Doorbell on OmniPro II

So this is where the comments I made in another thread about individual zone programing and EOLs want to bite me in the rear. I want to hookup my doorbell to the OPII via the Elk-930 doorbell detector that I have. The 930 connects to an input zone as follows:

Connect the output of the 930 to the zone input terminal. You will also have to connect the negative of the 930 to a negative terminal on the M1. Configure the zone as a normally open zone. Maybe a "Do Nothing Zone Type".

Click to expand...

So the zone needs to be NO. In order for me to configure a zone on the OPII as NO that means I have to turn resistors (EOL) on and in my case that means adding resistors to the panel which I simply will not do. I don't know if I can use a relay or something to change this to use a NC zone so I figured before I try a bunch of things I figured I'd ask if anyone is using a 930 with their OPII or how else you connect your doorbell to the OPII. It would be so nice if the Omni panels could let you choose EOLs on a zone by zone basis!

Edit: I should add that it is a lighted doorbell.

Steve said:

So this is where the comments I made in another thread about individual zone programing and EOLs want to bite me in the rear. I want to hookup my doorbell to the OPII via the Elk-930 doorbell detector that I have. The 930 connects to an input zone as follows:

Connect the output of the 930 to the zone input terminal. You will also have to connect the negative of the 930 to a negative terminal on the M1. Configure the zone as a normally open zone. Maybe a "Do Nothing Zone Type".

Click to expand...

So the zone needs to be NO. In order for me to configure a zone on the OPII as NO that means I have to turn resistors (EOL) on and in my case that means adding resistors to the panel which I simply will not do. I don't know if I can use a relay or something to change this to use a NC zone so I figured before I try a bunch of things I figured I'd ask if anyone is using a 930 with their OPII or how else you connect your doorbell to the OPII. It would be so nice if the Omni panels could let you choose EOLs on a zone by zone basis!

Edit: I should add that it is a lighted doorbell.

Click to expand...

Your really making more of this then you need to. On on Omni panel, a zone is ether "Ready" if it sees the EOL resister resistance, or its not ready. You don't set a zone to NO or NC, and there is no setting for this.

Each Omni zone has a + and - side. Put a EOL resister from the - side to the + side. Also put a wire to each of these terminals. One goes to the Out connector of the ELK-930. The other goes to the Neg connector of the ELK-930. It that doesn't work, reverse the two ELK-930 connections. I'm pretty sure that NEG of the ELK-930 goes to the Omni negative terminal but it could be reversed.

Zone will be Secure. When someone rings your doorbell, it will be Not Ready. Its that simple.

Also, if you don't want the EOL resister in the panel, just place it on the ELK-930 from the OUT to NEG terminals. It makes no difference if its in the panel or outside it for non-security zones. The EOL resister is always placed at the sensor of security zones.

Be aware that the hai panel uses a 300ms response time on all zones.... and the elk doorbell detector activates the zone only while the doorbell is pressed. So unless the person holds the button down for more than 1/3 second, the panel may not detect it. You probably need a pulse-extender circuit to ensure that all pulses are greater than 300ms. Be aware that I have not actually confirmed this, but I think it is the case. I believe ELK makes a little pulse extender circuit, I'll poke around online and let you know if I find it. Fyi, on the Elk M1G, you can set a zone for fast response time to avoid the issue, but with hai you cant.

Edit...
Found it... I think the ELK-960 will do what you want, plus you can set the timer to 15 seconds for example, then if somebody hits the doorbell over and over and over (I have 3 kids, so it happens alot), you will only hear the doorbell voice alert once instead of repeatedly.
Again, I'm pretty sure this is the case, maybe someone else will chime-in and tell me I'm wrong.

ano said:

Your really making more of this then you need to. On on Omni panel, a zone is ether "Ready" if it sees the EOL resister resistance, or its not ready. You don't set a zone to NO or NC, and there is no setting for this.

Each Omni zone has a + and - side. Put a EOL resister from the - side to the + side. Also put a wire to each of these terminals. One goes to the Out connector of the ELK-930. The other goes to the Neg connector of the ELK-930. It that doesn't work, reverse the two ELK-930 connections. I'm pretty sure that NEG of the ELK-930 goes to the Omni negative terminal but it could be reversed.

Zone will be Secure. When someone rings your doorbell, it will be Not Ready. Its that simple.

Also, if you don't want the EOL resister in the panel, just place it on the ELK-930 from the OUT to NEG terminals. It makes no difference if its in the panel or outside it for non-security zones. The EOL resister is always placed at the sensor of security zones.

Click to expand...

