Existing Simplex building, adding a stand alone facp

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duke@16d

Member
Location
Seattle
Has anyone here tried to add a stand alone panel--for a building system or addition--to a Simplex Autocall? I have a customer that needs to do some modernization in one area, and the corporate office will not do business with simplex, so the migration path is not an option.

Stand alone that relays into an old zone in the autocall or similar, with AHJ approval, of course. Anyone been down this road?
 

nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
Has anyone here tried to add a stand alone panel--for a building system or addition--to a Simplex Autocall? I have a customer that needs to do some modernization in one area, and the corporate office will not do business with simplex, so the migration path is not an option.

Stand alone that relays into an old zone in the autocall or similar, with AHJ approval, of course. Anyone been down this road?


You can cross connect systems, you probably know this already but here goes-- you'd need one open input zone, an alarm and a trouble relay already in place on the autocall. Even if those relays are in use, you could put another relay with compatible coil trigger voltage in the autocall cabinet. Use the alarm relay to trip that new relay, to trip the new panel assuming there is only one alarm relay, or use a NAC. Then post finished pictures to hacksmith university's wall of shame ;) .... you could do something like that, but would you want to???


Forget about trying that until you have the AHJ ok, I know you said it, but that's the first hurdle. If there is only one panel now, they probably don't want two in there. Autocall, from the good ol' days..... educate the customer that a voluntary upgrade of the the existing system now, will make those planned renovations cheaper/easier. Assuming the AHJ will allow that.
 
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duke@16d

Member
Location
Seattle
NHfire, that's pretty much what I envision. At the end of the day, a switch is a switch and if I use the stand alone to trouble the old, the system should work fine. It's all about the fire marshal approval.

That's the next call.
 

duke@16d

Member
Location
Seattle
It's all about budget, right? The new panel will eventually become the only panel when $ is available to swap out all the autocall devices and do a thorough upgrade.
 

dhalleron

Senior Member
Location
Louisville, KY
I have seen it done in the past but don't recommend having two panels trip each other.

Normally in order for the panels to act as a single system, panel A is supposed to trip panel B and panel B is supposed to trip panel A. Then you get stuck in a loop when trying to reset. One panel won't reset because the other panel has a relay keeping it latched in alarm and vice versa.

Some people rig up some way of resetting the panels that might be complicated or not obvious as to how it is done to most people trying to do a reset. Then you get a service call and an unhappy customer or fire department.
 

fmtjfw

Senior Member
I have worked on a fire alarm system with multiple types of fire alarm panels, can you say 4 different on one system. It is a nightmare.

We had sets of problems:

1) getting all alarms to sound/flash on an alarm in any system
2) getting all systems to reset after an alarm
3) getting the interconnections to be supervised for trouble.

The systems included an addressable (orphan -- company no longer existed), an 8 (yes eight) wire system with zone indication from 2nd contact from each initiating device, 4 wire systems, elevator recall system, and tripping magnet door locks on alarm.
(And a separate old panel cannibalized to provide additional power for the zillion door holder magnets).

We never got it all working correctly.

Resetting became a ritual which included a foot race between the final two panels.
 
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duke@16d

Member
Location
Seattle
Good points. A lot of this sounds more comical than I think we envisioned. The whole reset loop problem is one you don't consider right off the bat.

Keep em coming, please.
 

MichaelGP3

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco bay area
Occupation
Fire Alarm Technician
About 8 years ago I had a technical support rep at Bosch indicate to me that when this sort of thing is done, the panels need to be monitored via discrete input zones on an independently powered* transmitter (with its own backup batteries) regardless of how the fire alarm panels otherwise operationally interact, or the fire alarm panels require separate transmitters. This is done so that a catastrophic failure of one panel does not inhibit an alarm signal from a surviving panel to be transmitted.


*Can be on the same circuit breaker, but cannot be powered from one fire alarm panel's power supply.


Another issue worth mentioning is strobe synchronization.
 
