Using self contained siren with siren driver?

[mikerock]

I have a Napco home security system.Recently I renovated the hallway in my house and wanted to eliminate the ugly bullhorn siren that was visible in my hallway to a more sleek looking siren. So I purchased a Honeywell self contained siren.

Now when I went to install it, I noticed only 5 VDC at the wires when activating the siren, but it still worked, so I just left it. Now I realize why I was getting only 5V out. Turns out I have a siren driver in my panel, and my old bullhorn was actually a speaker only. And I can't re-wire the speaker wires in the panel to the +12V bell output because I have a second bullhorn in my attic by the gable vent thats being fed by the same pair in the hallway ( It is spliced somewhere in the attic). If I did that, the siren in the hallway would work, but not the speaker in the attic. So now I'm not sure what I should do. Should I just leave it since its working, or maybe bypass the circuit board in the siren and just go directly to the speaker?

Also I noticed on the siren driver (Altronix ALSD2) only the "Yelp" and "GND" terminals were used, not the "Steady" terminal. Will I still get a steady tone in case of fire?

Thanks again

 

[video321]

or maybe bypass the circuit board in the siren and just go directly to the speaker?

That is an option which I have done.

Also I noticed on the siren driver (Altronix ALSD2) only the "Yelp" and "GND" terminals were used, not the "Steady" terminal. Will I still get a steady tone in case of fire?

Hmmm... I know fire is temporal 3 so I would think as long as the panel is sending it it shouldn't matter too much if it's using yelp or steady - whether it's on for 3 seconds or turned on/off 3 times while on yelp, but I may be wrong here.

 

[mikerock]

Thanks for your reply. I did bypass the circuit board and it works fine.