Maybe you are right, but if you are then the documentation is wrong (or doesn't make sense). Here is a quote from the documentation:

An external 1000-ohm end-of-line zone resistor is required for all zones unless the Setup item ZONE RESISTERS is set to "No". If the Setup item ZONE RESISTORS is disabled, all zones other than Supervised Fire and Gas (and all zone inputs on Expansion Enclosures) will not use an end-of-line resistor. In this configuration, all zone switches (other than Supervised Fire and Gas) must be normally closed (open for alarm). If any zone requires a normally open (closed for alarm) switch (other than Supervised Fire and Gas), the Setup item ZONE RESISTORS must be set to "Yes" and all zones will require and external 1000-ohm end-of-line resistor.

Click to expand...

Note the bolded line. So that's where my concern comes from. I have the Resistors setting set to No and all my zones are NC except the 2 wire smoke loop. So according to the documentation (and I had also asked/confirmed this with tech support) if I want to use any EOL at all on any zone then I need to change the setting and put EOLs on all zones. It's an all or nothing deal. I know there is no setting for NO/NC/EOL like there is on the M1, its just a zone type, I am just assuming it knows if it sees an EOL anywhere it expects to them them everywhere?

Have you actually tried what you described, or do you have resistors on and EOLs on everything? I really do wish I was making more of it than I need to Maybe you are right and the docs are wrong? I guess it wouldn't hurt to try it. I've already tried using the 930 to trigger a relay then realized it doesn't output any voltage, so I also tried adding 12V and having the Output on the 930 act as its own relay and figured it would be open then closed on doorbell press. So I figured that when the doorbell was activated it would close the output on the 930 which would put 12v to the relay which would open it but that failed to. It seems the 12v was constant, like the 930 Output was not really open since the relay was activated all the time.

Thanks shtojo. If I can get it to work at all and it has those issues I will look into the 960. Right now I'm about ready to just leave the existing doorbell alone.

Hmmm. Looking at the documentation for the 960 and this diagram. It looks like the 960 will not only do the delay as shtojo mentioned but it also provides a NC relay output. This is kind of what I tried using the 930 Output as a relay and didn't work. So if I am looking at this correctly then I can simply connect the NC output of the relay on the 960 to a zone on the OPII without an EOL (as a NC zone) and all should be happy. Am I interpreting that right?

Edit: That looks pretty much exactly like the diagram on the first page of this diagram except just substituting the Elk-930 for the relay allowing you to use the lighted doorbell.

The quote refers to automatically handled alarm type zones. Since you do not want the burglar alarm to go off when you press the door bell this is not relevant.

K.I.S.S. With the Zone Resistors setting OFF, NC is SECURE, NO is NOT READY. NOT READY on an "alarm" zone triggers the alarm. With the Zone Resistors setting ON, a 1K ohm loop is SECURE, anything else (open or short) is NOT READY.

Personally I am a FAN of EOL resistors because when properly installed they provide the ability to detect if some one cuts or shorts a zone. This includes squirrels chewing through wires or a misplaced siding nail that severs a wire, but this is a whole 'nother discussion...

In your case if everything else is setup and working the way you want, then just set the Zone Type to AUX and leave everything else alone. NC will indicate a zone status of SECURE and NO will indicate a status of NOT READY.

Now typically we tend to think of the door bell as not ready when someone pushes it and the typical door bell routine is triggered by a line like "WHEN Door Bell NOT READY...". In truth the controller doesn't care. If the door bell is NO except when someone pushes the button, then you just modify the programming.

WHEN Door Bell SECURE
THEN SAY Guest At Front Door

HAI Automation Simplified...

Thanks Fred! That clears things up, at least in theory. And fwiw, I do agree with you about EOLs and on any new install I would likely use them but it would be difficult for me to retrofit them here and it just isn't worth the effort for the small chance that something would go wrong and not be caught in routine testing.

Now the bad news is unfortunately it still doesn't work, the zone doesn't change status regardless, it just stays 'Not Ready'. At this point I guess it could be the 930 not behaving right, it would be nice if there were an easy way to test it. I would like to measure the current flowing through the input terminals (and see the difference between pressed and not pressed button) but of course my DVM doesn't have an amps setting and my other DVM that does is via clamp only. Does anyone know if there is an easy way to test the Elk-930 (besides current flow) to see if it is operating correctly? I think I read that you cant just test for simple continuity at the outputs even though I would think when the collector output closes you would read a short on the DVM.

