Simple cheap alarm design.

[ptonce]

Here's a good one.
Phone call yesterday from the trailer guy.
I got good news and bad news.
Good news is your trailer is built and off the line on schedule.
The bad news is they put on a "dummy" spring axle to run down the line until your torsionflex came in to change over to. Seems they forgot to change the axle out.
We'll get it back on line to fix it but it will delay delivery a week.
( I can picture a shop foreman pointing to an axle sitting in the corner asking "what the #%@ is that thing for!)

 

[patrick_g]

Hey!!

soundguy

An extension of the philosophy a business associate of mine once expressed. He said it something like this:

We will share the responsibilities and rewards equally. You do the work and I will do the worrying. You take the blame and I will take the credit. If all goes bad and they are going to tar and feather us, they can tar you and feather me!

Pat

 

[Soundguy]

Kinda like a scapegoat/hang out to dry type situation huh?

soundguy

 

[patrick_g]

Kinda like a scapegoat/hang out to dry type situation huh?

soundguy

Well, not exactly. In his mind (but only joking) it was a fair and even distribution of responsibility and reward. Sort of a version of the "from each according to ability and to each according to need," but a tad perverted.

He was a WW II Navy vet who had survived three ship sinkings, two in one day. He was the promoter/sales half of our dynamic duo and I was the young scientist/engineer out to perform miracles on a stringent time table.

I still recall my associate telling my wife to stick with me and I'd have her wearing onions as big as pearls!

He was a plane captain on a carrier in the South Pacific. Recall the news reel footage of a carrier plane landing and breaking in half... He was on deck close by.

I consider myself very blessed to have had three good friends who were WW II vets. They were really special folks and only one of them is above ground and still active.

Pat

 

[ptonce]

I sure like the way you guys think! I think.

 

[patrick_g]

I sure like the way you guys think! I think.

If you had socialized medicine you would be rounded up for psychiatric counseling making statements like that!

By the way, I have an aunt and a cousin in Woodruff.

Pat

 

[ptonce]

How about that! Woodruff is a short drive away.

I'll bet they like their weather better than yours.

 

[rebb]

Pat,

this whole exchange was so worthwhile for me, i made a document file and pasted in all the instructions and changes. thanks a heap!

have you made any adjustments in this design in the meantime? i intend to use low voltage wire and 'strands' connected to 'self tapping screws' on the windows and doors of my shop for my system. only thing won't be armed is the 'auto open garage door'.....for when i have to go someplace for a few days-walk out or drive out, hit the closer, and drive away....otherwise, the whole place will be armed. convenient that this is the year the truck battery needs changed out (every 3 years, need to or not).

any updates would be appreciated fore i start hunting this stuff down.

agree on the wwII vets; my Dad was one. they were (and are) a precious resource....

rebb

 

[patrick_g]

Rebb, I am pleased you find the information useful. No, I haven't made any design changes, thought about it since, or touched it lately. I gave it to my friend who needed some protection.

It is a pretty simple straight forward circuit, really basic, but it works. It is OLD technology, no integrated circuits, opto-isolators, micro-controllers or such.

The addition of some more ancient technology (not technology of the ANCIENTS, in case you are a SG-1 fan) could accommodate your garage doors. I googled on 12NO30 and somewhat to my surprise such are in stock and easily available. I hadn't used one of those since the mid-late 60's. That part is in a family of timers. The original mechanization/realization of that part was a filament/heater that took 30 sec to heat a "thingy" (bimetal strip or such) so that it moved and made (or broke) contact between a couple electrodes. There is also a NC (normally closed version that goes open on heating after the time delay. Modern versions may not be so crude as to have heaters and moving metal but could be functionally equivalent and fully compatible.

Using this sort of thing could give you the chance to alarm your garage doors as it would allow you to set your alarm and have 30-45-60-120 seconds (depending on the timer you picked) to exit the garage and have the doors closed before the doors were included in the alarm circuit. You would have to have a switch or other means of defeating the garage door circuit from outside the garage. In thriller movies this switch would be a vulnerability that would allow the Mission Impossible guy to break in undetected. In real life the class of burglar's you will most likely contend with will not defeat a circular security key type switch and if by some miracle they do they are in the garage undetected just as if you did not alarm the garage but the rest of the alarm is as it would have been with no change in the level of your protection.

