FCI 7100

Your fire panel should be testing BOTH telco lines at least every 24 hours. If one of them fails it should display a comm fail or trouble - it's supposed to do that...now if it's sharing the second line with a fax and it's not correctly wired for line seizure that may be why you are getting a comm fail.

You may not have line siezure then.

The primary number IF there are no phones on that line may just be two conductors (I dont do it that way but its possible). The secondary number since it is sharing the line with the fax MUST have 4 conductors....so you need a minimum of 6 conductors, preferably 8 for true line seizure on two phone lines.

You system should be testing every 24 hours - ask them if it is. BOTH lines need to test. Yes, happens at preset time.

Yes, should send restoral of phone lines when they are reconnected.

Anything on that second line could be disturbing tthe transmission; incoming faxes, outgoing scheduled faxes, someone leaving the fax unplugged, or the handset off hook. Not good.

Insist they replace the fire alarm control panel. You should not have to tolerate this situation.

Last October we had a new building built and a FCI 7100 series fire alarm system installed by a reputable fire alarm contractor. Over the course of the year we have had to have the contractor back out here many times. We started getting "power errors" , "comm errors" and other errors about March of this year. This has happened over 30 times. They have reinstalled the computer program in the panel and even reciently changed the 'bios" chip on the motherboard. If we have any power failure for even a short period of time (1 second) the system crashes and we have to either have them come out and reset it or we do it by disconnecting the 120v and battery from the system. Of course the display time and data is defaulted.

The company now says that it is a telephone line problem and that they are going to start charging us for service calls. We have one dedicated phone line for fire panel only and another line that is also used with our fax line connected to the panel which we were told was ok.

I looked into having a data-logger or recorder tied to our phone lines to see if they are loosing tip/ring but apparently there is nothing available.

Common sense tells me that if there is a phone line loss (trouble) that it should report it to the monitoring station but not put the system into trouble and have to do a complete power-down to reset it to clear the faults. The faults that the display gives us sometimes covers everything in the book.

All wiring and devices and panel were tested by the alarm contractor who installed them along with the fire marshall who had to approve it before we got our certif. of occupancy. This contractor has been installing systems for 20 years.

Would those of you who are familiar with this type of problem give me some advice on where to go from here? I don't know of anything else we can do. We certainly can't pay them to come out here on a weekly basis to reset their system.

I would have replaced the entire panel. It may be that the panel has a bad power supply, or is just plain defective. Losing power even for 1 hour should not cause what you are experiencing.

As far as the phone lines, who installed them? I have seen many instances where improperly connected line siezure causes all kinds of comm errors.

It seems to me that whoever is servicing your system, is trying to do the best they can. Have the technician listen in with a telephone test set to make sure the panel is communicating with the monitoring center.

I have been doing security systems for 25 years. Even I don't assume anything is working without testing it myself, especially fire alarm systems.

Jim Rojas

hahaha, I can almost see your arms folded and your toe tapping.

I know that not all of the faults were comm. faults but you could be on to something here.

There is one cat 5 cable running from the telephone closet to the FACP. Four of the wires are terminated on a terminal block on the motherboard which gives them the two phone lines that are required. (other 4 wires are not used). In the phone closet the four wires are terminated on a 66 block which has the two CO lines. The secondary phone line that also feeds the fax machine is also terminated (paralleled) on the 66 block with one of the wire pairs going to the FACP. I don't know how line seizure could take place. Should the fax line come from one of the terminals in the FACP and then go to the fax machine?

Our bldg is unoccupied after hours and we don't get many faxes but I guess it possible that this could be happening.

The alarm contractor doesn't share with us much information about Telco line testing or when it happens so I don't know much about that.

Do systems call out at preset times each day and send a code to the monitoring company that all is ok? If both lines were disconnected at once how would they know? Would this be held in memory and when the line(s) returned would it dial-out and report it?

Teach me something here.

If you run a primary line pair to the FACP and it is not used for anything else what would you do with the other primary pair? Do you just run it back to the Telco and terminate it unused on a block?

conductors....so you

I think I understand this concept that the second CO shared line should be ran first to the pnl and then back to the Telco closet and then on to the FAX machine.

I just looked in the panel and there are 8 terminals so I guess there is an in and out for both lines.

I'll address this with them but I'm afraid that the problem may be much bigger.

My personal feeling is that you need a different fire alarm vendor. It is not unusual to get less than competent technicians, especially on smaller systems like this one.

If you lose power and the system "crashes" you clearly have a serious problem that should be immediately addressed. If you can't get satisfaction from your vendor don't be afraid to call the manufacturer for assistance. What area of the country are you in?

As far as the phone lines, the dedicated line sounds ok, the other line should have been terminated with an rj-31x which is a line seizure jack and in your case, would require using another pair of the 8 conductor phone cable to feed the fax machine. Due to the way in which the panels are supervising the phone lines, the fax machine may be causing a phone line failure every time it is used or it may not, but in any case it should be rewired to facilitate the proper line seizure.

Mike Breslin

None of these people no the problem, as none of the are dealers for FCI, I have been dealing with this issue for almost two years, some panels just lock up with a comm error, the problem is with the dialer part of the Panel,

The FCI 7100 has a seriuos problems with firmware, when using the built in DACT. Check to see what revision you running, the latest release is 6.3 for the main eprom. I recommend you get the dealer to replace the Panel or upgrade you revision to 6.3

How the hell does FCI get away with this? Any other manufacturer would probably lose their UL Listing for lesser reasons.

Though I am not an FCI dealer...we weren't too far off from what the gentleman described his problems were. If you are correct, then the manufacturer is totally responsible, and should overnight a new panel to remedy the situation quickly. If they fail to comply, contact UL and document everything.

Jim Rojas

What's UL gonna do?? By the time the "wheels" get in motion there, the building will be scheduled for demolition to make room for the new space port.

I would also think..that if it were a known problem (manny suggests for 2 years) that a tech bulletin should have gone out to every dealer informing them of the problem AND the fix. Sounds like there are some butts hanging in the wind here.

Isn't FCI a proprietary/dealership type of system? If so, getting a different vendor may not be as easy as picking up the phone. Anyone else will be tearing out the equipment and not necessarily just the control panel if there is a compatability issue with modules/devices.

It is not unusual to get less than competent technicians,

That is a pretty assuming statement or is it chest beating?

satisfaction

If FCI is a proprietary/dealership type program, good luck trying to get anything from the manufacture unless you are the dealer.

"Crash Gordon" wrote in news:XiYTe.15$ snipped-for-privacy@news.uswest.net:

FCI is really slow to send Tech Bullitins. The problem is that FCI had Silent Knight built the dialer part for them, and I bet they were each blaming each other. They are no longer selling that panel, you can only get the FCI Solo which uses a separate dialer, If you get rid of the dialer the panel works great. We have used separate dialers in some buildings not to deal with this issue, the only bad part is you will no longer have point reporting.

"Jim Rojas" wrote in news:nsPTe.349$3B2.24@trnddc02:

They have a solution is call Advance replacement, or upgrade to latest firmware. I think his rep is jerking him around by trying to charge him for the service calls, I would contact the owner of that company and raise hell.