After advice for prewiring for alarm.

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AzaK

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#171408 16-Apr-2015 21:34

Hi all.

We're doing a reno and currently all the gib in the living/hall areas is off an I was thinking it might be smart to put in some wiring ready for a future alarm. The electrician gave me a quick rundown of what I should do but I'm not sure I remember it all and exactly what cabling to get. IIRC he said I can just use 4 core wiring (6 if I want flashing LED on the outside alarm unit) and need to wire to:

Keypad
PIRs
Internal Siren
External Siren/Light

Taking them all back to some central point, such as the manhole in the hall.

So I have three questions

1) What's cable will do the trick? He said I could use my cat6 but they use cheaper stuff but couldn't tell me exactly what it was. (Is this OK? The fact it's stranded has me wondering http://www.computerstore.co.nz/computer-cables-connections-nz/dynamix-100m-roll-4-wire-flat-cable-silver-c-rj11-4-r101)

2) Do I need to concern myself with the phone line or can that all be hooked up later?

3) Is there anything else I need to be aware of?

Thanks
Aaron

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cisconz
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#1285891 16-Apr-2015 22:04

I would suggest using alarm cable (Not cat 5).

These have slightly thicker conductors, and allow for differentiation later.
If it was me I would run the below

4 Core to PIRs
4 Core to Smoke Sensors
6 Core to Keypads
6 Core to any doors (If swipe card control etc is required)
6 Core to Sirens (Using multiple on each for a higher gauge for louder sirens).
Cat 5 from Panel location to Master Phone socket.

Hmmmm

cisconz

cisconz
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#1285893 16-Apr-2015 22:07

Also, I would run a Cat 5 or 2 to wherever your router is going to be.
This will allow for Alarm over IP, remote configuration and lots of new alarms have app control

Hmmmm

Fred99

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#1285929 16-Apr-2015 23:27

cisconz: I would suggest using alarm cable (Not cat 5).

These have slightly thicker conductors, and allow for differentiation later.
If it was me I would run the below

4 Core to PIRs
4 Core to Smoke Sensors
6 Core to Keypads
6 Core to any doors (If swipe card control etc is required)
6 Core to Sirens (Using multiple on each for a higher gauge for louder sirens).
Cat 5 from Panel location to Master Phone socket.

If that's what's needed to "future proof" a NZ family home, I really really desperately want to go back to the past.

Goosey

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#1285943 17-Apr-2015 06:36

Consider a future keypad in the master bedroom or a section of the house you want to have unarmed but with the rest of the house armed using that second keypad and getting fancy with sensor/alarm partions.

Also consider a couple cables to goto your garage door opener motors. Most modern alarms allow keyfob remote open/close of garage doors as well as disarm/arm of the alarm.

sbiddle

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#1285949 17-Apr-2015 07:10

Fred99:
cisconz: I would suggest using alarm cable (Not cat 5).

These have slightly thicker conductors, and allow for differentiation later.
If it was me I would run the below

4 Core to PIRs
4 Core to Smoke Sensors
6 Core to Keypads
6 Core to any doors (If swipe card control etc is required)
6 Core to Sirens (Using multiple on each for a higher gauge for louder sirens).
Cat 5 from Panel location to Master Phone socket.

If that's what's needed to "future proof" a NZ family home, I really really desperately want to go back to the past.

This is nothing about "future proofing" - it's simply what is required to install an alarm.

timmmay

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#1285951 17-Apr-2015 07:17

While the gib is off prewire for speakers, rear especially, but also sides if you want super tidy.

Jase2985

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#1285953 17-Apr-2015 07:19

cisconz: I would suggest using alarm cable (Not cat 5).

there is nothing wrong with CAT5 for an alarm, especially for things like PIR,s, its more than capable of handling the current for the devices and a number of big name alarm companies have done testing and use it for their installs.

some parts of the system may require different cable.

Lenovo

Shop now for Lenovo laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

cisconz

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#1285993 17-Apr-2015 08:13

Jase2985: there is nothing wrong with CAT5 for an alarm, especially for things like PIR,s, its more than capable of handling the current for the devices and a number of big name alarm companies have done testing and use it for their installs.

I agree that you can use it, I just suggest not to, differentiation is the main reason, plus 4 core alarm cable has a smaller overall diameter than cat 5.

Goosey: Also consider a couple cables to go to your garage door opener motors. Most modern alarms allow key fob remote open/close of garage doors as well as disarm/arm of the alarm.

Sorry, forgot about that.

