Hello to everyone! I have been away from this forum for I would say a year or two due to the fact that I have been messing around with another hobby interest of mine (traffic signals). I’ve decided to switch back to fire alarms right now and buy new parts as my other hobby to tinker around with. But I have a question that I’m hoping someone can help me out with because this is really confusing to me. I just obtained an EST IO64 fire alarm control panel from a local fire protection company along with many parts such as horn strobes, relay modules, pull station, smoke detector, etc. But my question is and I have always wondered this for a long time; why do the EST SIGA smoke and or heat detectors blink green really fast to the point that it looks like it stays on steady for about a half a second. And then the other time it just blinks green about every 15 seconds like it should do normally like any other smoke detector. Does anyone know what I’m talking about here? Every time I’ve owned an EST fire alarm system, the smoke detectors have done the same thing. The reason that it is concerning me you ask; every building I have been in that has an EST fire alarm system, the smoke detectors blink green normally like any other smoke detector being 15 seconds or so apart of a green blink. Two examples would be that when I was in a hospital at the med counter, there was a SIGA-PS right above me and it would blink at a normal rate. The other example would be at my old middle school. It has an EST2 panel. I paid more attention to the detectors at the middle school as I was in certain rooms of the building that had smokes in them while getting supplies for the auditorium drama club. I would take just a second to look at it and wonder why isn’t my hobby SIGA-PS at home acting like this one that blinks green at a normal rate. So as it may seem obvious, here is the big question of the day as I’m hoping at least one person understands what I’m saying: Is it normal for a EST SIGA smoke or heat detector to blink green really really fast for a second or even to stay on steady for about a half of a second and then start flashing normal again about every 15 seconds? If somebody could please explain this to me, that would be outstanding! Thanks in advance!
When the system (IO64) first “sees” a new detector on the addressable loop that detector does blink really fast for about half a second. I would assume the system is gathering the analog information from that detector for initialization. It also happens when you remove a detector from the loop and put it back. Different systems and detectors behave differently. Comparing the flashing on an EST2 to that of an IO64 may or may not be valid. I have never really worked on an EST2, but I do work on a lot of Quick Starts, IO64s, IO500s and VS1s. I don’t really pay a lot of attention to the detector flashing. There may be other times that sort of flash happens, I just don’t really pay attention. I only care that the panel is happy and the detectors are working.
Good to know, thanks so much!