Ademco 20P alarm systems for the do-it-yourself homeowner

by David Zatz

After many years, I finally got an alarm system, primarily to tie the smoke alarms in my 1928-construction house together. While we had smoke alarms in nearly every room, I realized I could not hear the one in the basement from the second floor. Also, our town hosts roughly one break-in per week, usually through the back door, and while I don’t have any valuable valuables, as such, it’s an expensive pain to replace stuff.

Ademco Vista alarm systems as DIY projects

I looked around and quickly discovered that there are very few good sources of information on alarms. There are forums, like diyalarmforum.com, which I highly recommend, but you can go nuts trying to get a comparative review that fits your needs. Eventually I went with one of three major industry standard alarms based on what I read; specifically, the Vista 20P (the Vista 10P and 15P are similar, but I chose the 20P because it seemed more expandable and had lots and lots of zones). This is an ancient basic design, upgraded somewhat over the years, with many (expensive) upgrades possible. Were I to start over again, I would probably select a GE system, despite my lack of regard for most of what GE’s name is stamped onto nowadays, because they are reputed to be easier to work with, and because the accessories are much cheaper. Indeed, I ended up buying a GE two-wire smoke alarm, which works perfectly with the Ademco system.

I first looked at easy DIY oriented alarms; there are surprisingly few of those. Then I asked in three installers and got prices of $2200 (plus three years monitoring at $30/month), $3,000 (plus monitoring), and free (requiring three years of monitoring at over $30/month). I thought this was a lot for the unambitious system I was looking at (I asked for three smoke alarms and two doors, at first). Despite the labor time required, it still seems high to me, though now I would say it makes sense to invite in someone like Brinks, have them do the hard work, use their service for the contractual three years, and then take over the system yourself. There are ways to get the installer code so you can control the hardware and switch to a cheaper monitoring service or even use a relay and dialer to self-monitor. This is a good option if you have neighbors who are always at home. (A professional installer may be a good option in a different region; our area is known for being expensive.)

The Honeywell Ademco Vista is popular among professional installers, which is one reason I thought it would be the best choice. Major chains use modified versions of it, and there are numerous questions on the forums about converting old systems from Brinks or ADT or whomever. It is also both expensive (in accessories and sensors, not the basic unit) and hard to play with.

Lessons learned: Buying the system and parts

Here are some of my lessons learned, from the point of view of an amateur who, nevertheless, used to pick up computer systems in minutes while working as a temp in the days before everyone standardized on Microsoft Whatever:

Buying advice: I got the basic kit from Vanguard, but I would, next time, go with SafeMart. You won’t get support from Honeywell Ademco unless you are a pro.

You can buy stuff cheaply on eBay sometimes, but much of the time, it's just as cheap to go through an established store with good customer policies (Amazon), strong customer support (SafeMart), etc.
You don’t need to buy accessories from the same place, and some companies make compatible accessories, which brings us to...
Many vendors sell "Honeywell Ademco System Sensor" products. This means a product made by System Sensor which is compatible with your Ademco system, sometimes if you buy an adapter which costs roughly double what the sensor itself cost. System Sensor seems to be a good brand, but make triple sure it will work with your system if it's wired. (The wireless ones seem OK.)
The cost of kits varies dramatically based on vendor and contents. For $340, as an example, you can get a nicely outfitted kit with a 20P control panel and box; 6160 and 6270 keypads (6270 is a touch screen); motion detector and (indoor) siren; power adapter (you will need electrical wire); and small backup batter. This is a nice kit because all you need to get is wire and your various sensors. Another kit, for $225, includes just the one 6160 keypad, transformer, cabinet, motion sensor, interior siren, and backup battery. Spend extra time choosing the best starter kit, but remember #2 in this list...

You need a 6160 keypad to program the system. My kit came with a 6150RF (that has its own transmitter), an obviously cheaper keypad. I've read that the graphical keypads aren't good for programming the system either. Programming can be done with a 6150 but it is very hard. While the 6160 is considerably more expensive than the 6150, I would get this for a secondary keypad, too.
If you want to use wireless gizmos, get the 6160RF instead of the plain 6160, or get a 6160 and a 6150RF. Rather than trying to figure out how to make the system work with two transmitter/receivers, I shut off the radio in the 6150. The range on these units is good and shouldn’t be a problem for most people.
NuTech sells a USB adapter called the ADB2USB but it probably doesn't suit your needs unless you're a real technogeek who wants to spend more time using a computer to do stuff that can be done more quickly through the box, or you want to have a computer dedicated full time to watching the system. (If you have a server in your house anyway this isn't a problem.) I still haven't gotten the dang thing working, but I've figured out that it won't solve my programming problems anyway. It's for much nerdier stuff.
I suggest you get a waterproof strobe for outside, possibly a strobe/siren. These are inexpensive and tell people exactly which house is in trouble, versus sirens, where they have to guess. Generally these must be wired, with two wires.
You will also need a teeny standard screwdriver and a larger one.

