Silent Knight IFP-1000 FACP Help!

The first big paragraph is just the introduction leading to the problem, I do suggest reading it but if you want the, problem is stated below

So a few days ago I got myself a used IFP-1000 off of eBay. The seller said he did not know what was wrong with it so he put it up for parts. I got it for $70 . Sounds alright for a panel that you don’t know the condition of, but this does get better. So I waited a week or so for it and then it finally came. So it came in the original Silent Knight box, so that tells me I might have a working panel on my hands. So I open the box and their it is. By first glance I can see one big scratch on the bottom of the enclosure but it did not really matter. So the panel did not come with the key for the lock, but was unlocked so, first I took the lock and now waiting to get a new one. So after that I looked at the panel itself. Its was astonishing because this was really my first official panel (but I do know how to use it after 1 hour or so reading the entire manual ). So after admiring the panel I had removed the circuitry from the enclosure. I will be having, now to clean the enclosure due to all the dust on it, but it is not normal dust it is like brown powder dust.(EWWW) So after removing the circuitry from the enclosure I had found one major problem circuitry board, a group of jumper pins have been bent with the circuit on. I was the amazed that the circuit hasn’t broken in half during shipping because the jumpers where pushing against another circuit bending its own circuit. Anyway, I took apart the board fixed that and cleaned plus dust it off. It looked like new but I did not know if it worked like new. So the next day I had connected it to power and it WORKED!! I was glad that it actually worked and I got it for $70 . After getting used to it and also programing it I had to now pay attention to the troubles and fix them. So the common troubles I had where the missing EOL (End-Of-Line) resistors and the missing batteries, But their was one special trouble I need help with…

The trouble I have on my IFP-1000 is a “SLC Shorted”. Now visually their really is nothing touching the SLC terminals but anyways, I took apart the board again and I blew it with some compressed air and then put it together again but still the same problem. Also one of two relays (The One On The Left) above the SLC terminals are getting warm. Now I need the help of all the members of “The Panel Forms” to help me find the cause of the problem and help me fix it. Please anyone Help!

Unfortunately all we can do is guess. The bad SLC is probably why the panel was removed and replaced. Unless you have electronics testing equipment and know how to check the board at the component level, trying to fix it yourself is probably not worth it.

There are services that will repair FACP’s. You could send it to Test Point and they will provide an estimate for free ($100 minimum for all repairs). Buy Fire Alarm Parts specializes in fire alarm systems and has a good track record, but is more expensive.

You could also use the IFP-1000 as a small conventional system if you don’t mind ignoring the SLC trouble. Each of the 6 FlexPut circuits can be configured as a NAC, 2-wire zone, relay, or AUX power output.

You do have a point for the removal of the panel but will that shortage damage any another components of the panel or will the panel arc and catch on fire?

A shorted SLC shouldn’t harm anything else, although you may want to keep an eye on those warm relays. Unplug the panel if you see any signs of melted plastic or start to smell it.

We used to use a lot of those panels, they are obsolete now, IFP-300 is what we now use, and good luck trying to get tech support farenhyt is proprietary kind of like fci and notifier, and will only speak to factory certified techs, it isnt a hard certification, but you have to pay, and you have to be there on behalf of a company that is a farenhyt dealer, and they only allow one dealer per market. So slc shorted, most likely you have your slc wires crossed somewhere, perhaps at the panel itself, or have the circuit looped back into itself.

Another common issue you can have with a open nac ckt is if you try to t-tap like you would on a class b slc, has to be parallel, and it does matter how the resistor is landed on the terminals at the eol, and the horn/strobe has to be secured to complete the circuit, and you can always use an anm to expand to notification ckt, but you can not sync anms with the onboard nac, and you cannot have out of sync strobes within the same field of vision. I would recommend using the in and out from a bps. That will be your most common issues.

For the most dreadful of all FACP troubles is the mysterious and elusive GROUND FAULT! The bane of my existence, especially with 30 bldg apartment complexes, and 30+ PIV out in the yards or flower beds, hidden junctions, some maybe covered under a foot of gravel, and you beloved fluke can easily over look a soft ground fault, all the wire will test ok, and as soon as you connect it, bam! You can spend an incredible amount of valuable time hunting down one of those babies, found one that was an improperly grounded slc surge protector, but the most common cause is the 4"square boxes required for most commercial jobs, and emt, or buried wired that has water filling the conduit, just a small knick in the sheathing somewhere amongst miles of wire, you never know, that is why if you can afford to, and most cannot, is isolator modules and class a wiring to backfeed incase of a break a gf.

I wish I was excited as you seem to be troubleshooting jacked up facps and trying to figure out the creative wiring some of these guys will run, you can fill in for me any day of the week and I promise you will learn a lot and very quickly, but your exuberance will quickly fade, I assure you.

And yes I have seen more than one ifp have a shorted slc at the circuit board will read short with no wires connected. Are you good with solder??

Btw ifp is not silent knight it is farenhyt, and yeah they might use the exact same boards, and internal anns, and both use the hfss suite, but they are treated quite differently. Farenhyt has better ul listing and supposed to be a little faster for average evacuation, but it matters in jobs where certain ul requirements are called for like hospitals and govt complexes. It can be used as an alternative to notifier. Anyone can buy silent knight and get/set config, but go ahead and try to program that ifp, you wont even be able to see the farenhyt ifps listed, but you can get the config, but you wont be able to set.

You have to have a software key that they only provide to certified techs and to keep your key tou have to get recertified every year or so. The ifp-1000 use a different software suite (skss?), you might be able to edit config with hfss, havent tried, but you also need a hardware key(usb thumbdrive) plugged in your laptop to be able to program. So for someone like you, get a silent knight, it is the same panel, just open, and there might be some limitations on networking them together and ecs support, dont use much silent knight except some conventional panels, or really small jobs. And I dont believe sk supports the idp protocol, and the modules/detectors are identical except different device ids and model numbers, it is easy to get them mixed up and distributors have been known to mix them up accidentally. So when the help goes around putting up ARMs, MIMs, PS, etc they wont notice, and will get idp mixed with sk, jumpstart will learn them in without a hitch, but then the dcr errors start rolling in.

Also you have to use the correct slc expanders. They advertise 159 detectors and 159 modules, but Im fairly certain that the decade dials only go to 150 on the modules, and have had more than one cms reject a points list if you have a module and device with same address on the same loop when reporting CID by point, you need to report by zone, or SIA500 might resolve it. But most plans put modules/devices sequentially which makes programming in the software very messy because there will be a hundred or so unused points mixed in with used points, not logical. And wish they would move away from usb B cables, hard to remember to carry those around, wish they would do usb c, but they would probably use micro usb just to annoy us.

I do commend firelite for going to thumbdrives. It is funny to see the AHJs face when he thinks he will fail inspection because of an empty document box, and then show him the built in flash memory that has testing and completion reports, along with all the manuals and a copy of the programming, which is pointless because nobody would be able to open the programming except for a handful of people in the region.

Shout out to the boys at Honeywell, talking about you Lynn from firelite and SK, showing love and sharing knowledge with us, and the wizard at farenhyt, talking bout you Donald! He knows those panels better than the engineers that made them, if I have a problem I email him. Oh yeah and cant forget the rep who is a running machine, Don.