Adding a Siren to A Honeywell VISTA Alarm System
Description
In this video, Joe from Alarm Grid shows you how to add a wired siren to a VISTA Panel. The easiest way to do this is to connect the siren to Terminals 4 and 4 on the panel board. The siren will draw power from the panel's backup battery when activated. Multiple sirens can be daisy-chained together.
A siren is an important addition for a VISTA Security System. These hardwired panels do not have their own internal sounders. Although a keypad will provide some sound during an alarm event, it is not as much as a siren. Fortunately, it isn't as difficult as you might think to add a wired siren. As long as you do not exceed 2A of power, then you can simply wire a siren to Terminals 3 and 4 on the system board. If you want to use multiple sirens, then you can daisy-chain them together. This works fine as long as you do not exceed 2A. Remember that sirens can only be used in this manner if the system has a charged backup battery.
Sirens are critical for making sure that building occupants are alerted during burglary and fire alarms. For most homes and small businesses, a super powerful siren is not needed. In fact, a siren in the range of 90 dB to 100 dB will usually suffice. However, industrial grade sirens are also available for those who need something louder. This is often the case for large businesses, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, schools, large churches, and more. It's fair to expect that a siren used at one of those facilities would be capable of producing sounds of up to 125 dB, though that would be on the extreme end. For a VISTA System, an auxiliary power supply and relay will be needed to use any siren setup that exceeds 2A.
https://www.alarmgrid.com/faq/how-do-i-add-a-siren-to-my-honeywell-vista-alarm-system
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Transcript
Hi DIYers. Joe from Alarm Grid, and today we're going to talk about how to add a wired Siren to our VISTA security system. On a VISTA system, when you're connecting a wired Siren directly to the board, it's going to be able to use up to 2 amps of power in the voltage range of 10.5 to 13.8. The reason for this is the Siren, when it's connected to the board itself, is actually pulling the power from the backup battery. This is going to let the Siren work when there's no power. If you have a Siren setup that requires more power than that, you will want to install a auxiliary power supply of some sort to power those Sirens so you don't overdraw the board. Another note is that you can actually install multiple Sirens on the board or coming off the board in what's known as a Daisy chain setup. So basically the positive and the positive, or the positive would go to you Siren and then come off that Siren, go to the positive on another. So on and so forth. A lot of Sirens that are out nowadays actually have two positive terminals on them, so you can send that one positive into one and have the other one coming out to another Siren. The negatives on these Sirens will working the same way, and it's a real convenient way to add multiple hardwired Sirens to your VISTA security system. Just make sure that you're not overdrawing the board by using too much power from your Siren setup. If you do, all you need to do is install that ancillary power supply and you'll be able to run it. Today I have a Honeywell 747 self-contained indoor Siren. This is a wired Siren, and we're to install it to the board. On the newer VISTA systems, if you didn't want to supervise the belt loop, it's going to come with an 820 ohm resistor. And all you have to do is strap that-- it's recommended to strap it across the Siren terminals at the Siren. If you can't get it there though, putting it on the board will give you some supervision on the loop. Let's take a look at how to install this Siren on the system though. Where we installed the Siren on the VISTA system are terminals three and four. Terminal 3 is our positive, terminal 4 is our negative. And before we do this, we want to make sure that the system is powered down 100%. So luckily, I have an LT cable on this VISTA system so I can just pull that cut the main power, and I'll remove the battery next. So our system is fully powered down and we're ready to install the Siren. This 747 Sirens pretty basic, but I personally really like these as they just do what they're supposed to do with no ifs, ands, or buts. This Siren has three different cables in it. Many wired Sirens that you get are going to have something similar. The reason for this is it lets you do different tones from the Sirens. Our black is our negative, so we're always going to have to install this. There's a little sticker right here that actually says what the other wires do. The black says it's negative, the red says warble, the yellow says steady. So if we wanted to warble tone, we would us this with a black, if we wanted a steady tone, we'd use the yellow with the black. We're going to go at that for today. In a real installation, I would have another wire that I connected to these to make sure that I can install my Siren wherever I want to, but for today, as they're long enough, I'll be able to show you how we connect them right to the system. So our black is negative and our yellow is positive, which means that the black is going to go to terminal 4 and the yellow is going to go to terminal 3. I've already cleaned these connections coming off of this Siren. If you are installing a Siren fresh out of the box though, the wire tips or the wires that you're installing, it is recommended that you cut them and you strip a new piece just to make sure it's clean and fresh for your system. This is installed nice and secure. If I pull it, nothing's going to happen. We're not going to install that 820 ohm resistor for today. Let me go ahead and power the system backup. As you just heard, the Siren is going through its test phases, and that tone tells us that we did install it correctly. One last point, if you have an older Honeywell security system, the siren supervision is actually a little jumper on the board. To turn the supervision off, you would cut it. So you'll want to check what system you have. If you are confused, or if you are not too sure about what to do with your panel, please reach out to us and let us know. Even take a picture of your system and send it to support at alarmgrid.com. We can help identify what system you have, and let you figure out how to install your Siren because it'll be a little different if it's old or new. Again though, if you have any questions about this process, how to install hardwired Sirens on your system or anything else concerning security systems, please send an email to support@alarmgrid.com. Head to our website www.alarmgrid.com, or give us a call at 888-818-7728. If you did like the video, feel free to subscribe. And if you want to be notified when we post future videos, hit the notification button below, and we'll send you an update when we do so. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
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