Replacing old panel.

[Guest murphaph]

Hello Gentlemen, and a happy St. Patrick's Day from Dublin

Now. I'm wanting to replace an old panel that's been in the house I bought since day one. The panel is not operational and some of the sensors about the house are missing since PVC windows were installed. I've opened it up and it's got 'Scantronic Vista-V' on or about the PCBs. It was supplied originally by A1 Alarms (Don't know if they exist in the UK but they're big here). The panel appears to be 5 zones + 5 tampers. I haven't traced all the cable runs(the original markers are only in place at the panel end!) but here's a rough idea of what's wired to the panel;

Front Door

1 x 12 core (2 to reed switch & shock sensor in series, 2 to piezo buzzer, 2 to panic alarm (not present), 2 for tamper loop to shock sensor & panic alarm and 4 cores are unused)

Back Door

6 cores to the back door. No sensors present.

Windows

There are 4 remaining 4 core cables wired around to the windows.

The house (dormer bungalow) is as follows;

4 downstairs rooms: 2 bedrooms, 1 livingroom and one kitchen-dining room.

2 upstairs rooms: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom. The upstairs landing has 1 velux window as does the bathroom. The Bedroom is on the gable end so has a regular window.

All the windows, bar one have their respective sensors hanging in place (loosely). The regular windows have 1 'Ademco type 983' intertia crossbar sensor each. The velux indows just have reed switches.

Now, to add to the mix. I used to work for Aritech Ireland years ago. I acquired some detector samples. I have in my posession the following;

2 x Aritech shock sensors (ICT 97 on the PCB) with built in analyzer.

1 x Becuwe combined passive shock sensor and reed switch.

5 x Becuwe reed switch/magnet pairs.

I'm really sorry for the messy post. Any suggestions for a reasonably priced (house is going to be let to tenants) panel that can incorporate the sensors mentioned would be most welcome. I have no contacts in Aritech anymore unfortunately. If I had I'd get a CS350 (do they still make those?) and remote keypad. I would like to use the unused cores to the front door to install a remote keypad there. I'm waiting to hear "dump all old stuff and get x, y and z instead!" Thanks for any and all help.

[Guest murphaph]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the recomendation. I do feel pretty confident about my ability to install a new panel. I'm an electronic engineer by profession so first I banghead and then I

Seriously though, I've been eBaying around and it seems that Galaxy Panels are reasonably easy to come by. Any input on these? I see that they are made by Ademco as are the majority of the existing sensors in the house. The Ademco sensors are passive shock sensors. The analyser that goes with them is either a type 970 or a type 971 (muli-count). I have no clue about Ademco stuff so I don't know if these are still made or if a modern Galaxy panel can perform the functions of these analysers. Any info on that would be most welcome.

lads.

[Guest murphaph]

Analyser's are a bit old hat now and all new siesmics are self analysing.

So are my passive shock sensors obsolete now? Or can any panel/analyser handle 'em?

I hear what you're saying about used panels but there appear to be some brand new ones available too, though not Galaxy ones. I'm not 100% set on reinstating those passive shock sensors btw. I would definitely consider wiring all door and window openings with contacts and adding a couple of PIRs for good measure. Would this approach be satisfactory or are shock sensors a must-have?

You'd never believe it but I used to conformance test Aritech panels and sensors destined for the french market to conform to their NF-a2p standard! It was a fun job while it lasted cos at the end of all the electrical/electronic testing I got to mechanically test 'em!

Thanks for your continuing advice.