A Walmart store in my area that was built in 2008 plays music and PA announcements through the Wheelock speaker/strobes. It looks like they are going to quit doing this soon though. I just went in there today and there are new speakers hanging from the ceiling throughout the store. I think those will be used for the PA speakers and the fire alarm speaker/strobes will start to be used only for fire alarm notification.
I’ve been to a couple Walmarts that do that. One of them up here where we currently live has S8-24MCC-FWs inside & at least one ET70WP outside, & all of them play music. I like when they do that actually, especially as it saves them from having to install a separate music system. I hope they don’t stop doing that, I see no reason to stop (though you said “PA speakers”, so they might just be for PA purposes & not music as well).
I can’t say, Mine just caught fire a few days back and is closed for a few weeks.
I think my local Walmarts have always had paging speakers. I find it funny that they’d figured out how to do it, but it’s in violation of their local building codes. Call me a debbie downer, I know. It’s cute, I don’t blame them. Problem is that the microphone cancels horns and pre-recorded audio, so if there were a real fire and someone had the microphone taped open or had the amplifier rigged, the fire alarm horns would never sound and people would not hear the fire alarm signal.
I’m a little confused by your explanation, but I’m pretty sure this is how it works:
When the system goes into alarm the music is automatically cut off allowing the tone & message to play.
When the mic at the voice evac panel or a remote microphone station is keyed, that stops everything else from playing, allowing you to talk over all the speakers in the system.
Yes if there is a fire Alarm relay module hooked up to the power for the AV rack playing music, then in an alarm condition the relay would change States and cut off one of the 120V legs for the AV rack thus shutting down the music. But that’s for a fire alarm system tying in to another amplifier. If the amplifier for the mass notification system was being used to play music, then you don’t get the same effect. The fire alarm speaker takes priority over any alarm tones on the fire alarm system, and if someone piggybacked the fire alarm amplifier to play music over the fire alarm speakers, then the strobes will flash but the fire alarm horns and the pre-recorded message won’t play.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the OP said they were using the fire alarm speaker strobes to play music because they didn’t have paging speakers. You would only be able to accomplish that by either taking the microphone button open and leaving your phone or Bluetooth speaker next to the microphone, or if you’re electronically inclined you could piggyback or hook up something to the amplifier itself and play music that way. The fire alarm system doesn’t know that you’re playing Lady Gaga, it just knows that audio is being put out by the fire alarm amplifier and that it must not be interrupted.
I’m sure places that do that figured out some kind of system to play music through the fire alarm speakers without interfering with the actual operation of the system.
Once again, I must apologize if explaining ECS kills the giggles from the OP topic. That system would be an actual fire happens, then someone in management says “oh crap! I gotta get my phone out of the fire alarm panel!”. The fire alarm control panel and the mass notification system are usually two separate systems that are joined together. The amplifier for the mass notification projects through the speaker strobes. There is no USB AUX cord to plug your phone into, you’d have to put audio through the one channel that you have, which is the microphone or a data card containing the pre-recorded messages.
There’s no auto turn off someone’s hookup, phone, or Bluetooth speaker on a fire alarm speaker system. Music shutdown describes an SLC relay module hooked up to the paging or entertainment speaker amplifier. If someone was using the mass notification system’s amp to play music, then it’s not gonna automatically turn off because the mass notification won’t shunt itself in an alarm condition. You’d just have a weird event where the strobes would blink, but the music would keep playing. The fire alarm doesn’t know that you’re playing Lady Gaga over the fire alarm speakers, it just knows that audio is being played from the mass notification and that it must sound instead of horns or the pre-recorded message.
I understand what you’re saying.
Just now I remembered that Wheelock’s SAFEPATH voice evacuation panel actually does support playing music in a normal condition, & most if not all Walmarts (that have speaker/strobes at least) seem to use SAFEPATHs, so there’s your answer as to how it’s done; like I said the system plays music while in a normal condition & automatically shuts off the music in alarm state. Take a look at the PDF for it if you don’t believe me: SAFEPATH brochure (eaton.com)
I would have never guessed. Most clients usually want the cheap solutions so I’m usually installing firelight or Silent night panels or Notifier panels, not that notifiers cheap. I don’t think NFPA 72 says anything about your ECS being able to play music as a list of manufactured function of it. Combination panels tend to be a troubleshooting nightmare and because they’re usually hooked up to solid state boards it usually means if one part of the board goes bad decades from now, then the only solution really is to replace the whole unit. If that’s what they happen to have at this Walmart then that should be fine. So long as the music shuts down, then it is up to code. I install too many cheap products I forget that these types of solutions exist. Most people wouldn’t use their fire alarm system to play music but I’m glad EATON came up with a solution for clients that insist on playing music through their fire panel.
I’ve got a Silent Knight 5820XL-EVS and there is an auxiliary input on the EVS controller for a 3rd party music player, as well as contacts that can be shorted out to enable it. Regardless of whether auxiliary audio is enabled or not, if the panel goes into alarm, that will take priority over any other input except the EVS microphone.
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I am ashamed to admit as a fire alarm technician that I don’t seem to know as much about the different model panels as you guys do.
I think there’s a bit of distinction between enthusiasts who tinker with the stuff for fun, and technicians who work on it 40+ hours per week. Sure some of the enthusiasts here are technicians but in my experience once a trade like this is a full time job, you find yourself not wanting to do to much “playing” with it in your spare time. When you’re on fire alarms 40 hours a week doing installs and programming… the last thing you probably want to do when you go home is think about it more!
I like installing and putting in low voltage systems, not just fire alarms but also paging speakers, cameras, and computer cabling and card readers and stuff like that. I consider myself very lucky in that I actually enjoy what I do for a living. But yeah after 8 hours it’s probably best to think about something else.
Occasionally if I do pull an old system off a job, I might take it home and meter it or hook it up and test it to see what went wrong with it. After that, I try to pretend to be a human being that does things besides red wire black wire all the time.
Here where I live, by code you cannot use a fire alarm system or it’s speakers for playing any music. The Walmart near me is part of a huge mall, and has Edwards 439-10AWCs.
Well of course, because Canada.
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From what I know, the walmarts that have wheelock safepath will use the aux port on the safepath which is normally connected to the na speaker’s which are normally wheelock, the ones without safepath which is normally connected to the facp will use spectralert classics and a bosch panel in most cases and a separate pa system, or some cases even other types of systems I guess.
You didn’t mention the Bosch cameras too. I don’t know who does walmart’s security, but they seem to like Bosch cameras every walmart I’ve been to have them.
I went back to that Walmart today. The music and PA announcements now play out of the new Bosch PA speakers. The Wheelock speaker/strobes no longer play music or announcements and are now for fire alarm notification only. They now have a PA speaker in the outside garden area, an area that previously had no PA speaker.