Hi

My skill is in telecoms and network cabling and, due to this, a friend has asked me to help. His Karisma

Plus system developed a fault and it seems this brand is discontinued. Another company has been out and played around with the wiring a little and said there's nothing they can do with the current configuration due to the fact that the wiring is radial and each zone or sensor/magnetic contact is identified by an ID 'biscuit'. The system had worked well for seven or eight years but has never been serviced. He was told at the time that the system was complete overkill for the size of his house but, as it was already installed when he bought the house, he didn't have much choice.

The system has a four core cable running from the panel to all of the window sensors, with two cores for voltage and two for the alarm and this also includes the front and back doors which are designated as the entry/exit zone (I imagine this is by the biscuit ID).

Is there a way to have a standard replacement panel such as an Accenta/Optima but still have two separate zones, one entry/exit zone and one normal alarm zone without any major rewiring? The entry and exit zone are only on magnetic door contacts and the remainder of the house is on windows sensors (inertia/shock sensors and magnetic contacts on French windows).

Any help you can give me would be gratefully received. I'd like to be able to help him if I could but would like to avoid any rewiring if possible.

Many thanks in advance.

Gary

Unfortunately, there's no way you could utilise the existing wiring on this system for use with a standard "double pole" panel such as an Optima. You do have a few options though. In order of my preference:

The easiest one would be to replace the panel for one that is iD compatible. A number of manufacturers make iD expanders for their panels. Texecom, Risco and Menvier come to mind. You may have to replace the biscuits for the newer iD plus ones (not 100% sure as we have little to do with iD systems!)

Another option would be to install a hybrid wired/wireless system. Use the exisiting bell and keypad wires but replace the detectors for wireless units.

Finally, depending on exactly how it is wired, you may get away with re-cabling just the entry/exit zones and then using the existing iD cable to connect the windows. Not recommended though as unless you have latching vibration detectors, you'll never know which vibration detector has triggered if the alarm goes off. This could be a problem if you get a faulty detector!

Oh and by the way, it's not a 'dumb' question Gary, though we do have quite a few!.

Risco 600/601 with ID module will do this.

Word of caution i believe all manufacturers are planning or have already notified to end support for iD at a system level.

There are choices, as above get hold of something that supports iD but you 'may' need to upgrade your biscuits to iD plus.

Use a panel that communicates with its own devices over a single core or pair of cables. Risco make a panel and support their devices over 485, and hkc make a panel that will support 10 devices over a single core.

But if you want double pole or eol then you will need to rewire it all

With ours you can use both types of Biscuit, so it may be an option

We have a customer with the same issue, as a rule the only time we touch ID is carrying it to the bin. However he is a good customer and I was thinking about sticking the texecom ID expander in. Are you planning on getting rid of this Adrian?

Thank you to all of you for the replies. I think I've certainly learnt something here and I appreciate the help. Carried on searching yesterday and came across a Risco Nova 'add-on' to allow the addition of wireless contacts that communicate with the Nova which is then hard wired into the panel. Does anyone recommend or have experience of this piece of kit? Is this what antinode is suggesting in the previous post?

Also, some of the 'ID biscuits' have been removed so adding a panel to use ID might be a pain and, because I know very little compared to you kind people, I felt that something more simple in terms of the panel would be better for me. I understand the issue with the latching issue as well but may have to live with that.

One more question if I'm not pushing my luck too far here! The inertia/shock sensors are all the same unit and all have been left unwired now, giving me no idea how to connect them. They are made by Sensor Technologies UK Ltd and have the letters 'SXV' in large text on the printed circuit board followed by the charcters 'CTRK 0420' in smaller text. The voltage part I guess is straightforward, with positive to the '+' terminal and negative to the '-' terminal but there are three other terminals in the same block (T1, T2 and L) and another terminal with A1 and A2. Lastly, there is a 4 pole DIP switch. Number 2 is currently up and numbers 1, 3 and 4 are down. Can anyone help further?

Thanks again. I'm very grateful.

Gary

We have a customer with the same issue, as a rule the only time we touch ID is carrying it to the bin. However he is a good customer and I was thinking about sticking the texecom ID expander in. Are you planning on getting rid of this Adrian?

The 24Ixd which was specific to the Non elite Premier 24 has been made Obsolete, the 60Ixd will remain a curent product, there wil always be situations like this where a simple solution is required

Ive got lots of ADE karizma ID panels out there , i have limited spares . Love how they crash on service visits ..

When the sytems go putt i will always go for texecom as a ready replacement.