Just found a bit of a “panel overkill” on a job. A local housing co-op (+/-70 townhouses w/ smoke alarms only inside) has a Mircom FX-2000 controlling the small (24 stall) parkade. Total devices: 4 pull stations, 4 bells, 1 dry system. That’s it!
Does that really need a panel? Wouldn’t a sprinkler system be fine?
A pull station is required near each exit door, & bells must be audible throughout the parkade. Considering the small size of the parkade, a small Silent Knight or similar (I’m only familiar with the Silent Knight stuff at that size, since we use SK’s as monitoring panels) with a couple input zones & 1 output would do the job. But, as a co-operative housing development built under government auspices, they were forced to put in a full panel, installed to ULC code. They were also forced to use the lowest bidder for the job, so I think this was a used panel sold as “new, but we’ll give you a bit of a deal since you’re a co-op”, then installed as quickly & cheaply as possible.
I donated 4 hours of my own time cleaning up the wiring. Wish I had a good “before” photo. Nothing labeled, feet of extra wiring just balled up & shoved anywhere instead of being cut to size. Mixes of wiring from 12-18 gauge (in places a piece of 18AWG was used to extend 14AWG wired that were too short to reach the terminal blocks). Loops of wires shoved everywhere. Just a horrible job.
Had to share this… One of the cleanest and neatest FC-72’s I’ve seen in a long time! Most of the time, at this age they’ve been hacked up, added to, or just dirty inside. For this one, the bottom of the can didn’t even have a speck of dust in it!
Wow, that looks nice!
Damn, that’s nice. That thing looks clean enough to eat off of! (Theoretically of course)
Here’s the skeleton of an old system I ran across the other day - located in the back of a bowling alley. Unfortunately, the insides were long gutted and now being used as a junction box for the sprinkler flow & tamper. The nameplate says “Fire Control Company - Wilmington DE”. What’s weird is I’ve lived in the area my entire life and worked in the industry for 17 years and this is the first I’ve come across this company. Looking at google maps, the address is now a playground in a closed off street! Honeywell/Ademco key opened the panel. Anyway, pictures of the control box and the instruction sheet that was pasted on the inside.
Every once in a while you open up a panel and can’t help to think… what the…
Interesting battery configuration I came across today - all I could think is why didn’t they just put in two 18Ah batteries and save themselves all that trouble? The lower four batteries support the “shelf” for the upper batteries. This was giving them 24V at 13.6Ah.
Why would they do this, exactly?
Considering eight 12V 3.4Ah batteries would be more of a cost (plus add in the time and materiel to make up that parallel wiring harness twice) than two 12V 18Ah batteries wired directly back to the panel, I have no idea! Maybe those batteries fell out of the back of a truck?
Here’s what I have been up to in my CFAA course. Today we were verifying the devices we had installed on the upstairs portion of our lab. They had finally been connected to the panel with some Addressable modules, so we could do some testing with the panel downstairs. I took a quick video of the alarms going off, the first one is a Classic System sensor speaker/strobe, and the other two are newer ones.
The panel is technically supposed to be a two-stage, but right now it is acting as a single stage panel. They had just connected the speakers and programmed a tone for them just weeks ago. I was thankful they didn’t connect the mini horns that were in each cubicle. They do have a Simplex 4005 installed upstairs, and a 4100U at one point, but looks like all the systems are going to be connected to the XLS-3030. I guess they were having problems with Simplex and programming the panels.
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Probably, free is the best price. 
I hate sloppy work. This was one building of a two building apartment complex. The other building was just as bad. They even cut away part of the door on one of the booster panels because they tapped the hole for the horizontal piece of conduit too close to the edge. They couldn’t completely close the door otherwise. But how about make it look “professional” and install an electrical trough above the panels and feed all the wires that way, instead of that horizontal piece of 1 1/2" impaling the upper portion of all the panels? And the blue flex octopusing out of the 5208 panel? Not to mention the rats nest inside! Finally, did you really need the entire piece of 4x8 plywood for the four cans? You could have tightened that up a little bit! Have a little bit of pride in your work! Save us all the trouble and don’t go into a skilled trade if you’re just going to hack it all in there like this!
—end rant—
That’s what you get with those off the shelf trunk slammers.
What’s a watchdog trouble?
I believe it’s a special name for the built-in communicator, although I am not certain.
From the XLS Manual:
[quote] "The System continuously checks all software and hardware for proper operation. It checks all System memory components, control panel electronic hardware, and the System program. A hardware watchdog circuit is provided to ensure that System programs are functioning properly. If a problem develops with the program or processor, the watchdog circuit places the System into a trouble condition and resets it." [/quote]Essentially, a watchdog trouble indicates that the panel’s processor or a system software program has malfunctioned
watchdog is actually a generic electronics term.
basically a watchdog timer is a timer, that when it runs out, resets the system. what happens programming wise is after a chunk of code is processed, it resets the watchdog timer. if the timer never gets reset and goes down to zero, it’s assumed the chunk of code hung up or froze, so it automatically resets the device. it’s a built in safety feature to prevent freezing or lockups.
so whatever the XLS was doing, it didn’t get it done before the watchdog timer ran out and it got reset and hit with that message.
I love this thread and this forum. You always can learn more from everyone else about panel features that rarely come up in normal operation. It’s interesting stuff.
I am working my very first job, as an intern. We are contracted by my school district to replace a fire alarm system in two schools. This is the school I’m working at: Man, is this system a piece of work! It’s a Simplex 4010 panel with TrueAlarm smoke detectors for spot and ducts, I saw a really old probably ionization detector, and I believe the original system was horns only with 2901-9806s. Currently, the system has boxes in the wall, semi-flush mount plates, box extenders with a 2901-9806, conduit running an inch to a surface mount box, and single gang lights on top. The lights look like red corridor lights that say FIRE. In some spots, there are TrueAlert strobes and horn strobes, or Wheelock AS’s. One spot has an AS and a 2901 paired together. Pulls are Simplex T-Bars, single action and dual action spread around all over. There is no consistency anywhere. There is a wood shop class room with a duct detector. The remote test switch is flashing every few seconds. The panel stays silent.
Second school: wheelock and kidde rebranded 7002Ts, Wheelock AS, those old and rare black and red Kidde pull stations with the clear plastic “lift” cover.
We are installing a Notifier system in both schools, using a voice evac system, System Sensor speaker strobes, strobes, and Notifier smokes. Pulls are Notifier BG-12LXs, all notification appliances are on the ceiling.