How to set up fire alarm panel

[ZooNamedGames]

As some of you may know, I raise some rabbits and we have them in an independent structure from our house. Pretty nice considering what the structure used to be.

That said, I’ve recently begun wanting to install a fire panel and a fire system. For clarity, I don’t mean like a house fire alarm. I mean something containing a fire alarm panel (communicator), a strobe, smoke detector and fire suppression system (water). 

Though I’m aware of the systems and equipment here but I’m not aware of how to go about buying the equipment and setting it up and how to get it set up. 

I know this is an odd question for this forum but I don’t know where else to ask so I come here. If you know or you know someone/somewhere that could better answer these questions, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help again.

Edited July 13, 2018 by ZooNamedGames

[Shpaget]

Are you looking for a DIY solution or a ready made system?

A ready made probably comes with the technicians that do the installing. Google gives many results for "fire system", lots of companies selling fire monitoring, alarm and suppression stuff.

A DIY solution obviously depends on pieces you decide to buy, and depending on your budget ebay might be the place to look at but a good CO2 sensor would probably be your first purchase that will dictate the rest of your system.

 

[Vanamonde]

Smoke alarms are pre-made, commercially available, and need only to be mounted. Why not use one of those? 

[ZooNamedGames]

20 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Are you looking for a DIY solution or a ready made system?

A ready made probably comes with the technicians that do the installing. Google gives many results for "fire system", lots of companies selling fire monitoring, alarm and suppression stuff.

A DIY solution obviously depends on pieces you decide to buy, and depending on your budget ebay might be the place to look at but a good CO2 sensor would probably be your first purchase that will dictate the rest of your system.

 

Probably go the DIY route. That said I need to ensure all the parts are compatible and work otherwise it becomes moot. 

Just now, Vanamonde said:

Smoke alarms are pre-made, commercially available, and need only to be mounted. Why not use one of those? 

I’m after something with like fire suppression included. Plus fully equipped communicator systems can even call emergency services (or whatever number is programmed) and do much more than make a shrieking noise in the area of the fire when I’m sleeping in a different building. 

[Shpaget]

11 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Probably go the DIY route. That said I need to ensure all the parts are compatible and work otherwise it becomes moot. 

Ok.

This is the approach I would take:

Sprinklers as the main suppression system. They are industry standard because of their simplicity, cost and effectiveness. The little glass elements that are both a sensor and a valve can be bough in any temperature rating you may want, are calibrated and practically guaranteed to work. They are passive element, requiring no electronics, or even electricity, just pressurized water supply, which I have to assume you have.

Parallel to that, but not dependent on the sprinklers you may install whatever you want. Temperature and CO2/CO sensors can be put around the house and hooked up to your main panel that houses electronics for remote monitoring and a GSM module that sends you a message when needed.

I tinker with Arduino fairly often, and while I realize Arduino is not meant for life dependent applications, I don't see a reason why it could not be used as a supplemental systems for the sprinklers. What is nice about Arduiono (and similar prototyping systems) is that there are more modules and sensors out there than you can poke a stick at. Temperature and CO/CO2 sensors, GSM module, WiFi and Ethernet they all exist and are not only simple to integrate, but there are people that have already written libraries for them. Not much coding is required to make them do what you want.

What I would not do is hook up suppression system to any electronics. You do not want your electronics burning up first and then suppression not kicking in, just like you do not want you electronics going crazy in any way (hanging and not reacting to fire, or detecting a false positive and drenching your house when there is no fire).

 

[Gargamel]

Arduino would be the way to go for a DIY solution.   

But we're talking about a rabbit barn correct? 

My first reaction would be, why do they need a strobe light?

My second reaction is, why are bunnies at such a high risk of fire?  I've heard of exploding cats, but not rabbits. 

But, if the cost of having your rabbits burn up is so high that you are considering fire suppression, then you might want to look into Insurance and a professionally installed system.  If the value of these bunnies is such that insurance is a viable option, then I'd do so.  And if you have insurance, they most likely won't pay out if you use a DIY fire alarm/suppression system.  So that means a professionally installed and maintained system.    Call around to services in your area and see what they can do for you.  I'm guessing the simplicity of any such install in the type of building you have, should keep the costs down. 

