ELK-M1 hookup verification & EOL resistor

I have hooked-up my elk-m1 and parts as shown in the picture here
At present i not using any wired sensors to the M1. I am still trying to read the manual and understand the EOL resistor.

is the wiring diagram between the items correct ?

Can i power-up the Elk with the current hookup ?
Or I need to place the EOL resistors between the 16 zones before i boot up the board ?

Thank you,

I recently installed an ELK M1 myself, so I'm still learning, but here are my thoughts:

First, you can power up the ELK M1 without any worries. If the resisters are not in place, you will just get zone warnings.

If you disable the first 16 zones (in the ELK-RP, or via the keypad), you do not need to place the resisters there (although you will need one in Output 2 if you are not using it).

Your wiring diagram is very similar to mine, and it looks fine.

Good luck!

An explaination on what EOL resistors do will probably help you.

EOL resistor serves the purpose of detecting a shart in the wire between the panel and the contact. A closed contact with a resistor at the end will cause the voltage measured at the panel to be about 7 instead of 13 (which is what it would be with no resistor). So, if you had a short, the resistor would be taken out of the equation (it is located all the way at the end so a short would bypass it) resulting in the panel seeing 13v now.

When you program your Elk, you indicate whether the zone has a resistor on it. If you indicate it should have a resistor, and it sees 13v, it will give you a warning.

EOL resistors do not server the purpose of protecting the panel. They are an added option for those who don't want a short to go undectected.

So, there is no problem turning your system on without resistors. If my recollection is correct, the zones default to unused, so you won't get any alarms or warnings no matter what the status is.

And the drawing there looked good.

If I remember right the panel shows them as violated when it comes up if you don't disable or have an EOL on them. So they must start out as normally closed or EOL by default. The manual is misleading/confusing about that too. If you search through the CT history that was probably the first question I had too...

Just disable them until you are ready to use them.

I went through the manual one more time and "disable zones" is not on the board but should be in the programming. So i will go ahead and boot up the board and connect with the ELK windows software(or keypad menus) to disable the zones. Thank you all for responding. I will install the wireless sensors and get the systems working. I have a couple of location where i can run the wire for the wired sensors - i will search the CT about the sensor install and EOL resistor. after couple of reading i believe it should like this <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9AhZKUXDY0hCF-ytT8z-h03IuwmN2N9niegQ8vc-i8c?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-v7ciYHBumDc/TyFvdbfw0SI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/rAmD9-mS-l0/s144/wired%252520door%252520sensor%252520hookup.jpg" height="38" width="144" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/109090197788217500854/TEHAProcess?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKmM4ILs0vqoVA&feat=embedwebsite">TE' HA Process</a></td></tr></table>

timaelabu said:

I went through the manual one more time and "disable zones" is not on the board but should be in the programming. So i will go ahead and boot up the board and connect with the ELK windows software(or keypad menus) to disable the zones.  Thank you all for responding. I will install the wireless sensors and get the systems working. I have a couple of location where i can run the wire for the wired sensors - i will search the CT about the sensor install and EOL resistor. after couple of reading i believe it should like this <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9AhZKUXDY0hCF-ytT8z-h03IuwmN2N9niegQ8vc-i8c?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-v7ciYHBumDc/TyFvdbfw0SI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/rAmD9-mS-l0/s144/wired%252520door%252520sensor%252520hookup.jpg" height="38" width="144" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/109090197788217500854/TEHAProcess?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKmM4ILs0vqoVA&feat=embedwebsite">TE' HA Process</a></td></tr></table>

Click to expand...

