Shoutout to the guy who told me to stop using screw terminals on alarm panels

Met a veteran installer at a job site who said screw terminals on Vista panels are trouble waiting to happen on high-vibration commercial doors. Fast forward to last month - had a bank alarm that kept false-alarming every Tuesday morning, tracked it to a single loose screw terminal on a door contact. He was 100% right, I've swapped to soldered connections on all my commercial jobs since. Any of you guys stick with screw terminals or move to something else?

2 comments

2 Comments

ericschmidt20d ago

Had a motion detector screw terminal shake loose on a truck dock door once. Infuriating.

the_mary20d ago

Not sure I buy that being a design flaw, honestly. Those screw terminals are pretty standard on industrial gear and hold fine if you torque them right the first time. Sounds more like whoever installed it was in a hurry and left it finger tight.