Addressable fire alarm panels

[sparkticus]

Hi,

Anyone got any advice on addressable panels and dealing with faults. Installed plenty of conventional systems but not had the pleasure yet to work on any addressable.

I appreciate that there are many manufacturers and software needed...I'm just interested on what others here have worked with? what issues people have had? Just general information, opinions and process of fault finding when working at the panels eg isolating zones etc or just any experiences when working on addressable systems, sprinkler systems, aspirating systems etc

Also if anyone knows any decent websites/training info that might.

cheers

 

[tazz]

Every panel has its own programming to isolate zones or devices. Its basically a loop system, with isolators every 20 devices to protect the loop. When fault finding its always and good move to split the loop, then look for missing devices on the panel. This gives a good indication where the fault maybe. Good idea would be to download a few manuals from Morley, Kentec, Advanced they are the main manufactures out there.

 

[charlie76]

Its basically a loop system, with isolators every 20 devices to protect the loop.

Not quite like that, every 32 trigger devices i.e. a detector or a callpoint. Bear in mind manufacturers such as apollo have isolators built into their kit so you don't have to plan your isolator layout, whereas Ziton, you have to be installing dedicated isolators and maximum 16 per loop so you need to plan a bit. Also isolate on change of level of your loop and on Zonal boundaries.

 

[charlie76]

Faults you will likely come across:

Short circuit (Dry liners screwed through a cable), all your isolators will trip normally splitting your negs

Open circuit (Dry liners have screwed through a cable) if you have addressed your loop devices in order around the loop, just remove your outgoing or incoming pos and neg and see which devices you can see up to the break, usually you can pinpoint it pretty easily.

Earth Fault (Dry liners have screwed through a cable) pos or neg to earth or building earth. Bugger to find on a large system. Remove in and out pos and neg from panel, start at one end and start taking resistance measurements along the loop at each device between pos-earth and neg-earth until you find the lowest reading, earth fault nearby.

Corrupt data on the loop (Not the dry liners this time). Often happens when loop length is too long (generally maximum of 1km). Devices will start dropping offline, random activations etc etc. Measure loop remittances and check against manufacturers maximum recommended.

So many others to mention really depends on the kit you are using, the environment, etc etc.

Aspirating is a completely different ball game and can cause you massive headaches. We use software called Pipcad for Vesda systems and it has its own flaws. Often with small systems I will ignore the software designed hole sizes and make my own recommendations but that is only from experience of failures. Air sense systems I have found to be a bit more resilient although you will find most jobs are spec'd as Vesda, just the Hoover of the aspirating world.



What specifically are you wanting to know?