Hello I'm needed some advice well Guidance on taking my old DSC wired alarm system and either updating it so i can monitor it or Changing it and using arduino to make a new alarm system. As my hardware skills are getting better over time my software skills still lack somewhat but getting better.
So back to the alarm system. I have a DSC wired alarm system that has been there sense the who knows early 2000s maybe. It works keypad works sirens works and all sensors still work. But what it lacks it notify me if someone brakes in when I'm traveling. Every 1 week out of the month I'm on the road for work or sometimes it can be up to 2 weeks.
So i have a couple of choices to make retrofitting the old alarm system with maybe arduino With Ethernet or a ESP8266 wifi and a send a push notification to a app to my phone. And rig it to the siren to send the notification. Or Building a new alarm system with arduino or ESP8266.
The problem with reusing the old alarm system is that i would like to have the ability to arm and disable the alarm not only to be notified if someone brakes it but be able to control it if i can. The other thing is to build my own system where i can do all this But there is a a lot of coding that I'm not really sure of or But still need to learn and figure out. I know i know coding is a must and I'm up for it to learn.
I don't want to go out and Buy a Premade system i have seen a few out there. This is more of learning for me to build my own. So my question is what would be the best way to go into this. Any advice would be great thank you.
Joseph
canned alarm systems work like this: the system has loops of sensors in series. these sensors create zones. break the loop anywhere, it goes off. change the resistance, add or subtract, it goes off. this prevents things like putting a shunt across a sensor to bypass it. the system measures the current flow though the loops when it is armed. change in current >> trigger alarm
if you design your own, you either need to live without that, or design your own, and that is a dive into the deep end of the pool.
controlling an existing alarm with a microcontroller makes sense. you would be using a box of switches to replace existing control switches
I am building an alarm for large properties. the standard loops of sensors can't work across 12 acres. designing your own does make sense under some circumstances, but probably not yours
Hello Geek Emeritus Thank you for the reply back and information. To be honest I'm looking towards building my own more then trying to decode the DSC alarm system. The reason is i did a lot of research online into trying to decode the panel and see if i can do the arming and disarming. From what I'm seeing it would take a lot of equipment i don't have and also the programming skills it would take to make it work. On the other hand If i build my own off of the same sensors and switches the original alarm uses i can do a lot more. Also i found someone online that has has made the keypad work with arduino, But it is still being worked on. So who know's This is why I's a little confused on how i should precede.
Well i can also take the off the old keypads and make my own with a touch screen from a Arduino. wonder how that would look? Hmmm