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Home Repair Electrical Wiring DIY

Problem with smoke detector

5 years ago

I'm in the process of replacing a set of four hardwired smoke detectors. In one location, I had to wire in a new harness because the old unit's pin configuration didn't match. When I plug a new unit into that location, all the other units alarm and won't respond to being "hushed" via the reset button. Seems like maybe something weird happening on the circuit, but I matched the wire colors, so I'm stumped where to go next.

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Comments (2)

Dave
5 years ago
did you have a 12/2 and a 12/3 in that box? is that the smoke thats fed?

re check your connections. black is your 120v line and red talks to the other smokes.
mtvhike
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
When I expanded the smoke detectors in my house, I used 3-wire cable (black-white-red + ground) and used the red for the interconnect between them. What I don't know is if your are mixing various brands, are the interconnects standardized, or do you have to use all the same brand (which is what I did)?
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