Elk M1 programmable outputs

[mikefamig]

This is a truely beginner question so humor me.
 
Can someone tell me some practical uses of the elk low voltage and/or relay outputs in a retrofit? I can't see any easy way to make use of relays in circuits that are buried in the walls and no low voltage applications come to mind. I especially can't see doing all of the work to wire relays and switches when zwave and UPB devices are available.
 
Do you have a useful application for wired outputs?
 
Mike.

 

[RAL]

A couple of things that people use them for is controlling underground lawn sprinklers and garage door openers. Another is to flash an outside strobe or an LED by a door to indicate that the alarm was triggered while you were away.  Recall that the siren outputs OUT1 and OUT2 reset after a set amount of time (e.g. 10 minutes). So if you were away all day and came home after the alarm had triggered and reset, you would have a way of knowing something had happened before you enter the house.

 

[206]

One trivial example - I put a 12 v red/blue flashing led on the output port of my M1KP. I instrumented our mailbox such that when mail is delivered, the Elk announces "mail call" and turns on the led. When mail is retrieved later, the Elk turns the led off.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Having programmable are very versatile.  Here are more examples:
 

• Parallel with reboot switch on a critical computer so you can reboot remotely (just have contacts on for a second of course)
• Parallel with a garage door remote (How To on this in the Portal) for remote garage door operations.
• Trigger an IP camera to send pictures via email or FTP (doorbell ringing, have pictures sent of who is at door).
• Control a magnetic gate lock.
• Control a remote strobe to activate on an alarm (separate from the cutoff timer of the sirens).
• Control whole house voice annoncements via keypad.

 

[tmbrown97]

Especially if you consider that an M1XOVR can be located remotely...  I keep a subpanel in the garage just for several of the examples listed above.

 

[mikefamig]

Good stuff guys. I did order an m1ovr for the garage on W2P's advice. Being that the garage walls have little wallboard at this point I can do all of the wiring that I want to do but I couldn't think of what I would do with the outputs on the Elk control board.
 
I have installed the 24" metal box (flush mount) with a single gang box attached for a 120v AC outlet and a 1" punch out hole for data wires to pass through. Then I started thinking about all of the wires that will be leaving the control and wish that I had made two 1" holes for future add-ons. I will probably remove it from the wall and drill a second hole.
 
Mike.

 

[Del91574]

Make sure you use a bushing, grommet or chase nipple :unsure:

 

[tmbrown97]

In the garage there are some additional considerations...  for example, many people like to secure their garages too, but the Elk's zone delays can be limiting.  One approach that I believe DEL first brought to the table years back was to treat the garage as a separate area and have the arming and disarming done via rules - this gives you near infinite flexibility.  Now tie that in with the subpanel - in my own examples, some options:

• Alarm triggered - when garage door opens, strobe flasher goes off letting you know there's a problem (strobes aren't usually listed for continual use to turning on only when needed is far better than running for hours hoping it's still working when you get home)
• Simple Piezo buzzer in the garage - letting you know that the timer is about to expire, or that the entry delay is almost up - all done via rules.
• XIN - inputs for the man door, the garage doors, even motion in the garage - can all be easily tied back to the sub panel.  Also you could put another wireless transceiver there, and you could wire in BSR's hacked garage door remote. 

 

[mikefamig]

Make sure you use a bushing, grommet or chase nipple :unsure:

You would think that it would be an easy thing to do but I can't find a 1" bushing locally. I'm going to have to order some online.I live in a bedroom community and have to drive to the next town for an electric wholesale shop.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

In the garage there are some additional considerations...  for example, many people like to secure their garages too, but the Elk's zone delays can be limiting.  One approach that I believe DEL first brought to the table years back was to treat the garage as a separate area and have the arming and disarming done via rules - this gives you near infinite flexibility.  Now tie that in with the subpanel - in my own examples, some options:

• Alarm triggered - when garage door opens, strobe flasher goes off letting you know there's a problem (strobes aren't usually listed for continual use to turning on only when needed is far better than running for hours hoping it's still working when you get home)
• Simple Piezo buzzer in the garage - letting you know that the timer is about to expire, or that the entry delay is almost up - all done via rules.
• XIN - inputs for the man door, the garage doors, even motion in the garage - can all be easily tied back to the sub panel.  Also you could put another wireless transceiver there, and you could wire in BSR's hacked garage door remote. 

