampacity they can provide as the years go by. Like with any system these critical systems need to be tested on a monthly basis to vet and validate their actual performance.

I can literally count on one hand all the DIY users I know that test their systems on a monthly basis. These are the very same people who say they test their smoke alarms and also change out their batteries. :huh:

With anything such as security, its a lifestyle . . .

If you incorporate and instill those values into your lifestyle it will be second nature. If you make a system too complex, or hard to use in a daily setting.

It will not be used and it will be ignored, this is fact. If you make the appropriate space allowances for the cans in your system and have the proper wiring in place. Wiring multiple batteries in parallel is not a problem (heeding all manufactures charging limits of course)

Keep in mind, no matter what anyone ever tells you about the so called system load test. You will always perform the load test once a month to confirm the system is fully operational and functional. If you live in the cold aszz north as I do, you will perform the exact same test when its -45'C as it is here.

In the extreme temperatures the current loads will at times double, which may not be present during the beautiful 20's weather most people test in. That is the only caveat about installing an exterior siren that needs to be addressed as it could pose an extreme load to exceed the bells current limit.

Some users circumvent this problem by using powered sirens, the benefit is the alarm system during high loads is not presented with the full load during extreme conditions as the BUB (back up battery) acts like a buffer to ensure the initial siren blast is not a load exceeding the bells limit.

Just something to consider should you go down this route. As others have commented before, proper cabling diameter is paramount to ensure voltage drops are not part of the equation.

Teken . . .