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gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
The easiest way to do this for addressable panels is to use pairs of relay and monitor modules. A relay module from panel "A" is activated when panel "A" goes into alarm, and closes an normally open contact that is monitored by a monitor module from panel "B". The monitor module from panel "B" is mapped to the output group(s) that trigger the notification appliances circuits on panel "B", and the module displays something like "ALARM INPUT FROM PANEL A" at the panel "B" display. That way panel "B" doesn't go into alarm and you don't have to worry about which panel you have to reset first. Do the same setup for panel "B", where a relay output from "B" is monitored by a monitor module from "A". As long as you have addressable panels, you can do this for any number of panels.

One thing that you can't do with this is silence all the appliances from one panel as long as the alarm condition is present. However, when you reset the panel that is in alarm, assuming the alarm causing condition is cleared, the other panel's notification appliances will shut down, since they were activated directly from the module input, not an alarm condition.
 

nhfire77

Senior Member
Location
NH
About 8 years ago I had a technical support rep at Bosch indicate to me that when this sort of thing is done, the panels need to be monitored via discrete input zones on an independently powered* transmitter (with its own backup batteries) regardless of how the fire alarm panels otherwise operationally interact, or the fire alarm panels require separate transmitters. This is done so that a catastrophic failure of one panel does not inhibit an alarm signal from a surviving panel to be transmitted.


*Can be on the same circuit breaker, but cannot be powered from one fire alarm panel's power supply.


Another issue worth mentioning is strobe synchronization.

So a independent 120V DACT?

Is that a UL thing?

I have to hear more about that, I recently was forced into a slightly similar situation, that the AHJ approved, with me stating on the record of completion that I couldn't confirm it was complaint and that he approved the design. I didn't turn it down because my new panel has an integrated DACT and was being treated as an independent system.

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He'll have to designate a 'master' and a 'slave' panel, assuming the AHJ only wants to reset one panel depending on the layout

This is the situation I had-

strip mall with 2hr fire walls between units
landlord controlled sprinkler system
A riser in common area serving two tenant spaces. (there are 6 risers 10+ tenant spaces)
One tenant space gets new addressable panel w/DACT "slave panel" Other tenant space served by this riser stays existing.
landlord controlled mall 'master' FACP- Conventional with no way to add an IDC
landlord 'master' FACP already monitored that waterflow, but could not trip the new tenant panel

Existing riser flow switch used to trip 4 devices off the DPDT contacts- 'master' panel, 'slave panel', other tenant space panel and waterflow bell.

The flow switch was connected within 3' to a relay j box to accomplish all that. It was explicit in all paperwork I would not/could not verify whatever was happening in that j box, and the other contractor would accept liability (yea like that would matter right?)


I had to make the waterflow input nonsilencable, autoresetting on the new addresable tenant panel. So when the WF switch alarmed, all the areas served by the riser would get notification, but the FD only had to reset the 'master panel'.

If a pull or smoke went off in that tenant space, then the FD would have to reset both panels, but somehow that was ok.

This is a simplification there was a lot more to it, it never sat well with me.
 

fmtjfw

Senior Member
I have worked on a fire alarm system with multiple types of fire alarm panels, can you say 4 different on one system. It is a nightmare.

We had sets of problems:

1) getting all alarms to sound/flash on an alarm in any system
2) getting all systems to reset after an alarm
3) getting the interconnections to be supervised for trouble.

The systems included an addressable (orphan -- company no longer existed), an 8 (yes eight) wire system with zone indication from 2nd contact from each initiating device, 4 wire systems, elevator recall system, and tripping magnet door locks on alarm.
(And a separate old panel cannibalized to provide additional power for the zillion door holder magnets).

We never got it all working correctly.

Resetting became a ritual which included a foot race between the final two panels.

Yea, that was the other thing, getting silence to work across the systems.

Just to add to the horror, some of the wiring for the 8-wire system was in the attic. The attic had been insulated by laying down fiberglass insulation bats, including covering up the old heating shafts that were more than 30 feet from top to bottom, so you had to act like you were crossing a rotten glacier for fear of ending up in the sub-basement.
 
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