Fire Alarm interface via ESPA444

The ICX and AlphaCom systems can receive data from a Fire Alarm system (or other 3rd party device) using the ESPA 4.4.4 protocol, and activate features in the ICX/AlphaCom. The following types of systems have been tested:

• Eltec ANX 95 Panel
• Autronica BS100 F Alarm Control Panel

Licenses

• When used with the ICX System, the following license is required in the ICX in order to enable the ESPA444 protocol: 1002602400 - ILI-IF Interface enabling

Physical connection

The connection between the fire alarm system and the ICX/AlphaCom is by RS232 serial data.

This protocol requires that all devices that are connected to each other have an address. Set the address of the exchange and the fire alarm panel as appropriate in AlphaPro, Exchange & System > System > Fire Alarm.

Select the pager driver for the pocket paging system which is connected to the system.

• Supervisor station - The fire pre-warning or alarm mail message is sent to the station selected in this list box.
• Nearest station - Pressing 70+8 at the Supervisor station (when the fire pre-warning message is displayed) sets up a connection to the station selected in this list box, which is supposed to be the one nearest to the fire alarm panel.
• Fire Team group - The fire pre-warning or alarm mail message is sent to all stations defined in this group. A maximum of 25 stations should be defined in this group.

Event Handler triggered by ESPA444 data

The Eltek fire panel sends codes related to pre-warning and alarm messages that can trigger an event inside the exchange, other than the pre-programmed action of sending mail messages to intercom station or pocket paging equipment.

The event is 'Event Trigger Feature' (event number 15), where the owner is physical station nr 1. The trigger action is defined as 'ON'. The event is related to a directory number. The numbers used are 84xx and 85xx. The first 2 digits are related to the message type (84 = pre-warning, 85 = alarm). The last 2 digits, xx, are related to the loop number in which the pre-alarm or alarm status has been detected.

ESPA message format:

STX 1 US 101 RS 2 US 0317 FLOOR 9 - FIRE RS 3 US 1 RS 4 US 3 RS 5 US 1 RS 6 US 1 ETX

Important assumptions are related to field 2 (display message) and 6 (priority):

• The two first digits in the text is the detector loop number. Legal values are 00-99, other values are set to 00.
• The priority field determines if it is fire (priority 5) or pre-warning (priority 1). ICX/AlphaCom expects to find the loop number in the text field
• In the example above the ICX/AlphaCom will interpret this as pre-warning from loop number 03, and event 15 will be triggered at station 101, the Related to info will be 8403.