If this appeals to you let me know and I will think about it when I get a chance and draw a schematic for it. I didn't price check the timers but you could easily if you google on 12no whatever or 12nc whatever (where whatever is 30, 45, 60, or 120)

Pat

 

[Egon]

If you had socialized medicine you would be rounded up for psychiatric counseling making statements like that!

Elucidate please.

 

[patrick_g]

Don't confuse elucidation with hallucination!

Pat

 

[Egon]

True, there are places one should not go here!

 

[Blagadan]

I did an alarm installation course a few years ago and made a living for a while as an installer. One thing rings true about something the instructor told me.
The most importaint thing about having a house alarm is in making it visible to the guy trying to break in. You can add all the hum diggidy fancy electronics you want, but the most effective and important thing about a home alarm is having a visible bell box up on the wall with a bright flashing LED light on it!!! No matter if you spend $100 or $10,000 on a home alarm, the box and flashing light is the bit that the burgular sees first when he is checking out your house.
The name of the game here is in protecting YOUR home. If the bad guy sees you have an alarm fitted, chances are he is going to move onto the next house that doesnt have an alarm....
Now if a guy really wants to get in, he will break in. Alarm fitted or not. He is "in and out" in 3-7 minutes anyway...

Most effective solution to burgulary... = ANGRY DOG.

Heres a system I use myself...
If you have a spare MP3 player or iPod? Go to iTunes and do a search for "Angry dog" or "Dog growling"... Load it on your player. Hook it up to an old stereo with an 'aux in' setting. Get a power supply for your iPod so the battery doesnt die. Set your iPod to loop on the dog growling "song". Turn up the volume and lock the door.

I have this in my workshop. It scares the beeJesus out of anyone that approaches. I am pretty certain it will deter a thief..... And you dont even have to feed it!!!

 

[Defective]

My place hasn't been broken into in all the time I've lived here.

My neighbour to the west has had a truck stolen & somebody tried to get fuel from his bulk tanks at least 5 times. All in the past year.

My neighbour across the road has had his shop broken into 3 times.

The only deterrent on my place is a very visible security camera aimed at the driveway. Works for me.

 

[rebb]

Pat,

it DOES appeal to me; i don't want to get you to take time from what else you are doing, but a delay for the automatic door would be great, as would a key disarm; i might ahve to go to a locksmith to get the key setup, but it'd be worth it to be able to disarm from the front door of the shop....i was going to simply wire the shop overhead doors with a self tapping sheet metal screw on the frame, and on the door top edge; only connect the wire after i was outside. then i intended to wire the shop 'entry door' with a wire just long enough to let me slip back outside after i arm the system. (lol-i'm a simple person). then when i came back, unlock the entry door, slip in, disarm, and hit the manual opener button.

i got all the parts, and wired up the basic system today...i love old technology...it worked; it might not be something steve jobs or bill gates could market, but their products don't always appeal to me. i got a piezo alarm from radidio shack online, and have another 'weatherproof' alarm ordered...the piezo is the size of an old style book of matches; it's tiny, and it makes my ears hurt when it goes off did put on my muffs before testing, but i wanted to see how loud it was with the muffs off-lifted the right one (worst ear)...it's LOUD. wish now i had gotten two of these, put one under each 'end eave'. i may wire my house ground floor windows with this system...it's more effective than $25 a month to pay some security firm that'll call the county cops who don't give a hooey.

anyway, if you have some way to do a schematic for a delay device, that'd be really cool. i told my neighbor (who's a local cop) about this; he wants to see the 'test piece''; it's kinda crude at the moment, as i dint have enough spade connectors to wire it properly, just twisted 'em together in a few splices. got proper solder on connectors ordered. bought the 'contractor pack' of wire at lowe's; have enough that way to do house and shop. told the girl at lowe's electric dept about it, and how to find the schematic. she sez her hub would love it, too

you got a hit design, bro!
rebb

 

[patrick_g]

Well thanks Rebb, Really it is nothing any modestly competent ET (electronics technician not extraterrestrial) couldn't do.

As you know the basic system has no provision for disarming before it goes off if the system is inside the "protected" space. While writing the above, I thought of a simpler more elegant (maybe, we'll see) way to include your garage doors.

