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Maniphest T13694

Create a "BRK/First Alert" smoke detector connector adapter
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Description

Which circuit breaker powers the smoke alarms? None shall ever know, for every breaker was marked "OLD BATHROOM GCFI.docx.v2.REAL.bak.bak~" when the house was purchased.

It would be easier to figure out if I could plug something in, like this tool for figuring out which breaker powers something which I already own (although I've had mixed luck with it). But the connector that's currently wired in is a big molex-ish connector that I can't get alligator clips on.

I purchased this smoke detector connector adapter, intending to cut it up, wire that to a plug and then go Live Wires → Adapter → Plug → Circuit Detector. It arrived and isn't remotely close to fitting, it's like twice as large as the wired connector.

The connector on the live wires seems to be a "First Alert / BRK"-style female connector. They sell a lot of adapters on Amazon that take you from other connectors to "BRK", but I can't find any that take you from "BRK" to anything else.

The practical solution here is probably to stand on a rubber mat and just carefully get the live wire into a Wago connector, but after some consideration I realize that they sell a "DIY" BRK Connector Male Adapter for the steep-but-not-unreasonable price of $14.

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Event Timeline

epriestley triaged this task as Normal priority.Dec 13 2022, 11:46 PM
epriestley created this task.
epriestley added a comment.Dec 14 2022, 11:23 PM

Here's my nice safe smoke detector power adapter:

Screen Shot 2022-12-14 at 3.22.49 PM.png (595×797 px, 838 KB)

epriestley added a comment.Dec 16 2022, 10:13 PM

This connector has a 4mm pin pitch, but I had a great deal of difficulty finding a likely-seeming bare connector with a 4mm pitch. After resigning myself to a Digikey quest for a connector that will fit a board on T13692, which also has a "4mm" pitch I realize the pitch is probably not 4mm but 3.96mm -- a wonderful pitch for which many connectors are readily available.

This is likely a JST-VH 4 Pin connector.

epriestley mentioned this in T13692: Build a portable motorized vehicle for a 3 year old.Dec 16 2022, 10:35 PM
epriestley added a comment.Dec 20 2022, 12:46 AM

The genuine article is not a JST-VH 4-pin connector -- the connecting clip is a little different, and there's no hole in the housing for (unused) pin #2. However, the pin size and spacing is right, so you can cut the connecting clip off a JST-VH and melt one of the pins out and the connector will fit well enough.

epriestley closed this task as Resolved.Dec 21 2022, 4:42 AM

I traced the alarms back to Breaker #8 in Panel #2 (the detector tool actually worked okay this time). I disconnected the breaker and verified that killed the circuit. I swapped the alarms and updated the map of known breakers with this new information:

Screen Shot 2022-12-20 at 8.39.38 PM.png (222×354 px, 22 KB)

epriestley renamed this task from Create a "BRK/First Alert" smoke detector connector adapter to Create a "BRK/First Alert" smoke detector connector adapter.Nov 16 2023, 8:43 PM
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