Re: Glass breaks, thunderstorms and HA (was Re: Help with 7 Circuit Project?)

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Robert L Bass" <robertlbass@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

> > So, which non-falsing glass breaks DO you use?
>
> Robert,
>
> He doesn't have any such glass breaks.  He only posted so he could argue.
A
> quick Google will be informative.

That would be sad.  Certainly there's variance in the quality of glass
breaks.  Maybe the best bet would be to get a roll of window foil and some
varnish.  Then again, maybe not.  There's a reason we don't see thin foil
bands around the edges of store windows anymore!  Time = money!

> > I'm sure I can give them a pretty thorough test.
> > Unfortunately, as Marc H. and Bill K. have
> > pointed out, some HA solutions are very location
> > specific.  I'll wager that another issue with glass
> > breaks is how large a glass surface you are
> > protecting, how well the glass is puttied into the
> > frame, how much the windows resonate with
> > ground and air vibrations, etc.
>
> You are correct about the size of the pane.  The larger the glass the more
> likely it will be to cause a false during thunder.  How tightly it's
puttied
> (or siliconed) isn't as much of a problem as one might suppose as long as
> the pane isn't shifting around in the frame.

But that's always what happens if the putty dries out.  I rehab old houses
and when they talk about rattling windows, I know the sound by heart.  The
last house I bought had pieces of plexiglas taped on the frame with packing
tape.  Oy!  It was dirt cheap, however.

> Room acoustices can be a  significant factor in glass break
> performance.  Small, tight spaces such as the entryway between
> inner and outer sets of doors in a commercial space can
> be very unfriendly to glass break detectors.

I suppose that the same sort of acoustic factors enter into whether a
thunderclap gets amplified or attenuated.

> Rooms with deep carpet, heavy drapes and upholstered furniture
> don't propagate sound as well as places  with wood or tile floors,
> bare walls, etc.

So, which glass breaks do *you* recommend as being the most immune to
falsing?  If it makes any difference all the windows here are double-hung
and casement style double-pane Andersons and the house is a small brick Cape
Cod.

> > I'll admit, the timer trick was not a solution I would endorse
> > whole-heartedly, although for a quick fix, it might cut down on falsing
> > during storms.
>
> Think it through a bit.  If you understand glass breaks well and if you
> install them right this method can all but eliminate false alarms during
> thunderstorms without significantly reducing catch performance.

That's what I am trying to do - think it through.  What possible tactics
would a burglar use to break in?  My hunch is that the rear basement windows
are the most vulnerable simply because that's how my neighbors, left and
right, were broken into.  With crank-style basement windows there's an
internal screen.  Will that dampen the sound of the breaking glass?

> > I really want something with the IQ to decide
> > that it IS a storm, and that during storms it's
> > going to take more than a single glass break to
> > phone out to a central station...
>
> That would be nice but for the moment it's just not available at anything
> approaching a reasonable cost.

Ah, but that's where I can afford to put sweat equity into something that a
commerical dealer could not.  I just have to ask myself if increasing the
complexity if the system helps or hurts overall reliability.

> > Surely the marriage of HA and security has matured
> > to the point where that's not an impossible setup to
> > construct.  It may be as simple as monitoring the door
> > intercoms at the front, back and side doors...
>
> You can design and build a device to monitor microphones all around your
own
> home easily enough.  I have to deal with what is commercially available.

Yes, in actuality, many of my CCTV cameras have built in audio that feeds
back to a central panel in the basement.  It wouldn't take much to take some
samples during the storm and decided what level to use to make the
determination "either thunder or WWIII is occurring."  If I understood what
I read (I think by Marc) the HAI panel will not be particularly useful in
creating a "audio storm detector" because it does not have analog inputs.
But I believe I can accomplish that part of the task with the CPU-XA.  I
simply need to send a signal to the HAI to indicate a possible storm in
progress and a timer to reset that flag once no thunder has been heard for
X-minutes.

> > I'm just not sure of how to process those sound
> > events into something I can feed into to HAI Omni
> > LT to tell it "take it easy, it's only a storm."
>
> If you build it I can easily show you how to integrate it with the
> ELK-M1Gold.  You're on your own with the HAI product.  :^)

Well, I assume that if Worthington recommends Elk sounders for HAI panels,
that you can at least tell me what glass breaks to start with.  Name a good
enough price and I might even buy them from you (although Worthington is
close enough to me for standard ground to arrive the next day).

> > Good point.
>
> Not really.  The other gentleman doesn't understand glass breaks at all.
> His "concerns" are based on fallacies about acoustic glass break sensors
and
> a basic misunderstanding of what I proposed mixed with his
oft-demonstrated
> personal animosity.

Well, I wish that everyone would tone down the personal bullshit.  It seems
that there's a grudge hierarchy in CHA going back at least 5 years.  Someone
should do an association diagram for newbies.

I'll admit my knowledge of glass breaks is very, very out-of-date.  However,
with a attempted murderer due to get out of jail in a my neighborhood
eventually, decided I needed to install glass breaks no matter how much I
don't like them.

> > I don't really want to dumb down the alarm
> > system, I want to make it smarter.
>
> Smarter should include various means of reducing false alarms.  You can
make
> the system quite secure AND reasonably immune to false alarms.  It
requires
> thinking "outside the cabinet" at times.  One thing I like about the ELK
> system is it does allow you tinker.  You're not locked into a limited set
of
> performance protocols based on a few zone types.  You can make the system
do
> what you need for each specific installation.  (Note: I might be just a
tad
> biased in this area since I'm an ELK dealer:))

Well, there's always the next house and I am not really adverse to having
two entirely independent alarm systems installed, especially if I can put in
the two for less than the price of a crappy commercial one.

That might be the best way to eliminate falsing.  Two independent systems
have to agree there's an intrusion before making any phone calls.

--
Bobby G.