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Monday, October 24, 2011

A look at the First Ademco Burglar Alarm panel which started the Industry












I came across this little piece of history of a Burglar Alarm 20+ years ago it was one of the the first panels produced by Maurice Coleman who founded ADEMCO or Alarm Device Manufacturing Company in the 1950's from his hardware store in NY. He bought his original parts to hand make these panels from Sterling electric Supply.
Known later as the model 110 it was powered by a 3 volt cylindrical dry cell the kind you found in science labs and a 6 volt lantern battery. the panel had a closed circuit which when the panel was ready to be armed would read between 5-10 milliamps on the meter which the 3 volt battery energized and you would then turn the key to arm the panel upon the loop being De- Energized the relay to the 6 volt battery would close ringing a bell till disarmed or the battery was depleted. Prior to this time alarms where very expensive and where mostly for banks and jewelry stores Mr. Coleman brought a product to market for the common merchant who needed protection though still not as affordable as today this was the panel which started it all Mr. Coleman sold ADEMCO to Pittway Corporation which stood for Pittsburgh Railways(trolleys) in 70's and it is currently held by the Honeywell Corporation which has had a long time partnership with Ademco for several decades. I think Mr. Coleman would be very surprised how things have changed but also very proud how the product line has evolved to today's modern digital systems.
This panel still operates to this day any time I fire it up as it is mostly all mechanical and some early 1000 series panels are still out there on barns etc still working every day thou they are 40 or more years old.

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