Re: FCI 7100

["MikeyB" <MikeBreslinNoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My personal feeling is that you need a different fire alarm vendor.  It is
not unusual to get less than competent technicians, especially on smaller
systems like this one.

If you lose power and the system "crashes" you clearly have a serious
problem that should be immediately addressed.  If you can't get satisfaction
from your vendor don't be afraid to call the manufacturer for assistance.
What area of the country are you in?

As far as the phone lines, the dedicated line sounds ok, the other line
should have been terminated with an rj-31x which is a line seizure jack and
in your case, would require using another pair of the 8 conductor phone
cable to feed the fax machine.  Due to the way in which the panels are
supervising the phone lines, the fax machine may be causing a phone line
failure every time it is used or it may not, but in any case it should be
rewired to facilitate the proper line seizure.

Mike Breslin



"Richard Merriam" <someonw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:LTDTe.7452$4i6.2707@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Last October we had a new building built and a FCI 7100 series fire alarm
> system installed by a reputable fire alarm contractor.  Over the course of
> the year we have had to have the contractor back out here many times.  We
> started getting "power errors" , "comm errors" and other errors about
> March
> of this year.  This has happened over 30 times.  They have reinstalled the
> computer program in the panel and even reciently changed the 'bios" chip
> on
> the motherboard.  If we have any power failure for even a short period of
> time (1 second) the system crashes and we have to either have them come
> out
> and reset it or we do it by disconnecting the 120v and battery from the
> system.  Of course the display time and data is defaulted.
>
> The company now says that it is a telephone line problem and that they are
> going to start charging us for service calls.  We have one dedicated phone
> line for fire panel only and another line that is also used with our fax
> line connected to the panel which we were told was ok.
>
> I looked into having a data-logger or recorder tied to our phone lines to
> see if they are loosing tip/ring but apparently there is nothing
> available.
>
> Common sense tells me that if there is a phone line loss (trouble) that it
> should report it to the monitoring station but not put the system into
> trouble and have to do a complete power-down to reset it to clear the
> faults.  The faults that the display gives us sometimes covers everything
> in
> the book.
>
> All wiring and devices and panel were tested by the alarm contractor who
> installed them along with the fire marshall who had to approve it before
> we
> got our certif. of occupancy.  This contractor has been installing systems
> for 20 years.
>
> Would those of you who are familiar with this type of problem give me some
> advice on where to go from here?  I don't know of anything else we can do.
> We certainly can't pay them to come out here on a weekly basis to reset
> their system.
>
>