Customer ServiceDsc PowerSeries Neo Alarm System Programming Tutorial
The complete installer programming tutorial for the DSC PowerSeries Neo
Hi. My name's Jason with alarmsystemstore.com, and in today's video, I'm gonna go through the basic programming for the DSC PowerSeries NEO. I'll start from the first power-up, getting the keypad enrolled, enrolling other modules. We'll go through the basic zone programming for hard-wired zones as well as wireless zones and some other basic programming options. And then at the end, I'll show you how to do the zone labeling on a LCD-style keypad. So if you wanna follow me over to the table, we'll get started.
All right. So, this is a brand-new factory defaulted system. So I'm just gonna go through the whole process here starting with the first power-up. So, I'll turn the power on. And now you'll see on the keypad the system's booting up. And you're just gonna wait until it says to press any key to enroll. So, the first keypad needs to be enrolled and to do that, it's an automatic process, so you just push key. If you have multiple keypads, basically, the first one that you push key is gonna be your first keypad, and you'll have to enroll the other ones through the programming.
So, the first thing I wanna show before we get anywhere into the programming is how to default the system. You might need to do this, you know, if you're doing a takeover of a system and you need to change a whole bunch of stuff. Maybe you're moving to a different house, whatever the case is. Or maybe you've just installed the system and did a whole bunch of programming before you found this video, and you really don't know what you've done. It's a good way to get back to a clean slate, so, let's go through that real quick.
So first, you'll go into Programming, *8, and it'll ask for your installer code. Default is 5555. Obviously, if you change the installer code, you'll just enter whatever you change the installer code to. Now, to get to the Default section, it's 9999, so Select and then it'll have three 0s in parentheses. Now, we're gonna enter the 999, and you'll see the 9 start showing up there. And then it's gonna ask for the installer code again, so we'll reenter. And then press * or enter 999 to default the system. You'll see a message, "System Defaulted," and then you're gonna get "Powering Up Please Wait…"
Now, one thing we've run into a lot with people is that they'll kinda start panicking when this starts happening. The system's gonna reboot, and they're expecting to get the "Press Any Key to Enroll" message, but you don't get that right away. I'm not sure why, but it'll show this "Panel Response Not Received." And then, a lot of times, it'll go into an error message, asking you to, "Push # to Silence," so you can do that if you want. And there it is, "Call for Service." You can ignore that. Just be patient. Eventually, it will show, "Press Any Key to Enroll," and there it is. Okay, so the system is defaulted. Now, we hadn't made any changes, so it didn't do any changes to the system really, but except it did remove the keypad from the enrolment.
So, next thing that we're going to do is enroll any modules you have. So to do this, you're going to go into Programming, *8, and install our code. And then you're going to go section 902, so this is the Module Enrollment section. There's a lot of subsections in here, and you can scroll through 'em if you want, but the one that we're worried about is "Auto Enroll." So, it's already on that when you first go to 902, so you can just push * or enter 000.
So it's gonna show "Auto Enroll," and it's going to start looking at the core bus wires and detecting any modules that it sees. So, any keypads you have, any communicators, any power supply modules, zone expanders, whatever the case is. So, right now, this is the only keypad we have on here, so under KP:01. We don't have any power supply modules or anything, so you don't see anything there. And then it does show 01 next to M. What that's for is actually the built-in PowerG Transceiver in the keypad, so this keypad's kind of 2-in-1 modules.
So, after you give it, you know, a minute, just double-check. Make sure that you see the correct number of modules that you think you should see. If you don't, then there could be a wiring issue somewhere, and you can start troubleshooting that. But it should go pretty quick, and once it's done, you'll just push # and then # again to go out of the module subsections.
All right. So the first thing that we're going to jump into here is our Zone Type assignments. Now, this is just for hard-wired zones. Wireless zones will actually be done through the Wireless Enrollment mode, so you don't really need to do it through Zone Type assignments, the regular process, you can. It's not gonna hurt anything. It'll save time when you're doing your wireless enrollment, but you don't need to.
