I fix and test a wide variety of fire alarms. I just hate dealing with the air over water or deluge testing. I have seen and fixed too many mistakes made by employees of the fire alarm mfg. or their authorized installers. We have the device programmer for one mfg's devices. To pay the big bucks to go to the 2 schools and get the system software to program the system, while accepting the related liabilities, just isn't worth it. I would be thrilled to, just once, see a set of accurate as-builts. I have not been to an acceptance test where I haven't found errors. My biggest warning to people who will maintain addressable systems is to not let your initiating devices get wet. You'll pick up hundreds of troubles in the blink of an eye. This is usually followed by employees vandalizing the FACP because they hit the Ack button once instead of the 300 times they needed to to stop the piezo. Then they break the lock and start yanking ribbon or power cables. I've got one place where they tore the piezo off of the ckt board.
Joe
[This message has been edited by JoeTestingEngr (edited 01-18-2006).]
