Re: DSC 1404 zone doubling

[JoeRaisin <joeraisin2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/26/2013 12:34 AM, Jim wrote:
> On Thursday, April 25, 2013 2:27:24 PM UTC-4, spyros wrote:
>> Anyone have an idea how to wire for zone doubling at the new DSC 1404 (4-8 zone) panel? Following the schematic diagram its ok but is this the only way to wire? Cause you have to be a "nuclear scient" in order to do that! I mean its completely useless....
>
> Zone doubling has been around for quite a long time. I have never met one person that has ever used it. It's not hard to hook up .... you just have to  use two different EOL resistors. But labling wires and zones has got to be pretty detailed to keep the zones organized.
>
> I don't  use it because I think that if there were ever a problem that trouble shooting could be difficult and time consuming. When doing an estimate for a job I just include zone expanders in the price and wire individual zones which keeps things pretty simple.
>

I've never done DSC zone doubling but have used the Ademco several times.

Basically you have two circuits in parallel - it doesn't work with
normally open type devices.

A short on one wire will show up on both zones so to troubleshoot I
simply meter both wires tied to the zone terminals.  As has been
mentioned - very good idea to mark the wires clearly, but that has
always been how I try to mark them.

I've been using zone doubling since Ademco came out with it and have
only had to troubleshoot two sets of zone doubled points and these were
on the same system and water getting into the walls was the issue both
times - so this house has more issues than a skippy alarm...