So, to get to that, we're going to go to section 001. And then you see it's asking for a three-digit zone number. So, Zone 1, 001, is showing up, so if you're starting from the beginning, you'll just hit *. You can scroll through or enter the zone number that you wanna go to. We're just gonna hit *, though, because we wanna start on Zone 1. So now it's asking for a three-digit zone type, so it shows Zone 1 and currently the default programming is at 001.
So, Zone 1 we're going to save as our Front Door, and we want Delay 1 there, so we're just gonna hit *. Zone 2, we'll call it our Back Door, and we want an Instant Alarm there. You know, we don't expect anyone to ever enter there when the system's armed, so, again, we're gonna keep it on the default 003. If you wanna change it, you can enter in whatever number if you know it. If you don't, you can just scroll through and kinda look for, because it's gonna show you what the different zone types are. So we're gonna keep it on 003, so I'll hit *.
Now, Zone 3, we're actually going to say is our Living Room Motion Detector, so, we wanna change that to Interior Stay Away, which I know is 005. If you're not sure what it is and don't wanna look it up, again, the nice thing about the NEO is you can just scroll through. Interior Stay Away, that's what we're lookin' for. So, hit * there or, again, if you know it, you just enter the three-digit. It'll pop up and then move right to Zone 4. Zone 4, we're gonna say is a 4-Wire Smoke Detector in our Hall Smoke Detector, so, that's our Fire Zone. So you can scroll through until you see Fire. Generally, you'll use Standard Fire, which is 008, so we'll go with that.
And then from there, those are our only four hard-wired zones for this example system. So you can go through and change these to Null Zone Type, which is 000, but you don't need to. You can just leave it. So when you're done, you can just hit #, and then you can hit # again to get out of the zone selection. And so now we're back at the top. If you ever get lost in the programming, just hit # until you get out. So now I'm out of Programming, so I can just hit *8 and go back in. And that kinda gets you back to, you know, the top of the menu, and that way, if you're lost, you don't accidentally go into something you don't wanna go into.
So the next thing that we need to do is tell the system which zones we have in use. So to do this, we're going to go to section 201, and it's the Partition 1 Zone Mask. So it's gonna go subsections in eight-zone increments, so Zone Mask 1 through 8, Zone Mask 9 through 16, etc. So by default, your first eight zones are turned on. So, you'll see Zone 1, it's got a Y. Y means yes, so it's on. Two is on, 3 is on, 4 is on, etc. So what we wanna do is actually turn off zones 5 through 8 because we're only using the first four zones. So you can scroll through and hit * once you get to the zone, and that toggles it. And it'll change it to an N for no if it's on Y and vice versa.
The other thing you can do, you can just hit the number. It'll go straight to that one and toggle it. So I find that easier. If you know what the option is, you can just hit the number. If you're not sure, you know, scroll through. It's gonna give you the information and what it's on. So, we can double-check, all those are off, so we'll hit #. And then you can go to Zones 9 through 16. Again, by default, these are on, so we can turn those off. It's not critical if you don't have a zone expander on there, because it's not going to find anything on those zones, anyhow.
But now, one thing that is a common mistake, so you see Toggle 1 at the top, so Zone 9 is actually Option 1. So if I hit 9, it's not gonna do anything, but if I hit 1, it's gonna toggle it. Or again, you can scroll through and hit * on every zone just like this. Whichever way you wanna do, whatever's more comfortable for you, either way is gonna work just fine. So again, hit #, and you can continue doing this. You know, this section will go all the way up to 128. You know, if you have a HS2128, there's 128 possible zones. The one we're using is an HS2032, so there's only 32 zones. But those sections are still in there, they're just not gonna do anything. So hit # again once you're done.
Now, you could do this for multiple partitions. For this example, we're only gonna go into one-partition programming. It's pretty rare for people to need to use two partitions, so we'll leave it out of this video, and maybe we'll do another video sometime on how to set up a second partition. So that's all the programming there is to define hard-wired zones. You know, you turn the zones on, and you set the zone types, as those are your main programming options for hard-wired zones.
So the next thing we're gonna go into is Entry and Exit Delay. So, we'll go into section 005 for this, and so these are all your system times. So, you can see 000 is System Area, 001 is Partition 1, and so on from there. We wanna go into 001 for our one-partition system. And so you see that it's asking for you to enter a three-digit number in seconds for Entry Delay 1, and it even shows you what the parameters are 000 through 255.
