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Electrical Wiring

Kidde interconnect cable - what standard? 1-Wire?

11 years ago

Hello!

We have interconnected Kidde sensors throughout the house. I wonder, what (if anything) interesting can be done with the interconnect cable.

Is it using any of the known standards - such as 1-Wire?

One particular, immediate problem we have is figuring out the location when there is a fire-alarm (all false so far). Because of the interconnections, the entire 4-story house begins to scream "Fire!" (or "Carbon monoxide detected!") and there is no way to tell the culprit :(

The other problem is the chirping, that alerts us, the back-up battery's voltage is below requirement: it is very difficult to identify, which of the bastards is throwing the fit - or even on which floor...

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Comments (4)

bus_driver
11 years ago
Read the literature that came with the detectors. Often the detector that created the alarm will have an LED that indicates, by a flashing code, that it is the source of the alarm. Yours may differ in some respects. Learn about your particular units.
brickeyee
11 years ago
Most of the unit use the interconnection wire as strictly a signalling wire.

Lower voltage is alarm activated, higher voltage no alarm.

A few can pulse the wire for limited signalling about the source of the alarm, but they are not using any defined 'standard.'
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There is a standard. A number of them actually, they just don't apply to proprietary residential smoke detectors. There's a 4-wire standard, for 24V-powered smoke detectors with a set of contacts to report to a central controller that smoke is detected. There is a 3-wire variant, which shares one of the contact terminals with one of the power terminals. There are newer digital serial standards. If I want to turn this guy's house into an office building, school, or factory, then there are definitely standards available. Unfortunately, they require him to buy stuff, something he seems very... uhh... well, did I mention I told him to buy a set of matching smoke detectors and he came back with only two, which don't match either the existing units or themselves??? It appears from my searching the internet that Firex (existing) simply connects the 9VDC supply to the interconnect wire to signal, and both of the new ones are Kidde, which is apparently the same company - whose website seems to indicate they are compatible... At this point, I'll believe it when I see it. Work resumes Monday.
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1-Wire is a Micro-LAN - stress the word Network - that directly connects to data I/O pins of microprocessors, micro-controllers, and 1-Wire slave semiconductors. The network loop operates on about 3-5 volts DC @ 1-5 milliamps through a pull-up resistor. The idle state is high and the connected devices sink current to produce the data pulses. The semiconductors use internal capacitors to store the parasitic power derived from the data line. There is absolutely no way this can work on anything other than a totally dedicated low noise, two wire network. A third wire is also often used to carry the 5 volt supply to the slaves rather than utilizing parasitic power for improved reliability. Here's a link to a very good 1-Wire design guide that you may wish to look at. Here is a link that might be useful: 1-Wire Design Guide
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alan_s_thefirst
11 years ago
Kidde and other smoke/CO detector manufacturers offer "relay boards" which connect to the interconnect and offer "dry contacts" - a relay switch that does not carry power - just an on/off switch - that can be connected to an alarm system.

Note that in some places it's not code to connect these devices to an alarm system, so if you consider it, you should check. Alarm techs are also sometimes reluctant to use relay boards also, for a variety of reasons, but it is done, and it does work.
brickeyee
11 years ago
Without knowing the current carrying ability of the signal line there is no way to tell what relay coil voltage is needed, or where to get power for the relay coil.

The manufacturer's boards use the knowledge of the signal line's operation they have to create a circuit that works.

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