Tecnofire detection by Tecnoalarm: Advanced solutions and hi-tech products

The Italian manufacturer of hi-tech security systems, with nearly 40 years of experience in the sector, has set up a new manufacturing plant for its range of fire alarm systems.

Tecnoalarm boosted its growth with substantial investments in R&D in order to supply customers with advanced and reliable products that respond to the growing need for certification — in 2010 they adopted the ISO 9001 quality management system. The company is now committing to the fire alarm sector with the same attention it has paid to the development and production of burglar alarm systems for more than three decades. Much of their knowledge of the burglar alarm sector has served Tecnofire and provided a basis for the development of a range of advanced and high-performing fire alarm systems. The systems are characterized by an aesthetic contemporary design which combines modern taste with functional needs. The three models available, TFA1-298, TFA2-596, and TFA4-1192, meet all installation requirements of small-, medium-, and large-sized systems and are certified to the EN 54 standard. All peripheral devices connected to the loop are addressable by a rotary switch and are equipped with an intelligent dual loop isolator. The systems can be programmed to function in the local, master, or slave mode. While the local functioning mode provides one unit systems, the master and slave modes permit to create networks of a total of one master and 15 slave fire alarm panels each, connected over an RS485 serial bus using copper cables or glass fiber. The master has complete control of the slaves and a total of 8,000 detectors — all signaling is collected by the master. Network functioning is in compliance with the EN 54-13 standard.

Special monitoring software with implemented floor plan management provides the central monitoring station (CMS) with detailed and illustrated information on the status of all fire alarm systems of the network.

The Tecnofire systems use the “Fire-Speed” protocol developed by Tecnoalarm which, permits optimization of the systems' response time by polling each device on the loop with less than one-second intervals, even under full load, i.e., 298 devices per loop.

The systems implement RSC technology, originally developed for remote interaction with the Tecnoalarm systems, and can be remotely programmed and controlled, even over Ethernet. The RSC tools permit programming, monitoring, and calibration of each individual component of the system, both locally and from a distance, and make start-up and maintenance of the systems easy and less expensive and time-intensive. The hardware coherence control (HCC) analyzes and records the functional parameters and the identification data of the connected hardware, matches the collected data with the programming of the system, and identifies inconsistencies; the parametric analysis confronts the electrical data collected by the HCC and signals every possible deviation from previous values; and the device monitor permits on-demand monitoring of the functioning of individual system components. Automatically drawn reports can be printed or archived — the programming report puts down all the settings of the components of the system, the hardware coherence report records all the functional parameters and identification data of the devices, the parametric analysis report records and matches the functional data and shows any deviation from previously recorded or certified values, and the event log report lists all of the system's events with the possibility of sorting and filtering by date and/or type.

The Tecnofire systems can be connected via Ethernet to the CMS using the proprietary protocols Contact-ID, SIA, and Tecnoalarm. The on-board Ethernet interface provides four channels performing specific functions, two server channels for LAN and WAN or VPN connections, one client channel for event transmission, and one client channel for call back connections. All four channels are compatible with a 128-bit AES encryption — access to the server channels is protected by a white list. The fire alarm panels provide a programmable four-year calendar, 32 access periods, and 400 Boolean functions for the automatic execution of the functions as well as a completely programmable test call function with TCP/IP. User-friendly and intuitive tools such as a large graphic true color display, integrated in the casing of the fire alarm panel, as well as a multi-language voice synthesis function with a bilingual mode can be used by the user to manage system status information and alarms. Voice synthesis and display messages are available in principal European languages, as well as Arabic. The information is displayed in a hierarchical order, according to its importance, using clear iconography and different colors and dimensions of font. The multi-level viewing of the events permits a quick classification and a unique identification of the origin. In case of obvious hazard, the data is accompanied by the relative alarm plan. Remote displays with a fine design (TFT-7) are available to be installed in different places of the installation and can be used as either repeater panels or interactive keypads.

The range of detectors covers all the classic fire sensor technologies: gas detectors, a Tyndall-effect optical smoke detector with active control of the saturation of the smoke chamber (TFDA-S1), a combined optical smoke and heat detector (TFDA-STR1), and a rate-of-rise detector with programmable class. The Tecnofire product range also includes indoor and outdoor sirens, fire call points, interfaces for conventional and 4-20mA devices, glass fiber converters, additional power supply units, as well as input/output modules with different functional specializations. The Tecnofire trademark, just as its big brother, represents technology, innovation, and design.