Now, one thing to note with CP01 standards, there are some default minimums that are programmed in. It'll still let you enter whatever you want, the 000 through 255, but if you go below a certain value, it's going to default to a default minimum. This has helped prevent false alarms. You know, if you set the entry delay too low and it doesn't give people enough time to disarm the system and you get a false alarm from it. It could cause undue burden on police departments. So they've come up with some standards that kinda help prevent that.
So, 30 seconds is actually the minimum with the CP01, but we're gonna say, maybe, you know, this isn't right next to the door. We want some extra time to get to the keypad and disarm, so we're gonna add 15 seconds. So we'll make it 45 seconds, so 045, and it automatically goes to Entry Delay 2. So generally, Entry Delay 2, a lot of people don't use it. You may not need to. Usually, people make it a little bit longer, you know. Let's say you have a garage door, and the garage door's a little further than the keypad and you need, you know, maybe an extra 30 seconds to get to it or maybe even longer. So you can set a second delay time that will affect that zone type, Entry Delay 2.
So, for our example, let's enter 90 seconds, so 090, and then it goes to the Exit Delay. So there's only one Exit Delay on the system, so you wanna make that as long as you'll need to get out any door. So I like to make it a little bit longer than my longest entry delay. A lot of times, you know, if you're trying to get out of the house with kids or something, it can take a little bit longer to get out than just to walk in and disarm the system.
So, our longest entry delay is 90 seconds, so, let's do 115 seconds. And then there's another one, Subtle Delay. You can just leave this one on 000. Once you're done, you'll just hit #, and that will go back out. You can then select your other partition if needed, but, you know, like our example, we're only doing one partition. So I'll just hit # again, and that'll exit out of the system Time programming.
So, the next thing you can...there's a lot of programming options in here, obviously. Most of it, you're just gonna leave on default. There's a couple common ones that you may need to go into. First one we're gonna talk about is System Options under 013, so this one is going to be where you'll toggle Resistor Use on and off. We have a whole video on resistor use, so if you wanna check that video out, it'll go into details about it.
But basically, if you're not using resistors for whatever reason, you can toggle Option 1, so that it's turned to Yes. And this one just says, "Normally closed loops," so basically, it's saying you have normally closed loops and not look for resistors. If you're using resistors, you'll leave this on default. You don't even need to go into this section.
Another common one is under 015, and there's a couple in here. So the first one is Option 2, which is the panic key. So if you use a keypad panic, by default, it's a silent alarm. It's not gonna turn on the siren. A lot of people want this to be an audible alarm, so you'll just switch that to "Yes" if you do. The other option is Option 7 in here, which is TLM. It's becoming more and more common for people not to use a landline.
The NEO, just like most other alarm systems, has a built-in phone dialer, and to monitor that phone line that's attached to it, it uses TLM, telephone line monitoring. Basically, it's just looking for a dial tone. If it doesn't have a dial tone, it's gonna throw up a trouble condition. So we're not hooking up a phone line to this system, so we're gonna turn that off. If you're using a phone line, you'll wanna keep it on, just so you know if something goes wrong with the telephone line. But this is a very common one that people get that trouble code and they're not sure how to get it turned off. So, once you're done, just hit # again.
So, for this system, we have a 4-wire smoke detector, and then we're also gonna just do an example. We also have a 2-wire smoke system set up. So maybe there's 2-wire smoke system and then we added another 2-wire smoke because we wanted one in a different position, and it wasn't convenient to add it to our 2-wire setup. So, to program these, we're actually gonna have to go into PGM Programming. So the first section we're gonna go to is 009, PGM definitions.
So, for this, since we're only using one smoke detector, PGM 1 is gonna provide enough current to power it. So we'll go to PGM 1, and we'll make this our 4-wire smoke detector. So, if you enter 103 here, it's going to show Sensor Reset, so I'll go back to PGM 1 so you can see that,103 Sensor Reset. What this means is that, when you...and you can look all this up in the manual as well, but when you enter *72 on the keypad when the system's disarmed, it's going to activate this PGM type for the Sensor Reset. And what it does is it turns the power off for five seconds and then powers back up.
