Texecom Alarm and remote outbuilding

[rayburner]

Hello
I'm about to purchase an alarm which will probably be a Texecom Premier Elite 48 and then a zone expander in the outbuildings which are 50m away.
I previously installed some underground cables from the house to the outbuildings for phone , Cat5 and a couple of 6 core alarm cables so my question is how many wires will be needed from the zone expander to the main box ?

 

[secureiam]

The expander will take 4 cables. Always a good idea to have some spares mind, and double up on power is always a good thing.


the expander can be run on alarm cable 100m without the need to do anything, and over 250M by changing the S and daisy jumper.


so you should be well in the clear at 50 M

 

[rayburner]

Thanks for reply

Is that 4 x individual wires or 4 x 6 cores ?
I was told by Texecom that at long distances I may need the powered expanders

I'm not a complete novice when it comes to wiring and sensors but have no experience with alarms

Thanks

 

[secureiam]

You have to allow for a power drop over long distances.

the Texecom manual clearly states the operational distances of the units.

50M isnt long by any means.

4 cores T, R, +, - its a connected to the network.

Doubling up on power terminals may be sufficent, but I have no idea on the specs of the cables you are using or the power the system is taking. There are online calculators you can use to work it out.

depending on what your using on the expander over that distnce will determine if you need a powered expander. the cable used will also have an effect on power drop.

With a powered expander, the only difference is its connected to the mains and it has its on battery backup, but its still connected tothe panel in the same way, except theres no positive in the network connection as the power is local, you must have a common negative or you will experiance some interesting problems along with T and r back to the panel.

If you connect the expander at the end of the 50M check the voltage your getting, if it hasnt dropped signifcantly then you dont need the PSU expander, if it has go to supplier and swap it for the PSU.

 

[rayburner]

I'll only be running 4 internal PIR motion detectors on the expander and maybe a couple of external PIR's for the yard but I don't know whether I can zone off the externals just to chime on the panel. Depends on how it sends signals to the main box ?

 

[secureiam]

you can have the zones in a seperate area thats not set and have them on chime

 

[rayburner]

So I can install the expander and wire in the PIR's and then assign certain sensors to an area and the main panel knows what's going on ?
I guess there is some digital message being sent rather than just a voltage pulse

 

[secureiam]

Theres power and a transmit and recieve so it talks to the panel in data

The programming tells it how to behave.

 

[rayburner]

I double checked the wires I installed and i have two 6 core cables one of which is for a GJD lighting controller and one for the alarm so i'm good to go.
I vaguely remember looking at another system which was analogue and the only way to use the single cable was to run a few sensor in series which would act as a single zone/area so no use in my situation