Do all addressable pull stations have lights on them that continually blink?
No. Many addressable pulls are indistinguishable from their conventional counterparts from the outside. The only pulls that come to my mind that flash are the BG-12LX series (obviously) and the Silent Knight SD500-PS series.
The later addressable Gamewell Centuries blink too. They have them at the Roche Bros. supermarket my brother works at.
Is there a reason as to why some addressable pulls blink? Is it to make it clear to the fire department that there is an addressable system?
The simplex T-Bar dose not have an led it is just dip switches
They blink each time the panel polls them to show that everything is communicating properly. A steady LED on activation is also helpful in finding which one was pulled. On many addressable systems, you can activate the LED from the panel if you’re looking for a particular device.
The devices mentioned above are the only ones that I know of with an LED on the front. The BG-10LX, EST SIGA-series, and addressable S464A’s have lights on the modules.
The only pull stations that I ever saw that blink are the BG-12LXs. My college has them.
What about addressable NA’s?
At Union Train Station in New Haven, CT, the Truealert Spearker/Strobes (half of which are installed upside-down in what appears to be a botched retrofit) have red LEDs that blink intermittently in or behind the strobe.
What is the purpose of addressable NAs? The purpose of addressable pull stations is to make it clear which station was pulled.
With addressable notification, each device can be individually sounded or disabled from the panel.
Addressability also makes finding troubles a lot easier. On a standard NAC, you’d have to check possibly hundreds of devices to locate a fault or a short. A Simplex panel with addressable TrueAlerts can tell you exactly where the problem is.
Another advantage is the ability to reprogram the behavior of notification appliances without having to touch the wiring. Ordinarily, large voice evac systems divide areas of the building into zones for staged evacuation, and all speaker/strobes on a NAC must be part of the same zone. By having notification appliances on the SLC, the speaker zone and strobe operation can be set individually for each device, and/or they can be grouped into “pseudo” NAC’s.
I would like to see an addressable multitone TrueAlert with the ability to set tones from the panel. In Canadian two-stage applications, it would be very useful to have a 20BPM chime for first stage and temporal horn for second stage all in one device. Also, it would be useful in some jurisdictions that require three different tones for agent release stages, which usually means having three different devices.
Destin covered what I was going to say about the zones thing.
I think Simplex is the only company that makes addressable NA’s (at least they are the only one I have seen).
It is cool that the TrueAlert speaker/strobes have a LED on them, I have never seen a LED on a NA.
The only part of a Simplex speaker strobe that is addressable is the strobe. The speaker part of the device is still conventional and has to be wired like a standard NAC circuit, that is to say in and out wiring, no T tapping allowed, and has to have an end of line resistor. I’m not sure how an addressable speaker circuit would be engineered, as most addressable circuits have chatter that would most likely be broacast over the speakers (sometimes you can hear SLC chatter on speakers if the SLC is bundled in the same conduit in non shielded wire).
Patrick
That’s why shielded, twisted is recommended.
Where exactly would the LED be on the TrueAlert? Can one see it with their naked eyes?
The LED is located in the strobe housing and is very easy to see.
I don’t see TrueAlerts around over here very often so I will have to keep an eye out.
Same the only buildings around me that had them (that I know of) was my middle school (which I don’t go to anymore), and Book-A-Million, which closed down.
The only place that has true alerts are my elementary school