RE: Smoke & gas detectors

["Nigel Giddings" <nigel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris,

My last visit from the BCO ended up with him asking for smoke detectors
in the following rooms; Kitchen, Dining Room (Open Fire), Living Room
(Open Fire), Study, Hall, Master Bed dressing room. As you probably know
these need to be mains operated and linked...

Having looked at the options and deciding I wanted to add a few more
detectors in the Basement (inc Node 0) and Loft (Node 3 and storage), I
thought it would make sense to go for a 'system' rather than the more
normal self contained units looped together with 3 core and earth.

I have gone for the Rafiki Twinflex system

http://www.rafikiprotection.com/twinflex.html

It has a central control panel with dry contacts for fault, zone 1
alarm, and zone 2 alarm. You can add remote repeater panels and link
several panels together (they do a 4 and 8 zone version as well). Each
zone can support upto 32 sensors (heat and or smoke by DIL switch) which
have sounders built in...

One feature I particularly like is the 'Evacuate' signal. EG if Zone 2
has an alarm (in my case 1st Floor / Loft) Zone 2 will give a constant
alarm and Zone 1 will give an intermittent 'evacuate' alarm, so if
people are in the basement they know to get out and that the fire is on
the 1st floor or in the loft...

For those who want more HA stuff it also does what it calls 'class
change'. You may remember from school the Pips at the end of a Class
Period... The panel has an input to allow this to be triggered. Could be
used as a movement indication if linked to PIRs, but I'm sure this would
drive you mad eventually...

As far as I know no Gas detectors are available but these could be
interfaced via the dry contacts to trigger a zone.

Wiring is simple as it is only two cores per zone (some sort of data
bus). To meet British Standards it needs to be wired with FP200, and
though this is expensive it is very easy to use. It looks like Pyro but
no special tools required.

A picture here, not the most useful

http://photos.corbenic.co.uk/photos/photo236.html

One thing to bear in mind is that you should use the approved P clips
and or Stainless Steel cable ties...

HTH

Nigel

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Hunter [mailto:cjhunter@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 09 April 2006 01:02
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Smoke & gas detectors


'am looking for sensors to go with HA, and Googling brings up far more
makes & models than I'd expected ... with prices anywhere from below
5GPB to over 90GPB ... some battery, some mains, some both, some
low-voltage, some smoke & gas in one ... etc.   I need some that work
well & reliably & offer zero-volts ralay contacts & look good
or at
least acceptable.   Can anyone recommend particuar ones, please - 90GBP
seems OTT to me, and 5GBP seems NVM !

Chris