That is not how you would want to wire your EOL resistor. A standard EOL resistor goes in series with the contactor, not in parrallel. EOLR is supposed to put enough "back pressure" on the flow of current so the board reads 7v when the contact is closed. When the contact is open, the board should see infinite resistance resulting (or 100% "back pressure") resulting in the full 13v still reading at the panel. A true short with zero "back pressure" on the flow would drain off all the volts at the board and it would read zero. You should never see 0v with an EOLR unless there is a problem.What you have there will read 0v when the contact is closed (it shorts around the eolr) instead of 7. When the contact is open, you will get 7v instead of 13. While there are situations where you might want this, it is far from typical. Basically, this would monitor the open state of the contact for a broken wire, not a shorted wire. If you had a zone that was normally open, you might want something like this. Also there is a way to combine both a parrallel resistor (like your drawing) and a series resistor to monitor all 4 states.But I am pretty sure your situation would be best served by a single eolr in series with the contact.

"Series" the resistor, not "parallel". Here is a diagram I made (showing why an EOL resistor needs to be installed at the contact sensor) and how it can detect faults in various circumstances. Me, I would just not use it for a home installation, but that's a Ford vs. Chevy kind of a choice.

EDIT: Sorry, saw Lou posted while I was creating mine!

I looked over your drawing again. Is your contact Normally "Open" or "Closed"?

thanks everyone or the responses - I understand the NC and NO on stand alone switches but with reference to alarm install, a bit confused. For example - I used a multi-meter on the sensor shown in the link is N/O. The circuit is complete when the magnet is placed near the face of the sensor. When its installed on the door - and 'normally' door will be closed most of the time - so does that mean the sensor is N/C when installed on the door ?

It refers to the status the sensor is in "un alarmed" state. So when the magnet is near the sensor, its in it's "normal" state, and therefore closed.

Heres another example.. my sump pump has a float switch. The 'normal" state for it is OPEN, so its a Normally Open switch. When the water level goes too high and sets it off, it becomes CLOSED and sets off the alarm. Whats nice about the Elk is you can program the zone to act for either case.

I have an M1 install at home with 100+ zones hard wired with a resistor at each contact. Things worked great for a couple years but now a few zones randomly open and if the house is armed I get a false alarm.

Checking the status of the zone in M1 I see higher then normal voltage on these suspect zones. Normal zones showing around 7.3V and these showing 8V or so. My hunch is something is causing the voltage to flucuate and when it gets out of a certain range the M1 thinks it's open.

What might cause this? Bad resistor? Bad board?

Hopefully it's not a bad resistor because the resistors are behind drywall at most window locations. (doh!)

I would do a couple of things as it sounds like your voltage zones are on the upper end. Do you have a multimeter?

1. Remove the wiring from the panel of one of your suspect zones and measure the resistance with a multimeter with the zone in a normal and violated state. Now do the same with a normal zone that never faults. Report back on the resistance values.

This will show if the resistance is a nominal value and also if there are any shorts between the wiring pair to the zone. Make sure you don't touch the meter's leads with your fingers while performing these measurements as that will influence the resistance readings.

2. I would measure both the DC AUX voltage from the Elk and also measure the voltage of a few zones while in a normal state.

If you need help measuring resistance with a multimeter let me know.

Thanks for the quick response.

The suspect zone read 2.5 ohms with zone closed and 0 with it open.

A known good zone reads 2.2 ohms closed and 0 open.

It sounds like the 2.5 is high and I have a bad resistor. What options do you see for this scenario other then opening the wall and replacing it?

Thank you.

kgingerich said:

Thanks for the quick response.

The suspect zone read 2.5 ohms with zone closed and 0 with it open.

A known good zone reads 2.2 ohms closed and 0 open.

It sounds like the 2.5 is high and I have a bad resistor. What options do you see for this scenario other then opening the wall and replacing it?

Click to expand...

Are you sure it is 2.2 ohms and not 2.2 kohms? Can you remeasure? Also, do you mean '0' ohms or 'infinite'?

One way to tell between zero ohms and infinite reading is to touch the leads together and see the reading (zero), then separate the leads from each other and look at the reading again (infinite).

Yes it's 2.2 kohms. When I say 0 I just mean it's not reading anything on the multimeter as if I wasn't touching anything at all. So infinite is what i meant.