Smoked detectors are a latched alarm, so that means when they detect smoke, they trigger and they stay triggered until they power off. This is how you reset it. If you didn't set the PGM up, basically, you'd have to power down your whole alarm system or get in there and unplug the wires, which you don't really wanna mess with. So this is just the easiest way to do it. And then, we'll go to PGM 2. PGM 2 is where, if you're using 2-wire smokes, this is where you hook it up.
The definition for 2-wire smoke is 104, and I'm not sure if you saw it flash on there. I'll go back real quick. So it says "2-Wire Smoke" there. Basically, it just makes that PGM a fire zone and will be reported as fire zone, and that's how it'll show up on your keypad as well. With this PGM, if you disarm, it's going to automatically reset the PGM, so it's kinda convenient.
Nice thing about 4-wire smoke detectors is you can address them, so, you know, we have Zone 4 as our Hallway Smoke. Whereas, if you're using 2-wire smokes, it's just one continuous loop of smoke detectors, so you're not sure which one gets triggered. It's not a huge deal for most house. Using 2-wire smoke is gonna work just fine. You just wanna know that there's a fire there. It doesn't matter where it's coming from. But if you do or for troubleshooting, it's nice to do the addressable as well. So push # to get out of here since we have those defined.
So if we just had hard-wired devices, you know, those four zones plus the 2-wire smoke zone, the main system programming would pretty much be done. I am gonna show, you know, maybe that was already wired and we wanna add a sensor to our garage door. So, to do that, the easiest way is with wireless. The NEO PowerG Wireless is great technology, it has great range, it's encrypted, etc., so it's a good option if you wanna have a hybrid system like this.
So, we're gonna do an example for a wireless zone as well. And to do that, we're going to go to our Wireless section, which is 804. And then we're going to wanna go to "Enroll Device." So it's already on that, so we'll just hit *. So now you have two options here. You can enroll with the Enroll button on the wireless device, or you can just enter the serial number.
So here's my wireless device. I've already got the cover off, obviously. I'm not sure if you can see that very well, but there's a sticker here with an ID. It's a seven-digit number, and you just enter that in. Or there's an Enroll button, which is right here. Basically, you'll just hold that down for about two seconds. When the light comes on, you release it. And it automatically transmits the number, and you can verify that it matches, 101-0818. So that matches, so you'll push * to confirm.
And then the keypad's automatically going to show up with the first available zone for wireless, so 009. Technically, you could start at 005 on this system since we don't have anything connected to it. But in my opinion, if you have an available hard-wired terminal, it's best just to leave it open just in case you wanna use it later. So, we have the first eight zones available for hard-wired, and I like to leave it like that. So we're definitely gonna start on 009, so we'll hit *. And so now you see it's asking for a zone definition. So this is why we didn't have to set it up in 001 like the hard-wired zones, because when you go to the Wireless Enrollment mode, it automatically asks for it. And so we're gonna use Delay 2 here, so I'll enter 002.
And then Select Partition, so, this is also why we didn't have to set this up in our partition mask in 201, because it does it automatically in here. And again, if you wanted it on a different partition, automatically Partition 1's gonna activate. You can turn it off and turn another partition on. We'll leave it on Partition 1, obviously, for this system, and when you're done selecting your partitions, you'll push #.
And so now it's gonna actually go into the Zone Label programming. I'm gonna go through all the zone labels here in a minute, so, we're leave this at Zone 9 for now. So you can push *, scroll until you get to Save, push * again, and so then it goes back to the top. If you had a second, third, fourth, fifth, etc., wireless device, you just go through the process again for that wireless device. And once you have 'em all done, all your programming for those zones is done.
So the Wireless Enrollment mode is pretty nice on this system. It gets all your programming done in one place. Once you're done, you'll just hit #. So this is our only wireless device for now, so we're just gonna go back out. And so that's all that we have to do in the Programming section for now, so we're gonna go back out.
