Electronic Alarms and Home Security Devices - They say there are no dumb questions...

Ok this will sound stupid but here goes. My new house came "prewired" for alarm but i did not so much as know when i bought it. After inspecting the attic i noticed the wire bundle, around 30 wires or so, all labelled with numbers. Ok the part i do not understand is other ends of the wires are not visible. I do some small amounts of networking so i have a fox and hound handy and traced a wire down. This particular one was going to the garage and after tracking it down it came down the wall and passed under 3 windows and dead ended. I would think if it was prewired that the wires would come out of the sheetrock somewhere right ???

Look in the inside of the window frames. They may have used plug type contacts. Typically, the magnet half is rarely installed, on most of this type of prewire.

Nada, look on several.

There are several possibilities here:
1) It's just a bad pre-wire (IOW, the company doesn't really know what they are doing and now getting the wires out is a major pain)
2) If you have vinyl windows, the wire may be running under the sill (it's not accessible, so you'll have to drill a hole and pull the wire through - btw, this will void your warranty)
3) The wire may not be in the sill at all - it may be that it is in the window frame and they intended the contacts to be surface mount contacts - in that case, you should be able to find a plug of some sort somewhere around the window frame (if not, refer to #1)

If you just absolutely cannot find the wires, then I would call a security company out to take a look (ask for an estimate and see what they say while they're there.)

Good luck!

Ok i finally contacted the builder and he gave me the installers phone number. Well after calling the installer he told me where everything was located including the prewiring for the keypads. Every window and door have 3/8 inch plugs with wires attached to the plugs. So can someone link me to the types of contacts i need to purchase.

I would use <a href="http://safewatchservice.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/61_34_44/products_id/161/imageload/yes">3/8" Stubby Press Fits</a> for the doors and windows. You'll have to drill for the magnets, but it's not a difficult task. Also, if you use screw terminal contacts (instead of wire leads) you won't have to worry about buying connectors and squeezing them back in the door and window frames (very time-consuming and quite a pain in the butt.)

Good luck!

Is there anyway to use the existing holes without having to drill for additional magnets ???

No, you use the existing holes (with the wires) for the contact - the magnet opposes the contact on the door or window to open and close the switch inside the contact.

One other option that he has is that some of the press fit contacts have an alternative rare earth magnet that is surface mounted to bottom edge of the frame with tape or glue (these are made for vinyl windows and ones where the frame is too narrow to take a press fit magnet.

I'll warn you, though, lining the little begger up can be a hair puller if there is more than a minimal gap between bottom of the window and the frame shell.

Yeah, I like the donut-shaped rare earths myself - they are much easier to install and a heck of a lot less mess than recessed. I have so many recessed mags laying around now that I always buy contacts with the donuts instead of recessed mags - I sure as heck don't need anymore recessed mags collecting in the back of my truck :D

Would you recommend this ??

Contact - rare earth (http://www.safe-mart.com/adprsrecowir.html)

That's what I use.

Got a new question for you. Before purchasing a panel, a friend dropped off a system for me to check out. It is supposed to be an Ademco Vista 20 and i think there is an Ademco Keypad also, and the power module. I turned it on and an alarm goes off saying the glass break sensor is open or something. After reading through some of the installation manual on the web i notice it says something about putting EOL resisters (2000ohm) across all 8 zones for testing. Can i use normal 2k resistors from radio shack to do this or do i need something special. I just want to check this thing out it may save me from having to purchase a system new.

Any good quality 2K resistor will close the zones. The trick with that ademco is that you can only program the zones with one of the 2-line alpha type keypads.

If the puppy is otherwise in good shape, use it, just realize that Ademco panels can be a little flaky to program the first time or so.