Non standard room Alarm setup advice

[bikini]

Hello

I have an outdoor building (one square room) in which I want to fit an alarm system in. The following is the situation with this building:

Room temperature can be 30 degrees plus
Fluctuating room temperature (I read that a Dual element sensor is good?)
A couple of windows will be left open at night!

Any advice will be much appreciated.

 

[bernardgreen]

More information about the room and the activity in the room while the alarm is set is needed before a suitable detection method can be suggested.

If there are plants and fans then motion detection using PIR and/or micro wave will almost certainly produce false alarms. Perimeter break detection would be needed in that situation.

 

[Europlex]

.................... If there are plants and fans ....................

Bernard!

 

[bernardgreen]

.................... If there are plants and fans ....................

Bernard!

I recently saw a commercial and fully legal green house where high value plants ( orchids etc ) were being grown and motion detectors were usless.

 

[bikini]

Ok ok I know what you are thinking guys! Its actually computer equipment, I'm mining crypto currency. The room is square (about 20sq m) and I want to leave a couple of windows open to save money by not running the air-conditioning (at least not often)

 

[bernardgreen]

Break beam detects across possible entry routes ( doors and windows ) should provide adequate protection for a computor room.

 

[bikini]

Ok thanks, break beam dectors I didnt know about those, this is my first time looking into alarms. Could you recommend a reasonably priced unit? I'd like an alarm to sound in the actual backyard building and one to go off in the house.

 

[EightyTwo]

The old Pulnix, now called Takex, beams are jolly good. They could be mounted indoors or out and can be used for perimeter protection. There are diddy little beams that can go across individual doors and windows but I can't remember the details.

The controller could be any normal intruder alarm or you could build something from latching relays. The intruder alarm would be a lot easier to fit and you get all the bits with it - psu, keypad, connections for a standard 'bell', multiple inputs (usually called zones) and a log for finding out what happened. There are loads of these to choose from and each contributor to this forum will have their own favourite!

As for the sounder in the house... Have you got a duct between the outbuilding and the house through which you could pull a SELV (i.e. 12V) cable? You could even use a spare cat5 cable. If not, then you'll need a wireless device to sound inside the house. A wireless doorbell might be the easiest and cheapest solution...

Oh yes, and put bars on the windows!

 

[EightyTwo]

You could also use vibration sensors on door and window frames. Viper glx is a very popular model. They are relatively cheap and would easily detect someone trying to smash their way in. If your outbuilding is a wooden shed and is struck by tree branches on a windy day, you could have problems though.

Couple these with door/window contacts and you could have very effective perimeter detection. You wouldn't need movement detectors so the moths could fly around to their heart's content. You can also put a Viper on your open window bars and, unless a pigeon decided to try a kamikaze run, these shouldn't false alarm either. You can put them on walls, too, but it depends on the wall material.

 

[bikini]

Thanks for the responses EightyTwo, I'm looking at this intruder alarm http://www.ultrasecuredirect.com/acatalog/gsm_wg_auto-dialer-gsm.html it supports 99 wireless and 7 wired inputs (quite a bit cheaper on ebay I think), does this look like a good choice? I'm an avid diyer but alarms are completely new to me so I don't have much idea as to what sensor can work with particular alarm system. Bars over the windows YES will do!

 

[bernardgreen]

If you put bars across windows you can make them part of the alarm circuit by running a thin, easy to snap wire along the bars. If the intruder breaks a bar then the wire snaps and triggers the alarm.

For the link to the house you could use a beam TX ( transmitter ) on the shed and its RX ( receiver and alarm contact ) at the house. If the shed alarm activates it removes power from the TX which will cause the RX to go into alarm.

 

[EightyTwo]

I was thinking of something more simple like

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CONTROL-P...1364?pt=UK_Burglar_Alarms&hash=item2c6b88d824

There are also the Texecom models, which are very popular. You'll find lots of threads on these on this forum.

Do you really want a gsm autodialler? Do you need it to phone you up when it goes off? I wouldn't suggest using wireless stuff close to a bunch of computers - the interference issues could be a nightmare and cables are easy, cheap and reliable.

Your panel choice will depend on the number of zones (detectors) you need and any "extra" features you require.

You can make inexpensive bars with 2"x2" and 1"x2" timber and some (black?) metal conduit. Drill 20mm holes through the 2x2 and thread cut lengths of conduit through to make a 'ladder'. Thread skinny wire through the conduit in a zig-zag fashion to use as lacing, as bernardgreen suggested. Then use the 1x2 as caping for the sides of the 'ladder' to cover the ends of the conduit and the lacing wire. Paint the wood black and it'll look like something from Fort Knox! Vary the dimensions, by all means, but I think you get the idea. We used to do it with skinny aluminium conduit ~10mm but it always looked a bit flimsy. You could run the bars horizontally or vertically but keep bars closer then 10cm/4" apart.

 

[bikini]

I was thinking of something more simple like

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CONTROL-P...1364?pt=UK_Burglar_Alarms&hash=item2c6b88d824

There are also the Texecom models, which are very popular. You'll find lots of threads on these on this forum.

Do you really want a gsm autodialler? Do you need it to phone you up when it goes off? I wouldn't suggest using wireless stuff close to a bunch of computers - the interference issues could be a nightmare and cables are easy, cheap and reliable.

Your panel choice will depend on the number of zones (detectors) you need and any "extra" features you require.

You can make inexpensive bars with 2"x2" and 1"x2" timber and some (black?) metal conduit. Drill 20mm holes through the 2x2 and thread cut lengths of conduit through to make a 'ladder'. Thread skinny wire through the conduit in a zig-zag fashion to use as lacing, as bernardgreen suggested. Then use the 1x2 as caping for the sides of the 'ladder' to cover the ends of the conduit and the lacing wire. Paint the wood black and it'll look like something from Fort Knox! Vary the dimensions, by all means, but I think you get the idea. We used to do it with skinny aluminium conduit ~10mm but it always looked a bit flimsy. You could run the bars horizontally or vertically but keep bars closer then 10cm/4" apart.

Hi Eightytwo

I've ordered some steel conduit (about £4.51 per 3m length)! I've googled lacing (thin wire?) not producing many relevant search results, its not clear to me exactly what this is. While I'm a technical person I know very little about alarms at this stage. Is there a webpage or an ebook that provides a good technical primer. What is the rule of thumb when determining what will be compatible?