Amcrest Doorbell New Home Construction Install

Have some questions or having issues with your IP Camera(s), Post them here for the mods and other users to assist you with.
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Geewiz
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Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 9:33 pm

Amcrest Doorbell New Home Construction Install

Post by Geewiz »

Greetings:
Our new home has been framed and I have a line running to the front door for mounting of the cam.

My question pertains to the "Chime Kit". I can't find any explanation of what it actually does, or if I actually need it.

I'm not planning on having an actual doorbell chime, so my question is, do I need this?

Thanks for any clarification!
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Revo2Maxx
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Re: Amcrest Doorbell New Home Construction Install

Post by Revo2Maxx »

Hello and Welcome to the Forum

The Doorbell chime KIT is 100% needed and Please make sure to use a 16vac or 16.5vac 30va transformer... If your home is still under construction I would move 2 different types of wires to your Doorbell area.. 18awg, or 16awg bell wire please make sure they don't use 20 or 22awg bell wire... Second then I would do for future upgrade ability is have them drop some cat5e or cat6a in the pocket as well... That will give you the ability for future upgrades..

The Chime kit is an Electronic Switch and is designed to shunt your power short that your camera will cause any time the doorbell button is pressed...

You can use it without and it was at 1 time when it first released stated in Docs that if a doorbell was not going to be used it wasn't needed but I have tested this my self and if you don't use it when the doorbell button is pressed the transformer will BUZZ or hum and in a since your taking 2 ac power wires and shorting them together over time it will destroy your transformer without the Chime Box...

Also remember when you pair the Doorbell without a Chime of any kind pick the No Chime in the setup menus... It is still sending a closed circuit loop when button is pressed even though there is no Relay that is in the Doorbell can be heard when button pressed with Digital doorbell is used... I am not sure 100% how or why even with no chime choose that it causes a short and maybe it is my Doorbell is defective however mine does work and I have wired and tested with out a doorbell chime in my home and with one.. IF someone was to not use it and had the camera set to 10 seconds it wouldn't take to long for the transformer to blow and maybe with luck pop your breaker.. I am sure there will be people that will show OLD DOCS that says No Chime Kit needed if you don't use a Indoor doorbell but that is old and bad Info... Also old and Bad info is that 16vac or 24vac transformer is ok and That also isn't true 16 or 18vac from Amcrest is largest one would really want to use... 24vac will make it work but will damage the Chime Kit and in future if you wanted a indoor chime. The Chime Kit would be defective once 24vac is used it isn't stable at that voltage..

I did a Test with Amp and Volt meter and sure enough found using a 24vac transformer will over current the chime kit and damage the circuit inside...
Here to help the best I can.
Be Safe
Geewiz
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Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 9:33 pm

Re: Amcrest Doorbell New Home Construction Install

Post by Geewiz »

I'm going to get the proper wire...when I look on Home Depot, anything marked "Bell Wire" is 18 or 20 AWG. Any two wire strands at 16 AWG are labeled "Speaker Wire". Will speaker wire work?

Thank you so much for your insights!
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Revo2Maxx
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Re: Amcrest Doorbell New Home Construction Install

Post by Revo2Maxx »

18awg is fine and yes Speaker wire is better then 18 or 20... Just keep in mind if you are going to have a long distance between your Transformer and the doorbell you have to keep in mind about Voltage Drop.. However if your only going to have your doorbell transformer within say 30 or 40 feet

So lets just look at some numbers for the sake of looking.. 16vac, at 1amp at 30 feet on 18awg wires and if doing the math it says that the drop would be under what I like to see and that is 3% however standard is 10%.. Anyway with the math it says voltage at load would be 15.62vac and 0.38 drop and is 2.39% again that is awg 18 on 16awg it says it would only be a 1.5% drop with 15.76vac on load and only a 0.24 drop... To be fair you could get away with 20awg however that is over my like of 3% at 3.8% and to be fair that would be fine under normal standards however the reason I said 18 or 16Awg is because of not only keeping good flow of power for the use now it is a good size for future updates that may or may not be power hungry... Taking cat wire now as POE doorbell might be in the future of doorbells and might as well have the power wire in good size for now and future and the cat5e or 6a incase POE doorbell does come into play or some other network type device.. Also worse case you could put in another camera and have Cat wire in close to the location already..

One last thing. I know that I am one to talk with my newest house on the West Coast where I took both RG59 and cat5e into each location however back then there was some baluns but not as good as the ones today.. IF you have Analog HD or even older analog cameras like I do just run Cat5e or Cat6a for your Cameras and use any of the cool Baluns they have out today where you can do power and video is standard there are some that will do power, video, audio and data on 1 cat cable using the right baluns so no need today installing rg59 or 6 for CCTV just keep that for cable use.. Again this way less cables and able to upgrade in future to camera location for IP cameras. IF you already have only IP cameras then only need Cat5e or 6a anyway...
Here to help the best I can.
Be Safe
EddieColeslawski
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Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2020 2:08 pm

Re: Amcrest Doorbell New Home Construction Install

Post by EddieColeslawski »

Revo2Maxx wrote: Taking cat wire now as POE doorbell might be in the future of doorbells and might as well have the power wire in good size for now and future and the cat5e or 6a incase POE doorbell does come into play or some other network type device.. Also worse case you could put in another camera and have Cat wire in close to the location already..

I hope to see POE doorbell from Amcrest. Surveillance is too important for me to trust to WiFi.
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