Elk voice doorbell

[ANDREW TAYLOR]

Has anyone found a good outdoor surface mount illuminated doorbell switch for an elk?  Trying to find a surface mount 12v illuminated switch and I’m coming up empty handed.  Many panel mount options, just haven’t found anything that would suffice on a surface mount version.  Or anyone have any experience wiring in a typical doorbell button, keep it illuminated, and wire it into a zone?

[Dan Zister]

If I understand your question correctly, you’re looking to connect a button (“doorbell”) at your front door that wires directly to a zone on your M1 (or M1EZ8) and you want it to be illuminated as well?

Have you found a solution?  Is there any reason you didn’t buy an off-the-shelf “regular” (ie with its own chime and transformer) doorbell and integrate it to your ELK using the ELK-930? (curious as I’m considering doing this myself).

[ANDREW TAYLOR]

I honestly didnt think about looking into integrating an actual doorbell into the elk.  Logically it would make more sense to have it as one as i wouldnt have to wire the doorbell transformer into a UPS and have a totally separate power supply for a light and a relay which would have a current draw of near nothing.  When the only audible notification desired is a voice output from the elk itself.

Ive done many other houses with non illuminated buttons and or outdoor motions to chime for visitor notification.  Most of which were prewired back to the panel location as dedicated runs.

[elvisimprsntr]

I had been using the ELK-930 with a conventional mechanical chime wired to an input zone to trigger a MMS notification and turn on exterior lights.  I have since installed video doorbells which the ELK-930 is not designed for, but I managed to find a off the shelf adjustable current sense relay that triggers when the mechanical chime solenoid current trips the adjustable current threshold.  Works amazingly well.

Video Doorbell Detection

 

[Dan Zister]

Thanks for your reply Elvis.  This current sensing switch is something I’ll look into further as I have a video doorbell.

However my more immediate issue is trying to understand how to make my 930 work with a simple pushbutton doorbell.  My configuration is as follows:
I have the 930 “B” connected to the back-door button with the outputs (“Out” and “Neg”) connected to Zone162.
Zone 162 is defined as “16-Non-alarm”, with type as “2=Normally Open”. Voice Description = “Door Bell Back Door”.
A rule is entered as:
“Whenever (zone 162) becomes Not Secure then announce “(Zone 162)”.

This configuration sort-of works. Pressing the back doorbell rings the doorbell chime consistently. However the M1 behaviour is inconsistent; sometimes it makes the announcement, sometimes not.
When it does announce, it makes the announcement twice.

Is there a better way to connect this so it works consistently?

[elvisimprsntr]

@Dan_Zister

How to get the ELK-930 to work depends on a number a factors since it has a fixed 900 mAmp detection threshold.

1. Illuminated doorbell button?

2. Mechanical Chime or Electronic Melody Chime

MY SOLUTION

I had an electronic melody chime and an illuminated doorbell button, thus I had to add a diode across the doorbell button terminals for it to illuminate.  Unfortunately, the electronic melody chime would trip the ELK-930 multiple times while playing, resulting in multiple rule triggers.  So, I added a virtual output to the rule to avoid multiple triggers while the melody was playing.  The only problem I had is when the bulb burned out (all too frequently) in the illuminated push button, the current draw of the electronic melody chime by itself  was not enough to trigger the ELK-930.

When I installed 2 video doorbells, the ELK-930 was not suited for the task.  I installed a mechanical chime and a current sense relay to replace the ELK-930 function.

DOORBELL ZONE INPUT CONFIG

Zone: 15

Name Door Bell

-Configuration
Definition 16 = Non-alarm
Type 2 = Normally Open

 

DOORBELL RULE

WHENEVER Door Bell (Zn 15) BECOMES NOT SECURE

AND Door Bell (Out 7) STATE IS OFF

THEN TURN Door Bell (Out 7) ON FOR 15 SECS

THEN SEND EMAIL MESSAGE 5 TO [redacted]@mms.att.net (Email 5)

THEN TURN Garage [4 (A4)] ON, FADE RATE = 0 FOR 5 MINS

THEN TURN Exterior [6 (A61 ON. FADE RATE = 0 FOR 5 MINS

 

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