tmbrown97
Senior Member
Find some glassbreak sensors and look at their manuals. The ShatterProIII for instance - there are certain installation criteria that come into play when installing a glassbreak and determining how much it'll "hear". There's no simple answer - it has to do with distance, type of glass, type of window coverings, etc... but generally speaking one should cover several windows to a space.
Once you start to get the hang of this stuff you'll realize it's really about using different sensors as a trigger - they can trigger an IO/Linc, a zone on an Elk M1, an input on an Arduino, on an X10 DS10a transmitter, or anything else - and what happens after is up to you; same with outputs - at the end of the day, it's just relays acting as "light switches" making a connection between two wires or breaking them... or moving a wire from one thing to another. Once those concepts make sense, the system they're hooked to is pretty interchangeable.
Of course, without the right wire in place in the beginning, this all gets a lot harder - so pull wire now while you can.
For the windows, a lot of security professionals would group them in the room - personally I'd home run everything then make those zone-combining decisions later. The wire is cheap - and if you're drilling the holes and running the wire anyway, it's of negligible difference whether you're running 1 or 3 wires... but down the road you could really kick yourself for not having run them all.
If you haven't already, think of water sensors under the kitchen sink, behind toilets and next to tubs, under bathroom sinks - all places that water can overflow and cause problems... don't forget behind the refrigerator!
No matter what you do, I gurantee once you get the hang of this, you'll have some wires you never use, but lots of places you wish you had more... so don't cheap out on your one and only chance ever to do this.
Once you start to get the hang of this stuff you'll realize it's really about using different sensors as a trigger - they can trigger an IO/Linc, a zone on an Elk M1, an input on an Arduino, on an X10 DS10a transmitter, or anything else - and what happens after is up to you; same with outputs - at the end of the day, it's just relays acting as "light switches" making a connection between two wires or breaking them... or moving a wire from one thing to another. Once those concepts make sense, the system they're hooked to is pretty interchangeable.
Of course, without the right wire in place in the beginning, this all gets a lot harder - so pull wire now while you can.
For the windows, a lot of security professionals would group them in the room - personally I'd home run everything then make those zone-combining decisions later. The wire is cheap - and if you're drilling the holes and running the wire anyway, it's of negligible difference whether you're running 1 or 3 wires... but down the road you could really kick yourself for not having run them all.
If you haven't already, think of water sensors under the kitchen sink, behind toilets and next to tubs, under bathroom sinks - all places that water can overflow and cause problems... don't forget behind the refrigerator!
No matter what you do, I gurantee once you get the hang of this, you'll have some wires you never use, but lots of places you wish you had more... so don't cheap out on your one and only chance ever to do this.