Steve said:

Thanks Fred! That clears things up, at least in theory. And fwiw, I do agree with you about EOLs and on any new install I would likely use them but it would be difficult for me to retrofit them here and it just isn't worth the effort for the small chance that something would go wrong and not be caught in routine testing.

Now the bad news is unfortunately it still doesn't work, the zone doesn't change status regardless, it just stays 'Not Ready'. At this point I guess it could be the 930 not behaving right, it would be nice if there were an easy way to test it. I would like to measure the current flowing through the input terminals (and see the difference between pressed and not pressed button) but of course my DVM doesn't have an amps setting and my other DVM that does is via clamp only. Does anyone know if there is an easy way to test the Elk-930 (besides current flow) to see if it is operating correctly? I think I read that you cant just test for simple continuity at the outputs even though I would think when the collector output closes you would read a short on the DVM.

Click to expand...

A DVM can test it, but again, you will need to experiment and reverse the two leads if it doesn't seem to work at first. You really want to test it first before you connect it to the panel so your not debugging two problems at once.

I agree. I am a fan of EOL resistors, but in some cases, I hate to admit, it may be more trouble than it is worth on a retrofit, but you didn't hear it from me. ;-)

To test the 930, it the output is just a contact closure (I am not familiar with the 930) you could disconnect from the Omni and just measure the continuity across the contact when someone presses the door bell.

Another thing to consider is the duration of the contact closure. If is is too quick (< 250 ms I think) the Omni will miss it. We filter the zone inputs so that spurious transients don't trigger false alarms. Anyhow if the 930 doesn't have the ability to set the contact closure duration, you will need a time delay relay that can. Several are available that allow programmable closure times. These are commonly used in door bell setups.

Actually if the 930 has a relay you can probably tell just by listening. If you hear a click-click with no time in between then it is probably too fast. If you hear a slight pause between the clicks, say about half a second, you should be good.

The 930 is an Open Collector Output. I do measure 12VDC at the Zone and hence at the 930 Output terminals. I would expect the voltage to drop to 0 when the 930 triggers. I am aware of the delay thing and yea, that will probably be an issue (that the 960 as mentioned above will fix) but for now i have the doorbell out and I am just shorting the wires while I go measure stuff so there is plenty of time for it to see it. I suspect the 930 is somehow not sensing when the circuit is closed. I don't know if this matters either but the doorbell is one of those electronic chimes where the normal circuit had a diode across the button, but for now like I said the button and diode are off and I am just opening and closing the bare wire. Maybe the electronic chime doesn't draw enough current to trip the 930? I thought I read that it has to go above 900ma. That's where measuring the current across the inputs would be handy.

And ano, I do appreciate your help, but I am just not following. The output of the 930 is just wired straight to a zone. Out to zone + and - to zone -, how would reversing that help? The input is simply in series so nothing to reverse there?

I just can't believe that what should be one of the easiest parts of this is turning out to be the most complex. And its not the first time I've used a 930

Hi Steve;

I quickly read through your posts and I think this might work if you already have both an Elk-930 and Elk-960 on hand.

The Elk-930 doorbell detector will detect the increase draw in current when the doorbell button is pressed, but, and I'm sure you have it wired this way as you have used it before, must be "spliced in" (in series) between the doorbell transformer and doorbell main unit (as shown in their wiring diagram).

When the doorbell is pressed the Elk-930 will then produce an output that will pull to ground. This could provide the trigger input to the Elk-960 which, when set with the proper switch settings should trigger its relay, which could then be wired into your HAI panel as a regular normally closed zone input. I would set the Elk-960 to approximately 30 seconds so it then acts as a 'trigger limiter' to the HAI panel (in case kids keep pressing the doorbell multiple times).

You also have to add a diode as shown in Elk's own documentation of connecting the Elk-930 to the Elk-960 as shown below.

I think the problem may be that the docs say that the 930 will 'trip' when it detects > 900ma of current flow. I think the current doorbell only draws like 200ma so. I will confirm this after I pick up a new DVM. I don't have the 960 yet but that would only be needed to solve the fast loop response (person having to hold the button > 300ms). I should be able to see this work with just the 930 if I hold the button long enough.

any update with this progress? im looking to do the same thing but using amechanical type doorbell to trigger some lights when im in the theater. i too have the omnipro2 so hopefully this setup works.

I actually gave up on the electronic doorbell. I put just the solenoid from a mechanical doorbell and wired it to the Elk-930 which tripped it fine, then wired the Elk-930 to the Elk-960 delay timer and that to a zone. It works perfectly now. I just play Paul McCartney 'Someone's knockin at the door' then the doorbell is pressed and eliminated the 'chime' altogether.