Help With My First System!

[Guest MSI New York]

I need to write more clearer, I see.

Back in the day, when I was first starting out, we only had panels (Napco MA 1016's or MA 1000e's, mostly) that could go to 8 zones. If you had a huge house with 60 windows and 7 doors and PIRs all over the place, you had to squeeze as many devices as you could onto each zone.

You should hear my dad's stories, single-zone Christie panels on 110V, and no battery backup.

Anyway, when the Gemini line was introduced in the late 90s (don't pin me down closer than that), we could use zone expanders to get up to 16, 32, or 96 zones. So what we do nowadays is put every device on its own zone. It makes it easier to service, instead of toning out an entire line to figure out what's wrong, we look at what zone is falsing and we know what to look at (ie zone 37 is the third window from the left in the kitchen according to the zone list pasted to the cover of the panel).

When we do cheap commercial installs, we do things a bit different. We use the GEM801, which is an 8 zone panel, because its the cheapest panel there is. We sometimes put two or three devices on a single zone (all the overhead doors for example). We only use this shortcut for perimeter security, never for area security (to answer Paul's question, we never put more than one PIR on a zone). The reason for this is because when we fill out central monitoring contracts we put in a zone description so that police can be dispatched with a zone description. It's much more usefull to for the police to hear "alarm ringing at (blank), go to the rear office" than to hear "alar ringing at (blank)".

We put on cheap panels and charge just enough to cover materials, but we make it up on the five-year monitoring contract, in case anyone's interested.

ANYWAY, my point is that this comment:

Get a panel that you can have 1 device per zone, it will make life easier all round.

sounded sarcastic-? Or did I miss the joke?

[Guest]

When we do cheap commercial installs, we do things a bit different. We use the GEM801, which is an 8 zone panel, because its the cheapest panel there is. We sometimes put two or three devices on a single zone (all the overhead doors for example). We only use this shortcut for perimeter security, never for area security (to answer Paul's question, we never put more than one PIR on a zone). The reason for this is because when we fill out central monitoring contracts we put in a zone description so that police can be dispatched with a zone description. It's much more usefull to for the police to hear "alarm ringing at (blank), go to the rear office" than to hear "alar ringing at (blank)".

70030[/snapback]

I'd class that as rough. Wherever possible I will always fit a panel capable of taking one device per zone. On occasions there have been multiple door contacts on one zone but I try to avoid it where possible. This applies to all domestic and commercial installs.

AFAIAA, other installers do the same.

ANYWAY, my point is that this comment:

Get a panel that you can have 1 device per zone, it will make life easier all round.

sounded sarcastic-? Or did I miss the joke?

70030[/snapback]

Sounded like good advice to me. It is generally the done thing over here.

[Guest MSI New York]

Okay, I see. Sorry for wasting everyone's time, then.

As long as I have everyone's attention, I really like the following emoticon:

[Guest RICHL]

LOL no harm done mate, but out of curiousity, do you have documented standards to work to over there

[Guest MSI New York]

LOL no harm done mate, but out of curiousity, do you have documented standards to work to over there

70045[/snapback]

Yeah, the standard is "it has to work until you cash the check, after that who cares."

Seriously, various trade groups and industry associations have tried to get standardised laws, ordinances, or even suggestions passed, and it's never succeded, mostly because nobody could agree on what those standards should be. Heck, I don't even have an installer liscense, mostly because no one ever asks to see if I have one.

The fight right now is to put together some kind of coherent false alarm policy as regards to central station monitoring and police dispatch. Every municipality has a patchwork of policies, laws, and unofficial guidelines, and you never know which they'll follow. I'm against the "fine the installers" position, in case you're wondering.

So each company has its own standards. Mine is: do it right the first time.

[Guest Gordon]

Can't possibly be right....can it?

What if you had say 6 tills with PA's, but only 2 with staff on........you gotta go round and press all 6 buttons???!!

It's the new EU equality regulations, so that there is a higher chance of everyone having a chance at pressing minimising the risk of legal action due to marginilisation by any minority group members. In this case the ones who didn't make it to the PA button....

[C.S TEK.]

Al, you Just that your a Shiny New Trainee, Dont start off on the wrong foot and start seriesing up detection. Just ask one of the engineers if they got an old cd72 or gal60 in there shed. Im sure one of them will have one. Wot ever would they say up at Blackburn if you start off like that aye mate!!

Chris

[Zak]

As long as I have everyone's attention, I really like the following emoticon:

We're just finishing a residential system that the electricians wired on the client's behalf. The client wanted contacts on all windows but for "simplicity" got the electrician to split all the windows into 4 loops, which means that on one loop there are 10 windows, 8 on another and so on. We weren't happy about it but that's another issue. When we came to confirming the windows on each loop it turned out that most of what the electrician said was on one loop was really on another and so on. Took absolutely ages to sort it out.

On another residential project, we are fitting contacts and vibration detectors to all ground floor and part of first and second floor access points. Around 80 devices all individually zoned. How will we fit all those cables in one panel? (Being sarcastic)

[antinode]

On another residential project, we are fitting contacts and vibration detectors to all ground floor and part of first and second floor access points. Around 80 devices all individually zoned. How will we fit all those cables in one panel? (Being sarcastic)

We got a system like that. Residential, Gardtec 840, around 70 zones, loads of shockies and someone forgot to program the zone descriptors. No zone lists either

As for the original poster, I would tend to agree with the others mate. It'll make your life alot easier in the long run to go with a panel that can be expanded to accomodate the extra detection. Maybe a Scantronic 9751 would fit the bill? Expandable to 24 zones and not a great deal more expensive than the 9448 and a much better panel IMO.