Hi All
We have a house alarm keypad which needs moving. Unfortunately the wire is not long enough. Can I simply solder another bit of alarm wire to it to extend it? Probably about 1m.
I seem to recall somewhere that the resistance of the cable run is relevant hence the question.
Thanks in advance
Lee.
Well, given that it?s most unlikely that the keypad can *only* be connected with a fixed length of cable I?d be amazed it adding a metre more cable would make any difference.
Assuming you have the codes to deactivate the system whilst doing any wiring, why not just try it?
Tim
You would possibly have to extend the cable by thousands of metres for any resistance changes to be noticed by an alarm box.
As alternative to soldering maybe consider gel connectors used for telephone wires Example (random ebay listing)
No need to strip the wire, Just push in the two wires to be connected and use a pair of pliers to push down the mechanism to make the connection.
Never used them, what's the difference between the blue and the yellow ones? Is it worth having a pack in the toolbox do you think?
I don't know what the difference is with the colours. Maybe different manufactures, maybe different wire size? I purchased the un-coloured ones which claimed to be BT originals which are suitable for telephone/cat5/alarm type wires.
I used some to re-position my incoming telephone wires where they worked as advertised. I still have the spares from around 4 years ago which I have not found another use for.
You might be lucky, but they are designed for solid-core telephone cable, not stranded alarm cable, and that is likely to make a difference to the quality and longevity of the connection. They are designed to cut into the surface of the solid core coper to make a good connection, but the connection with strands which can just move out of the way is likely to be much poorer.
Also note that alarm cable now comes in the traditional tinned copper wire (good stuff) or in copper covered aluminium (CCA) which is the cheaper grotty stuff, which is to be avoided.
Which reminds me - I picked up a reel of alarm cable from Maplin last week (proper copper). At 80% off, it was down to about the same price as CPC's regular price.
Is the cable on show? If so, soldering and sleeving carefully using heat shrink sleeving may look best. If concealed, simply twist and use small choc strip.
Not with either of the two keypads I've used.
Even with alarms that do use EOL resistors (to sense multiple conditions [normal, alarm, anti-mask, fault, tamper with a single pair) the cable resistance is trivial compared to the resistances being measured.
That is a worthwhile point.
I recently gave a mate a hand to do his alarm. He bought all the kit and the cable was CCA. I got him to swap it.
A choc strip isn't tamper proof. Solder and sleeving is as tamper proof as the cable.
Use a proper alarm cable jointing box. Terminal for each wire and a tamper switch that operates when you take the cover off.
If someone can take up the floorboards etc to get at an alarm cable, just how it may or not be jointed is likely to be the least of your problems...
Thanks all for your help. Another job on the list for the weekend.
Depending on the run in place now being quite long I'd not expect an extra metre to make any difference. is this the multi core or just a supply wire or what. lots of alarm types out there and one would need to be mindful of any anti tamper devices fitted, such as window comparators on a resistance of a circuit etc. Brian
If it is CCA the OPs preferred solution of soldering may not work too well.
Typical specification for a good quality alarm wire is around 100 ohms per kilometre. The anti tamper threshold resistances are 1000s of ohms However, if the OP is going to extend the cable by many Km he may have other problems than just the resistance of the wire.
I got the impression that the joint would be exposed at the position of the old device. If going the solder/heatshrink route stagger each joint by about 1 cm to prevent gert big bulge if all the joints are at the same place.
The joint would most likely be under the floorboards. I haven't yet looked at the route the wire takes but worse case is I cut it under the floor or ceiling above
Do you know how easy it is to take the cover off one without activating the tamper switch if you wanted to? The same goes for bell boxes and alarm panels.
I'd guess any ner-do-well who was into tampering with alarm wiring would be well aware of the easiest ways to do it. And it's not that difficult to get at the conductors inside a cable run anyway, when you don't care about how much damage you might do.
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