What is an analogue-addressable fire alarm system?
Analogue? Addressable?
Analogue-addressable fire alarm systems provides specific details on individual fire detector locations, whereas conventional systems only give information about areas or zones of a building.
Addressable or “intelligent” fire alarm systems are designed for larger building and are capable of being networked systems with adjoining addressable fire alarm systems. Addressable systems are more expensive than conventional two- or four-wire systems but have more information, increased flexibility, intelligence, speed of identification, and scope of control.
In addressable systems, different devices are wired in one or more single loops of cable around the premises, requiring less cabling than conventional systems, with each detector or call point having its own unique address.
The addressable control panel receives information and status reports from each device and indicates its exact location if there is a fire, fault, smoke, heat, or contamination to the user. Also the control panel carries out a constant polling routine in which each device is interrogated in a programmed sequence. Each Detector responds with a status report ‘Healthy’, ‘Pre-Alarm’ ‘In Alarm’ or ‘In Fault’. Detector alarm or fault conditions are displayed on the panel indicating the precise location of any detector.
The analogue part of these systems enables the detectors to monitor the contamination or heat level in each fire detector. The analogue information constantly monitors the temperature or contamination of the air flow through the detectors. This also enables the system to identify if there are traces of dust the detector will sound a pre-alarm warning instead of activating the entire system which results in a full fire alarm system being sounded. The pre-alarm will give ample warning to the responsible person to make sure the system is checked over and cleaned out. This feature is extremely useful in buildings such as airports and banks where false alarms can be extremely costly.
If you would like to discuss Analogue Addressable fire alarm systems in further detail, please do not hesitate to contact us.