Programming and setup

You will need lots and lots of four-conductor and two-conductor wire, 18-22 gauge, preferably single-stranded. Phone wire might work, depending; be careful because some wire (like the roll I got at Sears) breaks easily which will cause problems in the future. It may take some work to get appropriate wire. Speaker wire is almost certainly going to be too thick. Try to get wire in the right colors — security wire usually is — it’ll help you to avoid keeping records.
Do all the wiring BEFORE hooking up the power and battery, if you can. You don't want to be messing around with the wiring while the system is live.
Wire in the keypads, though you can get wireless ones. The 6160 keypad must be wired.
Zones vs Loops: a “zone” is, in essence, either two terminals on the alarm board, or a memory location in the wireless system. Each device you install may come with one or more “loops.” Each loop needs to be set up in its own zone. Some devices have only a single loop (basic glassbreaks and window/door sensors); some have two, of which you will probably use one (e.g. door sensors which have internal switches but can also use external ones). Smoke alarms usually have multiple loops, one for smoke/fire (presumably some use one loop each for smoke and fire), one for maintenance, one for freeze-detection. Most sensors also have a tamper switch (Ademco seems to have these on loop 4 regardless) which you can program in if you want to know when someone takes the cover off a sensor.
Wireless smoke alarms and other wireless devices have different programming tricks. In essence, you figure out from the instructions which loop and zone to use; then you go into programming mode (4112800 if you have not yet changed the installer code, which I strongly suggest you do last), *56 to get into device addition mode, and follow the instructions.

Some of these you will need to set up on two or three zones, e.g. smoke alarms usually get one zone for the smoke alarm and another for the built in temperature sensor, and sometimes a third for maintenance (dead battery). This is where “loops” come in — a “loop” is a subdivision within a zone. Every sensor has them, but normal burglary sensors just have one (or they have two but you only use one). You need to go through the whole process for each loop you put in, again, each new loop programmed in goes into its own new zone. There are lots of zones, so don't worry too much about that, unless you have a lot of sensors, which you might.
Because of all this loop-zone stuff, make sure whatever system you get has plenty of zones (this is why I got the 20P instead of the 15P). If you want each window to be on its own zone and have a big house with lots of smoke alarms, you will need to worry about this.
You get to a point where you're supposed to get the device to enter its own serial number. I suggest you do not give in to temptation and do everything at the box, which is easier, because if you do this for each device at the place it will be installed, any devices that are too far away or blocked for whatever reason will not be registered, and you'll know there's a problem. Also, there are sometimes problems if you do this too close to the box. (Big thanks to Airdorn, mjohnson, Alarmtech, and DEL Installations of diyalarmforum.com!)
- For smoke alarms, you open and close them, which sets off the tamper sensor; then you have to enter the loop from the box (it will show up as 4, the tamper sensor’s address, but you will want to program in loop 1 at the least). For other alarms, you install them, make sure the covers are fully closed (this one threw me for a “loop,”) then set them off and restore them, e.g. by opening and closing a door. (Open it pretty wide, because the sensors can have a fairly wide range of allowed motion.) You do not press the tamper buttons on the burglar alarms to enter the code... well, you can, but it's not recommended, because the wrong loop (4) will show up. Guess how I know that?

While the Vista 20P does have the ability to telephone out, and you can buy a wireless adapter, both facilities are designed for use with a monitoring service; the paging feature only works with real pagers, not cell phones, and the cell radio apparently works on AlarmNet and won't call your cell phone. There is a $10/month monitoring service available from Safemart and a $9/month monitoring service from Home Security Store.
If you just want a hardwired auto-dial to notify you and/or neighbors when something happens, you can buy an external auto-dialer. I personally got a United Security AD-2000 and a relay, but since the instructions on the Web ended there, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out the wiring, I ended up simply connecting it to the alarm bell; now, when the alarm goes off, the AD-2000 will call a sequence of phone numbers until someone tells it to stop.

In theory the AD-2000 can be set up to send specific outgoing messages to specific phone numbers depending on what’s wrong: the fire department if it’s a smoke alarm, the police department if it’s a burglar, etc. Personally I believe it’s better to have it call you and your neighbors, if you know and trust them and they live close at hand, and have them notify the police or fire department or whomever if there’s a problem. It’ll take a little more time but it can slash false alarms. (Also, in many towns you need a permit to auto-dial the police.) I might end up going to a monitoring service after all, though, so I can find out exactly what sensor is acting up. If you decide to do it the easy way, as I did, get a cheaper auto-dialer — you won’t need all four channels. Or, get the actual Ademco 4204 relay module, wire that up to the keypad wires (like you don't already have enough wired to them), and figure out the programming, which involves both *79 and *80.
My next project is a wireless security camera not using Total Connect, which costs a rather steep $30 per month.