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[Cool Javelin]

Hi folks,

I am new here.

I would like to purchase a few door / window sensors, and have seen the following and was wondering which would be best for me.

DS10a, vs. DS12a, vs. DW533, vs. DW534.

I note some use AA vs AAA, and one has a tamper sensor, are there other differences?

Is the battery life on one better then another?
Do any have a way to attach an external wall wart?
What about range, can I expect one to transmit farther?
What about reliability, does anyone have experience with one or another?
I see some have built in magnet switches only, and some have external hookups, I assume the tamper detector is yet a third switch?

Thanks for your help
Mark.

[Brian H]

The DW533 and DW534 are both very old models. I would personally stay away from them.

The DS10A and DS12A are the present models.
The DS10A has an externally wires magnetic switch.
The DS12A has an internal magnetic switch.
The DS12A has two separate zones in it. The internal switch you mount a magnet next to and a two connection terminal block to wire a second magnetic switch to. Both or either one can be registered as they are separate from each other.

http://kbase.x10.com/wiki/DS10A
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/aaaremotes/PDS01.pdf
The PDS01 is the X10Pro model since the DS10A manual seems to be on a broken link.

http://kbase.x10.com/wiki/DS12A
http://www.authinx.com/manuals/X10/DS12A.pdf

[Brian H]

One more thought.
The DW533 ans DW534 where manufactured by X10WTI that went bankrupt.
The new X10 company would not give you any warranty on them.

[Cool Javelin]

Thanks, Brian H.

As I search around, I find there isn't much info on the reliability differences, I guess I can assume there are few problems in that area (unlike what I read about the MS10a).

Also, I can't seem to find much on battery life or range.

The 10's seem to be more plentiful then the 12's, and as such less expensive almost by half, at least on ebay, but the 12's have two zones, again, little difference.

I guess the biggest difference in function is the tamper circuit in the 12's that the 10's seem to lack, but in my particular case, that is unimportant.

Thanks for the response,

Mark.

[Brian H]

May depend on how you have to mount the sensor.
The DS12A has to be mounted so the magnet is next to the sensors side.
I got DS12A sensors with my SC1200 Security Kit. My doors did not allow me to mount them next to each other. So in my case. I used an external magnetic switch and only registered the external ones.
If your console does not process a tamper. May not matter if you used DS10A or DS12A sensors.
The DS10A was also used in the SC1200 kits when X10WTI ran short of DS12A sensors.

[Backward Engineering]

I have reverse engineered and generated a schematic for the DS10A.  Some component values may be missing.
Voltage measurements were taken with a digital DSO with a 1M input impedance.  See attached schematic.

[Brian H]

Thank you for the schematic.
It will be a help and a welcomed addition to my X10 information.

[Backward Engineering]

The schematic was drawn using ExpressSCH, a free schematic CAD software from ExpressPCB.  I would post the original file, however, the .sch type file is not allowed.  I may be able to upload the .sch file to my OneDrive account and provide a download link to the file.  "Stay Tuned"

[Backward Engineering]

Here we go.  Anyone with this link can download the schematics.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AnNz3PG0-yTcgZ8N9HBj9QBbWvcHvw