I'm new to security and automation systems and trying to learn in manageable chunks. I hope to be powering up the system for the first time this week. I'm going to have four wireless zones in the house to start with (3 doors and 1 motion) and will add the wired window zones and garage as time permits.
 
Can you explain in layman terms a little about zone delays and how using rules is better?
 
Mike.

 

[tmbrown97]

Well, when you hit the Away button, you have a timer to get out of the house.  That's your exit timer - you can violate most zones during tha time and it won't set off the alarm.  In fact, in my house we have the option turned on so that if we come in/out during the exit timer, it restarts once as well, buying us an additional 60 seconds.
 
For entry timer, I keep it low - 30 seconds... so when you enter an armed house, you have 30 seconds to disarm the alarm.  That's great for the house especially since I keep keypads near all entry doors.  Now the garage is a different beast - you can either totally ignore the garage like many do, or figure out how to incorporate it into your security.  The 30 second entry delay on a garage isn't going to work well - it takes time to pull the car in - maybe go grab the trash cans, get the mail - unload the kids, maybe even talk to the neighbor once in a while.  However, it's nice to have SOME amount of security in the garage.  One way to do this is to make it its own area and use rules to automatically arm/disarm it.  When an area is armed by rules, it arms what it can - then when other zones become secure they're included... so if it arms while the garage door is open, that'll essentially be bypassed until it closes - once it closes it gets tracked too.  You can use rules to alert you if it hasn't closed in a reasonably time or you can auto-close it.  This lets you set different timers for entry delay as well - and when you disarm the house, the garage follows via rules..
 
I hope that makes sense... brain is a bit foggy today.

 

[blmxm]

I've used mine to switch zone types to accommodate our needs. Garage entry is one. We use a key fob to open and close the garage along with arming options. If the fob is used to open the garage, I change the interior door from the garage to an entry delay using three outputs to switch the zones. That way if a fob was in the hands of someone who shouldn't have it, entry into the house starts the entry delay. Additionally if they remain in the garage, I programmed a timer in the rules to flash the lights as a warning, then close the garage door and disable the fob, so additional button presses will not open the garage door and the system is rearmed to  night instant, bringing the garage motion detector back online. This also allows me to use a task from my android app to effect entry of police, or preferably my well armed friend and neighbor when we are away from the home and it alarms. I posted the rules for switching zones using outputs in a thread call "another garage door thread", which I would normally paste a link to, but I don't seem able to paste anything. Help Dan?
 

 

[mikefamig]

I haven't seen anyone mention connecting the output to a 120 volt relay to control a house circuit and I'm guessing that this used to be done before UPB and Z-wave were invented. True?

 

[Del91574]

You would think that it would be an easy thing to do but I can't find a 1" bushing locally. I'm going to have to order some online.I live in a bedroom community and have to drive to the next town for an electric wholesale shop.
 
Mike.

Electrical aisle in either the blue or orange store.....very common item. Usually labelled "rigid"
 
FYI: http://www.amazon.com/Halex-90703-1-Inch-Conduit-Nipple/dp/B00111BZW4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1401234619&sr=8-6&keywords=chase+nipple  At about a buck a piece, plus the expense of the locknut.
 
While Elk's units are rated for switching 120VAC, it's a far better idea to not introduce 120VAC on the same board within a couple of terminals of LV connections.....I'd suggest using a RIB and second electrical box for isolation.

 

[sda]

Another option.   Male adapter, locknut, rigid bushing.   The bushing adds a bit more protection from any edge of the adapter.