Have a small building and am installing a fire system, and figured I’d ask the pros here their opinions on this!
I was thinking of installing a conventional panel due to the lower price of devices. I was looking at either a Fire Lite MS-5UD, which seems to be around $500 right now used, or a Napco FireLink FL-32FACP-LTEVI for about the same. I like the Napco panel because it has the option to use the built in communicator and can be upgraded to an addressable panel with an add on board. The Fire Lite is nice because they are super common, and parts are easy to find. The Napco is kind of hard to find.
For the life of me, I CANNOT find an install manual on the Napco panel. Since I am not a dealer, I can’t download anything off their website, which leads me to the next question. Is anyone here a dealer and can download their install manual, or does anyone have this panel and can tell me how to install it or have a manual?
The firelite is easy to program and work with and cheaper to get. I would recommend an ms10ud though as you can have more capability with it. The napco is really expandable and can have intruder alarm zones aswell but its more diffciult to program and its harder and expensiver to get. i would get a firelite MS-5UD or a MS-10UD.
Yeah I’d recommend an MS-10UD-7 as well due to it having more zones (don’t know if you actually need 5 more zones but if you do they’re there), more amperage to power more notification appliances with, & outputting filtered DC current on the NAC circuits (which makes most alarms sound nice/correct & won’t kill Simplex devices either).
Small building, maybe 6 smaller rooms then a larger common area/workshop. The 5 zone is probably plenty.
I was planning on using a Wheelock bell with rssp plate for one NAC, and the other three would be some other Wheelock horn. Will the unfiltered power be an issue with these?
The MS-5UD would be perfect for that. Unfiltered power will not be an issue, but I would not recommend using a bell because those output EMI which isn’t good for a lot of Fire-Lite panels.
A lot of installs don’t dedicate a zone to each room, but usually a general area. Are you going to put pull stations in the rooms? Depending on the layout of the building, you could do a zone for smokes in the rooms, a zone for the pulls in the rooms, a zone for the hallway devices, and a zone for the workshop devices.
I ended up bidding for a MS-5UD that was new in the box on eBay, and won it, so that’s what I’m going with.
I am primarily using the MT horns (new version) and RSSP strobe, and am going to try and MB series 6" bell and RSSP strobe plate for one. I made sure to verify all the devices are listed as compatible using the provided compatibility document. All smokes and alarms are listed so I think it will be okay.
Sorry, no I meant MT horn/strobes inside, one RSSP series weatherproof strobe outside, and one MB-G6-24 mounted on the RSSP plate in one other area.
Using Edwards 270-spo pulls. I hate the new style stuff they are pumping out. I like the fire lite BG-10s but you can’t find them new since they are discontinued, so I went with the Edwards.
I know you guys here like these systems, so I’ll be sure to post some pics when it’s all done.
You wouldn’t want a BG-10 anyways lol, they were discontinued because they were notorious for being easy to fracture. A friend of mine pulled one too hard and it cracked. The 270-SPO is a great choice, and it’s good that they’re easy to find and are relatively low priced.
You should post some videos of the system on YouTube, like when you test it for the first time to make sure everything is working properly.
Did you not see Logan’s advisement of “don’t use bells with Fire-Lite panels” due to the EMI they generate?
Is there a reason you’re using a bell in one area even though the rest of the system has horn/strobes? (also confused by the way you talk about the RSSPs: do you plan on having just one outside, which is the one with the MB, or multiple, one of which has the bell on it)
Edward’s 276/278-series isn’t too bad either, aside from the handle being somewhat easy to activate by pushing on the bottom of it & the atrocious misspelling of “PULL FOR FIRE” rather than “IN CASE OF FIRE PULL”.
Mhm, though I’d say the “security screw” (which doesn’t actually prevent someone from opening the station with an ordinary flathead screwdriver) is a major design flaw as it’ll wear out over time with use, making the station unopenable (& thus both unresettable if activated & unremovable if mounted on a flush surface).
Yeah: I think that’d be interesting to see, especially since residential systems are rare to find (or at least ones that are used for actual life safety & not just entertainment purposes).
Only certain Fire-Lite panels. The 5UD is one of the few that I’m not sure about. It may or may not have EMI protection. I originally was unsure if the MS-9200UDLS had EMI protection or not, but a video on 4050-80’s channel showcasing a system with a Notifier NFW2-100 and Simplex mechanical horns led me to the conclusion that it does indeed have EMI protection. It looked like a fairly large building, and that amount of devices would have definitely killed an MS-2 or MS-4 (known to not have protection) considering it only took one 9838 to kill the NAC on my MS-2 before my friend gave it to me (luckily it was free, special thanks to Jared Thompson).
I wouldn’t really say it’s a design flaw, it just gets worn out by people not being careful enough. I always make sure the screwdriver is in the right spot before I reset my 270.
Well considering it doesn’t stop the station from being opened with a normal flathead screwdriver it wouldn’t have made any difference had Edwards stuck with a traditional flathead screw (which would last significantly longer if not forever). This likely wouldn’t be such a problem though if someone just perfected the art of 270-series screw replacement (which would involve removing the original screw (worn-out of course) & putting a standard flathead screw in its place).