Month: June 2011

False Fire Alarms Waking You Up?

Friday 17th June 2011

This post was written in 2011. Please read our new guide to troubleshooting beeping smoke alarms.

A common complaint we hear about are smoke alarms that go off in the middle of the night. There are a number of reasons and steps you can take to minimise the possibility of nuisance alarms waking you up.

Smoke alarms with low batteries will emit a beeping sound to indicate that the batteries require replacement. Batteries are at their weakest at night when it is cooler and you can therefore get low battery warnings which can wake you up. If it is a low battery warning sound (every few minutes or so), change your batteries. Make sure you use good quality batteries, as cheap batteries may not be strong enough to power the alarm and again cause the alarm to bleep during the night .

The issue of low batteries may  also apply if you have mains powered smoke alarms, as most mains powered alarms contain a backup battery to power the alarm in case of power failure.

If a mains powered smoke alarm gives an irregular warning sound, it might also indicate that the mains power supply is interrupted. Some smoke alarms have a green LED light on the outer case to show that the smoke alarm is connected to the mains power. If the green LED is not lit it can be an indication that there has been an interruption in the mains power supply and that the alarm will be using the back up battery as the power source.

Should the alarm emit a continuous sound, check first of all that there are no signs of a fire. False alarms can be caused by condensation or insects finding their way into the alarm. To eradicate this type of false alarm try to vacuum out the inside of the smoke alarm as thoroughly as possible and ventilate the room to reduce the condensation present.

When a smoke alarm has reached the end of its life it might also start to sound an intermittent beep as and when the alarm starts to become faulty. Check the manufacturing date of the smoke alarm. Smoke alarms need replacing after ten years.

In all cases of nuisance beeping or false alarms do not disconnect your alarm or leave the alarm without batteries fitted. This would leave you unprotected in the event of a fire and you would not receive any warning to evacuate the building.

To ensure that you have done everything possible to minimise the chances of false alarms and nuisance beeping take advantage of our free reminder service to alert you to replace batteries or replace the smoke alarm unit.

Addressable Emergency Lighting

Friday 10th June 2011

Utilising DALI technology, Safelincs can offer fully Addressable Emergency Lighting Solutions with a full range of emergency light that can also be incorporated in existing DALI networks and building management systems.
What is DALI?
DALI stands for Digital Addressable Lighting Interface and is a protocol set out in the technical standard IEC 62386. DALI is an international standard set out to guarantee the compatibility of products from different manufacturers.
DALI Addressable Emergency Lighting
After the initial installation of emergency lighting, there is a legal requirement for the building occupiers, owners and nominated responsible person(s) to ensure that the emergency lighting system within a building is tested and maintained in accordance with BS5266 – Code of practice for emergency lighting of premises. The associated maintenance and testing labour costs have resulted in the development of fully addressable emergency lighting solutions. These addressable systems perform the necessary scheduled tests in accordance with BS5266, each luminaire then reports back to the central panel or computer with the test results. If there are any malfunctions found with an individual luminaire the specific fault is highlighted at the centralised monitoring point, with the unique address of the luminaire at fault.

These systems have an increased initial cost, but can be easily justified with short payback periods due to reduced costs for testing the systems. The DALI addressable emergency lighting systems enable a lighting designer or planner to assemble a fully addressable system with the advantage of the DALI protocol enabling a mixture of manufacturer’s emergency luminaires on each addressable system.

APPLICATIONS:
Schools, Hospitals, Hotels, Local Authority buildings and any medium to large installations

Safelincs’ manufacturer Ringtail offers a complete addressable system incorporating the monitoring panel, the software and all luminaires. All of these can be incorporated into an existing DALI network. Each DALI system offers the following functionality:

Centralised fully automatic testing and monitoring incorporating

  • Full rated test at commissioning
  • Monthly function test
  • Annual duration test
  • Fully addressable
  • Flexibility for testing schedules, grouping
  • Diagnostic information for rectification of faults and scheduled maintenance
  • Easy commissioning features
  • Communication to proven DALI protocol

Ringtail DALI Luminaires can be linked to any DALI system, however, our complete addressable emergency lighting system incorporates a discrete touchscreen facility with the potential of up to 120 luminaires being controlled and monitored by each touchscreen. Each touchscreen is pre-loaded with its own software and provides a fully DALI emergency compliant system, a number of options are available allowing each touchscreen to operate as a stand alone system or alternatively, on larger installations, these touchscreen panels can be networked together via the building’s ethernet and back to a central monitoring PC. Up to 10 DALI panels can be networked, enabling a maximum of 1200 emergency luminaires to be monitored.

The system is unique in that until the luminaires have been commissioned onto the DALI network they revert to standard Self-test, this means that even before the DALI system has been commissioned that the site will have a fully compliant emergency lighting scheme complete with Self-test.
The DALI function is available on most of Safelincs’ emergency lights; please refer to each individual datasheet for full specifications. We are also able to offer a full range of DALI emergency conversions to existing and other manufacturer’s luminaires.

For system enquiries, please contact us on 0800 612 2946 or email Sue@safelincs.co.uk