They think it’s stupid that the fire alarm does such.
Well, since its a speaker-strobe, it can theoretically do that, and some panels even have the ability to play background music when the system is in alarm, then override that when it actually goes into alarm. It’s smart, since you’re constantly testing the speakers.
The store’s public address system and fire alarm system probably share speakers, and the speaker on this alarm looks like it’s wired to work that same way too.
A LOT of the new Walmarts use the fire alarm system as the public address system and to play music. Mine new local Walmart does that as well, just with ceiling mount Wheelock speaker strobes
A LOT of the new Walmarts use the fire alarm system as the public address system and to play music. Mine new local Walmart does that as well, just with ceiling mount Wheelock speaker strobes[/quote
Isn’t this against the Fire Marshal code? I mean if there was a fire how would someone know to evacuate? Unless I’m not getting the full gist of how it works.
Because the fire evacuation message probably can’t be easily confused with music? An there’s probably some form of visual notification as well.
These systems are wired in a way where fire evacuation would take “priority” over playing music on the speakers. There are systems that are specifically designed to do that, so I don’t think in most places it would be a code violation.
Yep. I just looked at Fire-Lite’s ECC manual, and this is what it says about playing background music:
[quote] When programmed, background music will play on all ECC-50/100 speaker circuits only when the audio system is in a normal, standby condition. During alarm or alert operation of the audio system, background music is suspended. Background music is also suspended during an AC power loss condition to preserve the batteries. Speaker circuits on the main ECC-50/100 panel are fully supervised while background music is playing. Speaker circuits on the ECC-50DA or ECC-125DA distributed amplifiers are not supervised while playing background music. [/quote]Nope, the music stops during an alarm and the panel will cycle though it’s programmed tones and announcements. From what I heard from a technician working on the system as I was shopping one day, he thought it was actually better because it cuts down on excess noise from the sound system during a fire or evac.
It is perfectly legal in nearly all AHJs.
This is an NFC-50 system. If you listen carefully right at the beginning you can hear pink noise coming from the speaker system… Which stops when I pull the pull station, right before the alarm sounds.
NFC-50 is identical to ECC-50.
In this system they wired a relay module from the Notifier Firewarden 100 panel to shut off an amplifier for a separate system but it can also be done with the fire alarm speakers. They didn’t do that because fire alarm speakers usually suck for music.
Hi Everyone. First time poster here.
Having a dual purpose system really makes sense dollar-wise for the customer doesn’t it? They only have to have one set of wiring, one system to source the audio from, one set of speakers.
From an operational stand-point, as other posters have mentioned, it prevents two audio streams from being active at the same time. The background music can be paused while emergency notifications are annunciated.
This is all well and good, just as long as you don’t play background music that sounds like emergency notifications 