Wiring 4 wire smoke detector

[rmf]

As someone who has various versions of the ELK RF hardware, @RAL did a fantastic job capturing all these changes in 1 post. I lost track myself, and between beta testing new RF hardware, crystal vs SAW, and firmware version dependencies, it's something I've been dreading dealing with for a while.

He sure did a great job.

In some ways it has left me a little bit more confused than before. But it seems at least that I have crystal sensors and a receiver that should handle them. I'm hoping to get to programming them tomorrow, so I'll let you all know if any issues arise.

I do have one question at this point which I asked above.... What is the "State of the art" at this point? If I'm buying a receiver tomorrow, am I buying a crystal receiver? A SAW? A 319.5?

That part still has me quite confused

 

[RAL]

He sure did a great job.

In some ways it has left me a little bit more confused than before. But it seems at least that I have crystal sensors and a receiver that should handle them. I'm hoping to get to programming them tomorrow, so I'll let you all know if any issues arise.

I do have one question at this point which I asked above.... What is the "State of the art" at this point? If I'm buying a receiver tomorrow, am I buying a crystal receiver? A SAW? A 319.5?

That part still has me quite confused

The crystal based sensors are the better technology as the frequency control is more accurate and more stable. That makes for more reliable communication between the sensor and the receiver.

The older SAW based sensors are still sold, though I'm not sure why. There seems to be crystal equivalents for just about all the SAW sensors. - Lots of old stock in warehouses?

I don't know of a simple way to tell which type a sensor is based on the part number. Maybe there is one and I just haven't figured it out. I just google the part number and find the data sheet, spec sheet or other product description to be sure. Complicating things is the same sensor often had multiple part numbers under different brand labels.