atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Security, Alarms and Paging sprinker alarm "Phone line dead" lit up

Hi all,

The other day I was in one of my coporate customers sites installing a DSL splitter and was testing the terminals on a 110 block for the right ANAC line. Everything seemed to be okay and got the signal riding on one of the stores existing lines to the equipment room.

I got a call yesterday that a red box that monitors the sprinker alarm and also communicates with a monitoring service was down. I verified dial tones with my butt set for the primary and backup lines and all seemed okay. Verified ANAC numbers all seemed okay. Pulling the power on the alarm and the batter and reinserting the power reset the alarm. Called alarm company to verify equipment was working properly and said that it was communicating again.

What I want to know is what could cause this condition to happen? I do not even recall pulling a wire off from the 110 punch down for this number.

Or is it possible I shorted one terminal to another one by accident when hunting for the right number causing a temperary no dial tone condition thus setting up this fault code tone to be generated by the alarm?

What makes you think it was something you did?

-Hal

If you go off hook on a Fire Alarm line, ahead of the RJ-31 jack, the alarm will sense the drop in voltage without the current flow through the panel. If this goes on for more than about 20 seconds, it will go into trouble condition (NOT alarm condition)

So, if you clipped onto the line to ANAC it, even that short time will trip the trouble condition. I hate it when that happens. Around here, Radionics keypads are the most common, and "Command 4" will silence the alarm.

Even if it was something you did that caused the panel to display a trouble my first thought is that the panel should have cleared the trouble indication on it's own since you said dial tone was present in the panel.

This also just may be a case of "You were the last one in the equipment closet so obviously it was something you did".
Just as a precaution (CYA) it wouldn't be a bad idea to have the fire alarm company check the system out to make sure the panel is functioning properly.

Bobby on some brands of panels the trouble won't clear until a successful communication attempt has occurred on the line in question.