The Problem: include the garage doors in the series "daisy chain" of door and window switches but still be able to open the door to leave either before or after "setting" the alarm.

Solution: wire a relay's N.O. contacts in parallel with the garage door's alarm contacts. When energized by you prior to setting the alarm system the relay's contacts keep your series "sensor" circuit continuous and the alarm sets normally. You will have a push button on the outside of the garage. This button switch will have N.C. contacts wired in series with the coil of the above mentioned relay.

After you have set the alarm and opened the garage door or the reverse, opened the garage door and set the alarm you exit the garage, close the door (all this is with the alarm set) but before you leave the premises you push the push button switch which interrupts the current to the relay coil which turns the relay off and the relay's contacts that were "pretending" to be a closed garage door, quit pretending. Now the "real" garage door sensor contacts are part of the daisy chain of alarm switches for doors and windows.

Cost of this mod is a small relay, a switch, and some wire. You don't have to use a push button. You can use any SPST switch with a N.C. position, momentary contact or otherwise. Once the alarm is set, the garage door is closed, and the "garage door arming switch" is tripped further application of or tampering with the switch will not defeat nor effect the alarm.

No key switch required for this mod, just a relatively weather proof switch or a weatherproof box for the switch.

If the above needs further explanation or correction, just let me know. I don't know your electronics background but if you need a schematic just say and I will make one of my typically crude sketches, scan it in and post it.

As regards the ability to "disarm" prior to entry or a siren delay to allow you to kill the siren before it goes off. Both or either are easy BUT each introduces exploitable weaknesses and need to be added in such a fashion as to not make it too easy for the bad guy.

A high security key switch that kills the system from outside the protected space would be a target for a more savvy intruder.

If instead of setting the siren off directly and immediately the "system" instead activated a delay timer which in turn after the selected delay time, sets off the siren, you would, in normal use, enter the protected space and have XX seconds to get to your "secret switch" before the siren comes on.

If either of the above appeal to you let me know and I will "splain" to you how to do it. The outside switch would cost more if it is a good quality security switch either weather proof or in an enclosure. The inside switch can be just a toggle switch, even a regular 69 cent light switch from Lowe's. I have hidden switches in plain sight before. What looks to be a light switch but is actually your "secret" siren killing switch is one of many possibilities.

Pat

 

[Treemonkey1000]

All of those are great post. I kind of like Brute force tactics sometimes. I use my Electric fence chargers when I can. I had a house that was getting broken into. So I placed some small wires across the window and kept them insulated from the frame. Then tied the hot lead of the fence charger to them. That stopped any more break ins. Although in an "altered state of mind" way back then I forgot about the alarm and went to clean off some stuff on the outside of the window and knocked myself on my tookis Then the neighbors dog was doing his "dootie" in my flower bed. So I ran a wire around that. Bad part of that was the water meter reader got "Bit" not knowing. SO I got a nasty letter from the Water department. You can use these fence chargers around your trailer or tractor as well given the right methods.

 

[Eagleview]

We use Turners over hear , they are portable , have big teeth and turn people into poo....

 

[YM-135trac]

All of those are great post. I kind of like Brute force tactics sometimes. I use my Electric fence chargers when I can. I had a house that was getting broken into. So I placed some small wires across the window and kept them insulated from the frame. Then tied the hot lead of the fence charger to them. That stopped any more break ins. Although in an "altered state of mind" way back then I forgot about the alarm and went to clean off some stuff on the outside of the window and knocked myself on my tookis Then the neighbors dog was doing his "dootie" in my flower bed. So I ran a wire around that. Bad part of that was the water meter reader got "Bit" not knowing. SO I got a nasty letter from the Water department. You can use these fence chargers around your trailer or tractor as well given the right methods.

Tree you cracked me up Quite a human bug zapper you got there?
" Although in an "altered state of mind" way back then I forgot about the alarm and went to clean off some stuff on the outside of the window and knocked myself on my tookis"

 

[Treemonkey1000]

YM-135 that was back in the late 70's or early 80's there were some Hemp products that altered a person's thinking a little. That was a good reason to give all of that up 30 years ago. And it did knock me backwards onto the ground.. I hooked up the fence charger to the handle of my garage door where I live now. I don't use that door so haven't zapped my dumb arse yet.