But then you have to wait up to a month for them to arrive because shipping direct from Asia is a slow process.
I like the progress on your panel, you did a good job on the door. Can you remind me how you planned to make your panel run?
Yeah, but they were cheap. I also got some solid state relays from China and they were free air mail (wow!).
The schematic is on my website, and not all the parts are present in there. I am kind of just testing the concept right now.
This is why our nation’s screwed! :twisted:
LOL, and Mexico too.
I’ve come up with a list of flaws for this panel.
The zones need to have EOL resistors installed, otherwise the panel won’t know if the wire is connected to the panel.
Even though a 24v 10amp supply is a good power supply, it is WAY overkill for what you’re going to use it for.
This thing isn’t capable of doing code-3/temporal as required by the NFPA.
(opinion) The whole relay based panel is not a good idea to begin with. (opinion)
I hope your LED’s can handle the full current of the power supply because their should be a resistor connected on the positive leg.
May I remind you that the panel is not going to be official, it is only for enthusiast use.
The panel also does not have a trouble system, so EOLs are not required.
I also have revised the schematic w/ resistors.
I am also using mostly solid state relays except for one.
Thank you for your opinions. I will be doing a programmed panel for my next one.
Just have fun with it! I’ve seen a lot of criticism of other user’s schematics in this thread, but there’s no point in taking homemade FACP’s seriously. All homemade panels are inherently flawed anyway. Everyone learns electronics by experimenting and making some mistakes. As long as designs aren’t unsafe, I think all we can do is offer friendly suggestions.
So, I am almost done with the panel. I have soldered all of the low amperage connections (Relay coils, lights, etc.). I am wondering what gauge wire I should be using on the alarm side. I have been using old power supply wire for the low amp side (like 16 gauge), should I use it for the alarm side too? I don’t want to start a fire or anything if I use too high gauge of wire. I am thinking maybe 12 or 14? Would that be overkill for 5 or 6 alarms? Thanks.
12 or 14 is overkill for what you need, but 18 would be the best thing.
Alright, I’ll just use the same wire I am using right now. I just remembered that for a while you used Cat5 cable without any issues ;]
lol cat 5 was a really stupid idea. Trust me.
I got some FPL that my dad brought home when he worked at a construction site, they were remodeling.
I was just thinking about EOL stuff. If this how a circuit would look?
Also how would I keep the alarm from tripping on a relay based panel?
Also, I just noticed I wired the relay up side down. Just imagine that the coil is the contact and the contact is the coil.
That wouldn’t work because the current bleeding back would probably trip the coil on the nacs and maybe turn on the buzzer and led’s. I may be wrong on this so I would wait for Andrew’s response.
Also, depending on how much the amperage is going through the zone wire, you could heat up that resistor pretty quick. But then I could be wrong about that as well
I just noticed another mistake. (I was tired when I made this)
Instead of putting the pulls and smokes in series like in Fig 1, I would need to put them in parallel like Fig 2.
Fig 1.
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Fig 2.
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Also, I have been working on it a little bit, I’ll take a few pictures of everything within a few weeks soon.
Basically about half of everything is soldered already.
This diagram makes NO SENSE whatsoever.
What are you trying to illustrate?
You have to put your diagrams in code tags to make the spaces appear.
Yeah, that was my late night attempt at making a basic circuit diagram just with text.
I made a proper one:
Again, how would I keep the resistor from tripping the relays? Is there some kind of ohm level or something?
OK. So, I’m finally to the point when I can put everything together. How do you think I should mount the button panel to the case so it is higher up than everything else? Block of wood?