That damn dog!!! he's chewed through the house alarm cables.

[johnvixen]

Yep....I just went into the bathroom today and noticed the dog has managed to chew through 2 cables which I'm guessing are the house alarm cables as now it's not working.

Wire 1: contains 3 wires (black,blue,red) possibly a 3rd green (couldn't see). With what looks like lots of aluminium threads around the 3 coloured cables or actually from them.

Wire 2: contains 1 black wire and what seems to be aluminium threads inside it.

The question?

Can I fix it? and if I can what cables should I purchase and where from. (name etc). Thanks for your time. I don't want to recable the whole house. Just try and reconnect the connections. This is proving difficult as they either ends don't stretch far enough because the dog took a big chunk out and decided to chew it in the garden.

 

[BR]

Yes you can repair the damage however you would ideally have to install two junction boxes. This may not be feasible in your particular case.

Firstly cut both ends square before the damaged section. Then get a length of data cable or multicore telephone cable. Strip about an inch and a half of the outer insulation of both ends of the replacement section and off both existing ends.

Now join each wire from one end of the damaged cable to the replacement section and do the same on the other side. How? using telephone crimp connectors (there are other options but these are easiest to install, just push both wires into the unit and press down the top with a pliers.) If possible these connections should be made inside a junction box of some kind for protection, but you could probably get away with wrapping plenty of insulation tape around the connections and tucking it out of the way but it depends.
the 'aluminium threads' I imagine are just strands running inside the OUTER INSUTATION ONLY for strength etc. and have little other purpose. These can be disregarded.

See picture below of crimp connector. There are some variations. You are looking at the yellow one on top and the two-way version underneath

After reading the post again, it's a bit complicated looking! basically all you are doing is bridgeing the damaged part of the cable with new. joining it using the above connector.

P.S there is no need to strip the wires before inserting them in the above

 

[breezer]

those i what i call "Jellies" havent seen them in years.

any way back to the question.

you can also solder the cable, you will ned to strip it back to find out how many cores it has, first one sounds like 6 core, (but you can use 6 core to repair a 4 core if that's what the 2nd cable is.

you can get it from maplin

chances are that you have also "lost" a fuse, you can get that at maplin too, check fuses and take blown one with you. it will probably be 20mm 1 amp quick blow.

did YOU install the alarm?

you should also consider re routing / protecting the cable or dog will do it again.

 

[securespark]

You really need an idea about what these cables feed. You should use alarm junction boxes and stranded alarm cable (see tlc-direct.co.uk) with enough cores to suit (usually either 4 or six core)There may be an anti tamper circuit, and if there is it should be used to protect the junction box (there are special terminals inside just for this).

 

[breezer]

You really need an idea about what these cables feed. You should use alarm junction boxes and stranded alarm cable (see tlc-direct.co.uk) with enough cores to suit (usually either 4 or six core)There may be an anti tamper circuit, and if there is it should be used to protect the junction box (there are special terminals inside just for this).

anti tamper "leaves" on junction boxes area pain in the ***** they go high resistance causing more problems than they are worth. they are also NOT required unless in a high security installation, in which case, they will not use standard junction boxes because they do not give reasonable security.

and besides, how is the poster going to know which is the tamper loop?

 

[johnvixen]

Hey, thanks for the help to everyone!
Thanks for taking the time out to reply. I'll get back to your asap with the outcome.

 

[securespark]

Breezer under the impression that the soon to be replaced BS4737 requires antitamper, no??

 

[breezer]

bs 4737 DOES require tamper on almost everything, in the begining jb tamper leaves had to be used, but NACOSS and similar look the other way if you don't use them as they know what a pain they are.

however if it is a box of any other description then wo betide you, also police inspectors dont worry about it either, same problem they ALWAYS go H.R.

New european regs look to be fun, 24 hour standby time on batteries, and what else?

I rang up NACOSS and asked, and i can not say what i was told, but lets just say i am not wrong

 

[securespark]

Had problems with most BA gear, but never the a/t junction boxes. Isn't that strange?

24 hr stand by is certainly going to be fun. There are a few installations where I have trouble getting 8!!

 

[plugwash]

I would not use telecom jellies on alarm cable, they are designed for solid core and in my experiance IDC stuff designed for solid cable is not reliable with stranded cable and vice versa

 

[Spark123]

Clock wrong on your PC pluggy

 

[plugwash]

no actually I remembered thier being a thread about a chewed through alarm cable recently and did a search and found something similar but not the one I was looking for. I assumed I had just misremembered the details of the recent thread.

Didn't even look at the dates.