That time I wired a motion sensor backwards and set off the homeowner's rooster alarm at 3 AM in Fresno

Was hooking up a new DSC panel last Tuesday and swapped the N/O and N/C contacts on a motion, thinking I was being clever bypassing the tamper, but instead tripped the whole system and woke up a flock of chickens in the backyard coop through some weird outdoor sensor loop I didn't even know existed in the garage - has anyone else ever accidentally triggered livestock with a miswired zone?

2 comments

2 Comments

samwalker4d ago

...and that, my friend, is exactly how you earn yourself a "most creative DIY security fail" award without even trying. I've wired things backwards plenty of times but never managed to wake up livestock in the process. You basically invented a whole new type of alarm system - the poultry panic mode. Did the homeowner at least get a laugh out of it, or were they more focused on the 3 AM chicken symphony?

wadecooper3d ago

Bro I absolutely love this, the mental image of a bunch of chickens losing their minds at 3 AM is killing me lol. Reminds me of the time I tried hooking up a motion light to my buddy's shed and accidentally wired it so the motion detector triggered the garage door opener instead of the light. The whole neighborhood got treated to a midnight garage door show for about an hour before we figured out why it kept going up and down by itself. At least the chickens had a purpose, that garage door was just confused haha.