"Simpson" wrote in message
...
terry wrote:
On Jan 26, 2:34 am, Simpson wrote:
wrote:
There's a metal box attached to the side of my smoke alarm box with
what looks like a phone line coming out of it. It travels between the
joists for about 10' before disappearing into the subfloor above. I'd
like to disconnect this box to mount the smoke detector in a new place
(and will reattach then if needed).
PIc is at:http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8822/img0693st8.jpg
Thanks!
It's a transformer to step down the 110 volt line to 9 or 12 volts for
use in the smoke detector. The wire coming off it goes to some other low
voltage device, probably another smoke detector or possibly a doorbell.
It's not attached to the side of your smoke detector. It's attached to
the side of a junction box which your smoke detector is mounted to. If
you remove the smoke detector from the J box you should see one of the
110 lines (two wires) connected to the transformer and two wires coming
from the transformer to the smoke detector. Be sure to flip the breaker
for this circuit before digging around inside the J box and hook
everything up as before once you move it. If the coil of wire is not
long enough to reach the new location you can safely splice an extra
length of the same gauge wire and tape the splices well with
electricians tape.
Not sure but looks like, from that one picture, that it is a mains
operated smoke alarm. With possibly a mains to low voltage transformer
mounted on the side of the same electrical octagon box on which the
smoke alarm is mounted?
The springy telephone type cord looks like it comes off the low
voltage output of that transformer; whether it has anything to do with
the smoke alarm itself is hard to determine!
Maybe it was merely a convenient means to obtain and convey low AC
voltage to something else; such as a door bell/chime circuit? Or a
home buzzer system or even some low voltage thermostats????
Or perhaps it is even a home brew alteration to the smoke alarm to
transmit a signal or voltage to shut off or to alarm something else.
Needs someone with a knowledge of circuitry to trace out what is going
on; virtually impossible to be sure of anything without hands-on.
If not electrically competent suggest don't do anything; AC operated
alarms are sometimes linked between floors and are required to be so
by insurance companies and fire inspection jurisdictions. Moving or
changing one might (unsafely) disable a whole system.
You're might be more on the money than I am. I wasn't aware that smoke
detectors are made to be connected to 110 volts. In any case, flip the
breaker off and hook up everything as before.
Here in Ontario, Canada line voltage smoke alarms have been mandated for new
construction for the past 25 years, one is needed on each floor, a 3 wire
cable hooks them together so if one goes off, they all sound off.