Is it better to wire zones in series or parallel for resistance? I changed my whole setup 3 years ago

Last week I had a job in Phoenix where I ran into false alarms on a DSC panel, and it made me second guess whether series is really more reliable for long wire runs. Anyone else find parallel gives you cleaner readings on high-resistance zones or am I overthinking this?

3 comments

3 Comments

elliotadams28d ago

Parallel has always given me cleaner readings on long runs. I swapped my whole setup three years ago and never looked back. Series can be a headache when you're dealing with high resistance and false alarms pop up. Stick with parallel for the long zones.

park.robin28d ago

Plus once you've got it dialed in parallel handles those weird ground faults way better too... saved me a bunch of headaches on my longer stretches that used to just mysteriously trip.

the_piper28d ago

Yeah exactly, once you dial in the parallel wiring it's way more stable when you're pushing past 200 feet. I had a setup that kept dropping signal every time I hit a high resistance spot until I switched over. Plus it's just easier to troubleshoot when something does go wrong since you can isolate each branch without everything going down.