Hello,
I’m new to home security. Most of our doors have molding with prevent close contact with the door sensor and magnet. I added the magnet in the orientation shown and is not sufficient as the system think the door is always open. Any tips for installing sensors on doors with molding?
Is the sensor oriented the right way? Not sure but in the pic it almost looks like the little ridge showing where the reed switch is at is on the bottom and the magnet is on the top.
Otherwise, you could add a spacer to move the magnet down a bit. Or move the sensor up, although then it would protrude above the door.
The first user I believe is correct, test the magnet in all orientations and see which allows the greatest distance, but in general the ridge is the indicator of what should be directed at the sensor.
If that fails, the contact is just a magnet, I’ve had luck repurposing sensors for larger gaps by simply buying stronger Neodynium magnets on Amazon (getting the right strength is a bit of trial and error) and making my own contact. With a higher grade Neodynium magnet ($10ish on amazon in 2-3 packs) I have added 2+ inches to detection distance for a project I’m testing of 3d printing a case to turn a cheap indoor sensor into an outdoor gate sensor.
The horizontal orientation at the top of the door is fine, and that distance between the sensor and magnet in your photo should be no problem. Looks like that is a PG9303 door sensor, the other posts above are correct in that the magnet and the reed switch are misaligned.
The magnet needs to be centered on the ridge on the side of the sensor. On a PG9303 this is nearer one end of the sensor, not in the middle. Feel for the ridge on the sensor housing.
