I am wiring my first alarm panel, but it is turning into a real rats nest. I think I can tie up the wires in the panel a little better, but the connections to the Zone and Com terminals are a real mess. My main problem is attaching all those EOL resistors. Can anyone share any tips - or even better - up close photos or sketches to show how it should be done?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Mark

 

Markari,

I hear 'ya!! Sounds like you're trying to put them all inside the panel. I put all mine at the sensor end to elimate the problem all together.


MG.

 

They can be placed at either the panel or the sensor end. If I have multiple wires for the same zone, I series them at the bottom of the panel cabinet, and only run 1 pair of wires up to the zone terminals. I crimp on the resistor to one wire. The other side of the resistor goes to the zone terminal. The other wire goes directly to the com terminal for that zone. I will keep all multiple wires for the same zone bundled together at the bottom.
Hope this helps

Eagle

 

EOL

Best bet is to turn off eol, it does not serve a purpose on most panels unless you are running open circuits. On the other hand if your panel has split zoning which utilizes eol resistance to double your zone inputs on a board then simply do as eagle 77 suggested, keeping it outside the box is the best advice. If your system does not have a monitored motion or adaquete window sensors in the area where your hardware is you may want to enclose these conections within a tampered box, connected to a 24hr zone input.

 

What panel are you using? Most Panels will allow you to program out the EOL and make them normally closed loops.

 

I am using Caddx NX-8, which I believe doesn't allow a no-resistor option. The Caddx panel and zone expander don't give you a whole lot of room.
My solution to the mess was to use telephone butt connectors. I cut one of the wires a half inch short, crimped a telephone butt connector to it, then cut the resistor lead so that it just fit into the other end of the butt connector and crimped that. I trimmed the other end of the resistor to just fit under the terminal screw and crimped a spade onto the longer wire.
That was the best I could come up with - any other ideas?

 

The purpose of the eol resistor is to detect tampering with the wiring. They do you no good in the box. Put them where they belong, on the end of the line.

 

The very best way to wire your system with eol's is to use what they call "class A" wiring.

Here's an example below using 22 gauge, 4-conductor wire.

Zone +
O----Red------------------------------------------------------------A -|
o-------------White-------------------------------------A |
| | <- Eol Resistor Magnetic Switch ---/-
| | --/--
o-------------Green------------------------------------B |
O----Black----------------------------------------------------------B -|
Zone

Connect "A's together and "B's" together at terminals of magnetic switch. The eol resistor is back in the panel.

4 conductor wire is inexpensive and allows you to have spares in case a wire is ever cut or broken later - you can then move the eol to the switch and use only two of the wires and you will still have the zone.

For motion or glassbreak detectors use the red/black pair for power and the green/white pair for the zone. Put the eol in series with the zone inside the detector. If the detector has a "tamper" you can use that to put your eol resistor in series, i.e. white wire to relay common, green wire to tamper, eol jumps from the other tamper to the N/C side of the relay.

PS anytime you need to connect two loose wires together, (including eol resistors), solder and tape them! It's easy - you can do it with radio shack solder and a cig lighter.

Hope this helps

 

Wyres is right, there is no point in having EOL if you don't connect them correctly. EOL is exactly that, END of line. EOL's do not belong in a panel. The easiest way to connect multiple wires in a panel is to use cable ties. Tie each zone together, pulling back your series connections, and only running your zone and common connections up to the board. If that serves to be a problem, or you have too many zones, install another can next to your can and keep your series connections in it, running only your zone and common connections to your board. If worse comes to worse, you can always eliminate your commons by connecting all of them together, as a common is exactly that, common to the whole board. However, I don't recommend this approach.