Home Security Systems

[minestrone]

I decided to have a look over my house security system at the weekend and came to the conclusion that it is crap.

First problem is that the sensors are pretty useless, some of them hardly work at all until you go up and wave at them. I tried cleaning them but that never worked. The system must be about 20 years old, I take it the sensors are better these days and it should be an easy job to replace them on their own, can't be more than 4 or 5 wires to hook up?

Also the keypad is on the basic side, I would like to have one with a display so that I can check when people are coming in and out the place. Give the servants their own numbers.

Anyone know of a decent one and if it is an easy job to change these as well?

[Gibbon]

I decided to have a look over my house security system at the weekend and came to the conclusion that it is crap.

First problem is that the sensors are pretty useless, some of them hardly work at all until you go up and wave at them. I tried cleaning them but that never worked. The system must be about 20 years old, I take it the sensors are better these days and it should be an easy job to replace them on their own, can't be more than 4 or 5 wires to hook up?

Also the keypad is on the basic side, I would like to have one with a display so that I can check when people are coming in and out the place. Give the servants their own numbers.

Anyone know of a decent one and if it is an easy job to change these as well?

Get a dog.

[ratewhore]

Get a dog.

or move somewhere nice...

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Have just done this - Google " wired alarm panel " also a good selection on eBay and amazon - dead easy to do.

[sasguru]

You don't one that's oversensitive either.
We've got one of those that notifies the police if it goes off. The cleaner set it off the other day and plod came round and warned us that any more false alarms and we'd have to be disconnected.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

You don't one that's oversensitive either.
We've got one of those that notifies the police if it goes off. The cleaner set it off the other day and plod came round and warned us that any more false alarms and we'd have to be disconnected.

How do you plan to reduce the sensitivity on yours to sub-cleaner levels then?

[Board Game Geek]

Get a dog.

Nice doggie !

[threaded]

Should only require 4 wires, and as any old phone phreaker will tell you: power in parallel, contacts in series.

It is a trivial task to replace with a modern PID.

I am guessing your old one is using LDRs, seriously, that's probably good enough. Try it when it's getting a bit darker and the room lights are off: just breath and it'll trigger.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Should only require 4 wires, and as any old phone phreaker will tell you: power in parallel, contacts in series.

It is a trivial task to replace with a modern PID.

I am guessing your old one is using LDRs, seriously, that's probably good enough. Try it when it's getting a bit darker and the room lights are off: just breath and it'll trigger.

Breathe

And BTW you can get PIRs that trigger on a number of activations now (set with a DIP switch) so that a single event (fly too close etc) won't cause a false alarm, but a burglar moving around certainly will.

[minestrone]

Should only require 4 wires, and as any old phone phreaker will tell you: power in parallel, contacts in series.

It is a trivial task to replace with a modern PID.

I am guessing your old one is using LDRs, seriously, that's probably good enough. Try it when it's getting a bit darker and the room lights are off: just breath and it'll trigger.

It is only dark round here about 4 hours a night.