And the next thing I wanna show you is how to set the date and time. So to do the date and time, you're gonna go *6. It's gonna ask for Access Code. It's actually wanting your master code. Default's 1234. And then, you could enter, if you know the code. It shows in the manual what code to use or you can scroll through until you get to Time and Date. You'll push *, and so now it's asking for a four-digit time in 24-hour format and the month, day, year in six-digit format. So, it's about 11:10 here, so enter that, and date is August 10th of '17. So once you're done, it'll back right out, and then you can hit #. And so now the date and time, if we didn't have the open zone scrolling through, would appear.
So the last thing I'm going to show you how to do is program in zone labels. Now, getting there for Wireless Enrollment mode is pretty easy as you saw. It's part of the whole process. If you're doing it for your hard-wired zones or you're going back in to do a wireless zone, either way, first thing you'll do is go into Programming. And you're gonna go to section 000, which shows up automatically, so we'll just hit *. And then to program in zone labels, you'll go to 001. You can select Languages, and there's also other zone, Zone Tamper, Zone Fault and other labels that you can do.
Generally, you'll leave most everything alone, except four zone labels. So, we'll push * there. And then you can jump to the zone you wanna label. We're gonna go ahead and do Zone 1. And so when you push *, it'll show you the current zone label, which is Zone 1, currently, which is a default. The easiest way to program in the labels is to use the word bank, which you can find in your keypad's manual. Or you can scroll through it on the keypad as well, but that takes a while. It's easier just to look it up in the manual and write down the three-digit code.
So, to get there, you'll push *, and it'll take you to Options. The first one there is Word Entry. That's where we wanna go. And then you can see it shows Aborted and 001, so the three-digit code for Aborted is 001. Then again, you can scroll through like this, and it'll show you all the words. So, that's one possibility if you didn't look it up or you can't find your manual, but the easiest thing is to type in the three-digit code.
So our first zone label is Front Door, so, Front is 081. So, pull it right up. You got Front. Then you hit *, and Front appears. And so you can see the little line is on the T. You can scroll, and it'll show, you know, you can go whatever position you want. So right now, Front 1 is showing up, because we had Zone 1 there before, so the 1 is still on there. We want a space there. To enter a space, you're gonna use 0, and so that clears it out.
And then you can scroll to the next spot, and if you were gonna do Door there, you could go to the Word Entry bank to do that. Alternatively, you can enter whatever word you want, using a alpha-numeric entry kinda like the old-fashioned texting on the, you know, old flip phones and things like that. So 1 is going to be ABC in 1, 2 will be DEF in 2. Then you can find this code in the manual as well. We also have it printed out on our Quick Start guide.
So for Door, we're gonna hit 2 and a D will show up. If I kept hitting 2, it's gonna scroll through all the different options and then back to the beginning. So I want the D, so, we're gonna leave that there. Scroll over. Now, O is going to be under 5. It's the third letter under 5, but you can see how it's still uppercase. If you wanna leave it uppercase, that's fine.
The other thing you can do is go to your Options by pushing *, and then you'll scroll over to Change Case. So when you hit that, lowercase now selected. So now, we can hit 5 again, and we're gonna get a lowercase O. And then we scroll over, hit 5 a few times, and we'll get the lowercase O there, if I can stop on the right one there. And then R is under 6. So, another neat thing with this is if you are going to a different button, it'll actually automatically go to the next spot, and then you can select R.
And so now we have Front Door labeled there, so we'll hit *. And then if you scroll the left, it'll take you right to Save, and you'll hit * again. So now, Zone 1 is saved, and you can select a different zone. You can go Zone 2, enter that one. If you wanna check your work, just go back in. Front Door is in there. So, that's all there is to the zone label programming, and you can do that for all of your zones.
Once you're finished, you'll just push # until you're out of there. And so now, it's gonna scroll through the open zones. You'll see Front Door and then Zone 2, Zone 3, etc. So that's how it's gonna appear when you label it. It makes it a lot easier than trying to consult the zone list or having to remember which zone labels you used.
So that's all the major programming steps for getting a system up and running. My friend Chris is doing a video on the user code programming, so he'll show you how to do that. We've also got another video on doing the wiring for this system, so you can check that out for the physical installation piece.
Well, I hope you guys found the video helpful. If you did, leave us a like, and subscribe to the channel, and remember to visit us on our website. And thanks for watching, and then we'll see you in the next video.