Powering On the DSC PowerSeries NEO Security System

Hi, DI wires. This is Michael from Alarm Grid. And today, I'm going to show you how to power on your DSC PowerSeries Neo security system. Now we have our Neo here. We haven't actually done anything with it yet other than mounting the board to the cabinet, the metal enclosure, which ours isn't an enclosure in this case, it's just a metal box missing its top. But we have it mounted to the metal enclosure. And we have resistors put in at each zone. And there are common terminals. The resistors are 5.6k resistors. And you need to have those at each zone on the Neo system. This doesn't really have anything to do with powering on the Neo, but it is a prerequisite that you will want to do when setting up your system. So we have our transformer here. This is a 16.5-volts AC 40VA transformer. It's a big boxy transformer, but it's necessary for powering on the Neo. We prepared a two-connection. This was actually a four-conductor cable, but we just snipped the other two wires short. So we have our positive and negative wires here. But we actually don't need to worry about polarity with the Neo, because it's using AC power, and polarity doesn't matter in that case. So you can have either color going to either transformer. Doesn't matter. And you'll be doing the two-wire connection at the panel. We also have a backup battery here. But this would be providing primary power to the system in most cases. It will also be powering any devices that you have set up with the Neo. Any communicators, motion sensors, keypads, power devices. They'll be relying on the panel power. The Neo is a pretty big comprehensive system. So you will likely be needing a power supply for your Neo system to power all devices. This can only output so much. I believe it outputs 700 milliamps. And really DSC recommends not going over 650. And the communicator takes up 400 milliamps alone, so really, you're probably going to be adding a power supply. But we're going to keep our setup pretty simple in our Neo series. But we're going to go ahead and show you how you would go about setting up power for your DSC PowerSeries Neo system. OK, so we're at our DSC PowerSeries Neo system here. And we have our prepared wire to conductor. And we recommend using 18 or 22 gauge wire for the connection. This is 22 gauge wire. Really the thicker the wire, the longer the wire run you'll be able to do back to the transformer from the panel. But 18 or 22 gauge usually works pretty well. Just be cognizant of maximum wire runs so you provide proper power to the system. Now we have our terminals on the Neo board here. We're going to be working with these last two terminals that are closest to me. We're just going to be losing them up. These are for the transformer, the AC power transformer. And since AC power is being used, it doesn't matter which color goes where. So you can put it into either one. And we're just going to go and insert them real quick. Let's get in there. We got the black wire and the red wire. And we're using stranded wire. That's what we prefer using. It makes it easiest to prepare and strip the wire. If you have a solid core wiring, that works fine, too. Use whatever you have around or whatever your preferences. You can also use a Honeywell LT-Cable, which-- that works very well. That's an already prepared wire, so you won't need any wire strippers or repairing it. But we prepared our wire for this project. So we're just going to go and tighten those down. And we're going to make sure that they're nice and snug. I wouldn't say that's very snug, so we're going to do a little bit better of a job on this for this red one here. And we're just going to tighten that down again. And there we go. That's nice and secure. And now what you should do, you should run it through the backplate, which we did not do that, because this is just an example. But in our case, don't forget it like we did just now. And remember to run the wire through the backplate. And this is the backplate. And there's the hole you can run the wire through. So now that we have our wires connected to the Neo board and the transformer plugged into the wall outlet, you can see that the LED light on the Neo. It's flashing red. That indicates that the Neo is receiving proper power. So that'll be the primary power source for the Neo system. If you have any keypads wired in with the Neo, connect it to the board. Then those should light up as well once you provide power. But we'll be showing you keypads in a different video. So the only thing left is to show you the backup source, the backup battery. This provides power in the event of an AC outage, an electrical outage, power outage. And the battery will be slowly charging, receiving power from the main power source as the panel is running on primary power. And then that'll be ready to kick in. In the event that the electricity is lost, the backup battery will plug in. So you have the black connection for negative power and the red connection for positive power. And so you can actually see on the Neo board, you see battery positive and battery negative. So you want to make sure that they're lined up correctly. So you just go and you insert it right here. And don't be afraid of those sparks. Those are normal if you have a foot powered on. And so we have it connected in there and secured. And you can go and mount that inside the metal enclosure somewhere. And do keep in mind that the size of your backup battery may vary. This is an UltraTech 1240. So that's four amps of power. If you need something larger, you have the UltraTech 1270. And you might you need to a power calculation for your Neo to make sure you have the proper backup battery. Now one thing I do want to say about the DSC PowerSeries Neo system-- this is a pretty large and robust security system that has multiple partitions, depending on the system you have. There different versions of the Neo. It can support up to 128 zones. I think we have the 32-zone model here. But you might be adding multiple keypads, a lot of power devices. It can really take up a lot of power from these connections here. And the Neo can actually only provide 700 milliamps of current using this basic setup that we have here. And the DSC actually doesn't recommend exceeding 650 for optimal performance. So there's a very good chance that you'll exceed that. In fact, the communicator usually uses 400 milliamps of current just by itself. So you're very likely that you're going to exceed that. So you probably want to add another power supply to your DSC PowerSeries Neo system. The HSM2300 is the recommended power supply for the Neo. And that will provide an additional amp of current, or that's also known as 1,000 milliamps. And so you can add those as needed. But if you're struggling to power all your devices, then that's something you will likely want to do. We're not showing that in this video, just because that's an extended set up. But we did want to at least cover it to make sure you're aware if you're adding a large number devices, which most Neo systems will. These are usually used for larger homes and businesses. You're going to need that extra power supply. So make sure to keep that in mind. So that's how you power on your DSC PowerSeries Neo system. We showed you how to connect primary power with the two terminals for the AC transformer. And we also showed you how to provide backup power from the backup battery. So the system is receiving both primary and backup power. And one thing you will want to keep in mind when you go to add hardware to your Neo system, including any keypads, a cellular communicator, or any hardwired sensors, making any hardware changes, you're going to want to power down the system completely. So you're going to want to remove the backup battery and unplug the transformer and make sure that the LED light is no longer flashing to indicate that the system is fully powered down. All the keypads should be blank as well, if you have those set up. Adding any hardware changes to the Neo system while it's powered on could result in damage to the system, so always make sure you power down before making those changes. But that's how you provide power to your DSC PowerSeries Neo security system. If you found this video helpful, make sure to give it a thumbs up below to like the video. And remember to subscribe to our channel to get updates on future videos. And if you have any questions about providing power to the Neo system or about alarm monitoring, or you want to find a good security system for your home or business, send us an email at support@alarmgrid.com. We hope you enjoyed the video. Thank you.