Hmmmm

AzaK

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#1285994 17-Apr-2015 08:16

cisconz: I would suggest using alarm cable (Not cat 5).

These have slightly thicker conductors, and allow for differentiation later.
If it was me I would run the below

4 Core to PIRs
4 Core to Smoke Sensors
6 Core to Keypads
6 Core to any doors (If swipe card control etc is required)
6 Core to Sirens (Using multiple on each for a higher gauge for louder sirens).
Cat 5 from Panel location to Master Phone socket.

Thanks heaps cisco. I hadn't thought of smoke sensors and didn't think of wiring them in when the back of the house was done so we just have 10 year long lifes there. However it might be good for the rest of the house.

I also have a couple of questions based on what you said.

1) Do you have any idea of what cable I should get? There seems to be tonnes of types of 4 core and they all seem WAY more expensive than Cat6 (I only have Cat6, not 5).

2) When you say "panel" in "Cat5 from panel to master phone socket" do you mean my distribution panel or the keypad? What is the benefit of doing this? I plane to have have one RJ45 by the phone in the living area that goes back to my patch panel where the phone will be connected.

Cheers

richms

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#1286001 17-Apr-2015 08:34

If you have a landline the panel needs 2 pairs so it can grab the line and disconnect the phones in the house so it can dial out. Single cat5/6 for that as you don't want to be messing around pair splitting on a new install. Most phone distribution blocks have an alarm connection that puts it ahead of any phone sockets on the first line.

Richard rich.ms

sbiddle

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#1286011 17-Apr-2015 08:34

AzaK:

2) When you say "panel" in "Cat5 from panel to master phone socket" do you mean my distribution panel or the keypad? What is the benefit of doing this? I plane to have have one RJ45 by the phone in the living area that goes back to my patch panel where the phone will be connected.

Cheers

If you're wiring an alarm to the POTS line it's always wired in a line grabber fashion to prevent any off-hook phones from stopping the alarm from dialing out. This means it needs to be wired before the first socket with a single pair going to the alarm, and then another pair that is the return back to the first jackpoint.

mdooher

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#1286021 17-Apr-2015 08:54

sbiddle:
AzaK:

2) When you say "panel" in "Cat5 from panel to master phone socket" do you mean my distribution panel or the keypad? What is the benefit of doing this? I plane to have have one RJ45 by the phone in the living area that goes back to my patch panel where the phone will be connected.

Cheers

By "Panel" he means the alarm motherboard (metal box) etc. If you are considering an alarm where the keypad and main motherboard are once piece ... don't.

Matthew

AzaK

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#1286037 17-Apr-2015 09:11

richms: If you have a landline the panel needs 2 pairs so it can grab the line and disconnect the phones in the house so it can dial out. Single cat5/6 for that as you don't want to be messing around pair splitting on a new install. Most phone distribution blocks have an alarm connection that puts it ahead of any phone sockets on the first line.

sbiddle:
If you're wiring an alarm to the POTS line it's always wired in a line grabber fashion to prevent any off-hook phones from stopping the alarm from dialing out. This means it needs to be wired before the first socket with a single pair going to the alarm, and then another pair that is the return back to the first jackpoint.

Thanks guys. So when Chorus come and move the fibre, they can hook the phoneline to the telco module and then when I do the alarm, just sort the order from there so long as I have a cat6 from my distro bay to the alarm location?

AzaK

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#1286039 17-Apr-2015 09:11

mdooher:
sbiddle:
AzaK:

2) When you say "panel" in "Cat5 from panel to master phone socket" do you mean my distribution panel or the keypad? What is the benefit of doing this? I plane to have have one RJ45 by the phone in the living area that goes back to my patch panel where the phone will be connected.

Cheers

By "Panel" he means the alarm motherboard (metal box) etc. If you are considering an alarm where the keypad and main motherboard are once piece ... don't.

Cool, thanks.

NZSpides

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#1286040 17-Apr-2015 09:16

The biggest reason NOT to use CAT5 cable is because it's solid core cable.
A PIR generally has a 10 year life span, that means it needs to be replaced at some stage.
When you use CAT 5 cable the wire ends up breaking, meaning you end up with cable that's too short.

As an alarm tech with 10 years experience, I have seen many instances where CAT 5 was used and the fault was DIRECTLY attributable to the cable wire breaking.

Moral of the story, don't use CAT 5 or solid core cable for alarm sensors or keypads - BAD idea.
Sparkies - stop doing this, you're just making life hard for anyone else that follows you to fix up your poor cost saving habits!

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