DSC Motion Sensor tied to Arduino?

[Conrad_Turbo]

I have ~12 DSC motion sensors already installed with wiring right next to my Arduino (Mega) board. I have not been able to get my DSC system working with HS3, so this would be a much better option. Question is, would my arduino have enough pins & power for that many PIR sensors? If not, what expansion board would you guys recommend?

Conrad - I'm about as noob as it gets w/Arduino - would you mind taking a few minutes and walking me through how you set it up, both the connections on the Arduino, and how you configured that in the plugin? I imagine I could do a few of them at least now, to get it figured out before getting more hardware (if needed at all).

thanks!

Ian

I have a mockup setup in the house right now, with 3 PIR sensors tied to it. I went analog to reduce the number of pins on the Arduino, also most of my loads will be controlled digitally...so I might as well use the analog pins and have a good understanding if the PIR is not connected properly, tampered with or has motion all by using one pin. I plan on running about a dozen PIR sensors through the house, haven't gotten around to wiring them yet as I am doing a garage addition.

The garage addition will have one Arduino mega tied to 2 man door sensors, 2 window sensors, 5 garage door sensors, 1 RGB led strip, 4 garage door openers and 3 PIR sensors. The setup in the house is so I could learn the basics and be ready once the garage addition is completed. So I have learned the basics, interfacing a push button (door sensor mockup), control a RGB led strip, control relays (garage door opener connection) and the PIR sensors as how it would be interfaced in the garage.

I have had issues with previous Arduino projects having the PS voltage dip due to a heavy load or even turning on a relay(s), so I went with a cheap 350w computer power supply. Super common and can put out a good chunk of power. The garage stuff will be fairly low loads, but the house I plan on running quite a few heavy load RGB LED strips...and to keep setups identical I am running the same PS for both. I also have a few kicking around so a power supply failure will be an easy quick fix.

The Arduino has a 5v and ground connection to the power supply. 12v and 5v sensor power running to the PIR sensor (on a breadboard for now), for a final setup I will be soldering up a board with terminal blocks to attach the wiring. The wiring is explained in post #9. Also in the plugin you create the specific pin ou are connecting the PIR sensor to as an analog pin, then set up the status graphics as shown in post #9.

You can run the sensor digitally as well, doesn't require the use of resistors and is faster to set up. I just wanted my setup to be similar to commercial alarm system and having the EOL is one part of it, also as I previously mentioned I won't have much for analog inputs so using them for the PIR is perfect as it uses less overall pins and allows me greater visibility to the status of the sensor.

[beerygaz]

Depending on your house and location, you may want to look at opto-isolating your Ardunio board form the sensor inputs to keep it safe if there are power surges, lightning strikes, shorts, etc. The ardunio is pretty sensitive. Of course, you could just keep a spare handy in case it gets fried.

completelyhis, have you trialed the BLDSC plugin from Blade? It will give you motion sensing capabilities as well as control over your DSC alarm panel and more.

[NickStrong]

Have anybody tried connecting a DSC keypad to an Arduino?

[sparkman]

Have anybody tried connecting a DSC keypad to an Arduino?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVkr_SiPJ_0