Alarm Panels networking question

Fire Alarms
1

Hello,

I am new to Fire Alarm filed and I have simple question related to Alarm panels networking. I see that all manufactures use token passing protocol when they need to make a networked panel. But I do not why they do not use a TCP/IP communication between panels which I see it is easier and cheaper.
Is there any European or American standards that do not approve TCP/IP communication between panels?

2

distance limitations with tcp/ip. need a router/switch/repeater every 300 feet, normally networked fire alarm panels are a lot further a part. every single one of those routers/switches/repeaters have to be UL listed with that panel, and backed up on battery. makes using it extremely cost ineffective.

3

This is not a TCP/IP issue, but a 10/100BaseT issue. (Many inter-panel networks, most notably including all of the Honeywell setups, use ARCNET, which can support IP networking using RFC 1201, and fiber Ethernet standards obviously can handle far longer hauls than copper, as well.)

For the OP if they ever see this again: the main reason protocols like ARCNET were/are used instead of Ethernet for this purpose is determinism. A token passing network guarantees a certain minimum bandwidth to all nodes in the network, instead of letting a single node hog all bandwidth (a “jabber” condition in Ethernet-ese).

Now that it’s 10 years later, though – there are panels that use Ethernet for their networking, and even TCP/IP over Ethernet. As far as I can tell, the former category includes:

  • Autronica AutroSafes using AutroNet (which can be used almost worldwide, although not in Canada as their only NRTL approval is a FM approval to FM 3010, not UL864 or ULC-S527, and don’t mention Class N in their docs as a result), as well as
  • Potter panels (which use an Ethernet physical layer but are topologically limited to Class A/B/X effectively, with their only documented star-topology support using a panel with multiple network cards as a giant Ethernet switch)

while the only panels in the latter bucket (using TCP/IP in addition to Ethernet) are:

  • Simplex/Autocall ES series panels using ES-NET (but with the caveat that they suffer from a weird topology limitation where you can’t have nested rings in your network)
  • and Edwards EST4s, which are the only panel I’ve been able to find that supports all legal Class N topologies for inter-panel networking.
4

Don’t bump old topics please.