[ZooNamedGames]

12 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Arduino would be the way to go for a DIY solution.   

But we're talking about a rabbit barn correct? 

My first reaction would be, why do they need a strobe light?

My second reaction is, why are bunnies at such a high risk of fire?  I've heard of exploding cats, but not rabbits. 

But, if the cost of having your rabbits burn up is so high that you are considering fire suppression, then you might want to look into Insurance and a professionally installed system.  If the value of these bunnies is such that insurance is a viable option, then I'd do so.  And if you have insurance, they most likely won't pay out if you use a DIY fire alarm/suppression system.  So that means a professionally installed and maintained system.    Call around to services in your area and see what they can do for you.  I'm guessing the simplicity of any such install in the type of building you have, should keep the costs down. 

Strobe would actually be for the house to be fair.

And it’s been 8 years and we haven’t had one but it’s the day when you put your guard down that you come home to friends that are now a pile of ashes.

Fire suppression is just there for when we aren’t home or otherwise can’t do anything about such a notification.

A dialer would even inform me when I’m away.

Insurance isn’t practical as we don’t earn enough off of them to justify it.

22 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Ok.

This is the approach I would take:

Sprinklers as the main suppression system. They are industry standard because of their simplicity, cost and effectiveness. The little glass elements that are both a sensor and a valve can be bough in any temperature rating you may want, are calibrated and practically guaranteed to work. They are passive element, requiring no electronics, or even electricity, just pressurized water supply, which I have to assume you have.

Parallel to that, but not dependent on the sprinklers you may install whatever you want. Temperature and CO2/CO sensors can be put around the house and hooked up to your main panel that houses electronics for remote monitoring and a GSM module that sends you a message when needed.

I tinker with Arduino fairly often, and while I realize Arduino is not meant for life dependent applications, I don't see a reason why it could not be used as a supplemental systems for the sprinklers. What is nice about Arduiono (and similar prototyping systems) is that there are more modules and sensors out there than you can poke a stick at. Temperature and CO/CO2 sensors, GSM module, WiFi and Ethernet they all exist and are not only simple to integrate, but there are people that have already written libraries for them. Not much coding is required to make them do what you want.

What I would not do is hook up suppression system to any electronics. You do not want your electronics burning up first and then suppression not kicking in, just like you do not want you electronics going crazy in any way (hanging and not reacting to fire, or detecting a false positive and drenching your house when there is no fire).

 

This sounds like a great start and something I’ll have to look into. Maybe just bypassing a traditional communicator and using something like an Arduino seems like a good start.

[Gargamel]

3 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Strobe would actually be for the house to be fair.

And it’s been 8 years and we haven’t had one but it’s the day when you put your guard down that you come home to friends that are now a pile of ashes.

Fire suppression is just there for when we aren’t home or otherwise can’t do anything about such a notification.

A dialer would even inform me when I’m away.

Insurance isn’t practical as we don’t earn enough off of them to justify it.

Gotcha... that makes total sense.... Couldn't figure out what a bunch of bunnies would need a strobe for. 

Ummmm... googling dancing rave bunnies is not advisable.... well ... no don't do it....

 

Well.....  There might be some commercially available wifi setups for this.  

But if you're up for a little coding and Making, and arduino solution would probably suit your needs the best, as you could customize it to exactly your needs. 

Using a MQ-2 smoke sensor, an ESP8266 WIFI breakout, an Arduino, and a solenoid water valve, you should be all set. 

Set up a few sensors along the ceiling to detect smoke, if they do, have it trigger an alert over the wifi, and have it turn on the sprinkler.   We're not talking anything close to NFPA standards, so you should be able to source all the piping and sprinklers you need from the local hardware store.   Small fixed garden sprinklers would work.    Just enough to knock down anything before it get's out of hand and allow you to check it out.  

Instead of Wifi, if the building's location prevents this, the arduino could be used to send out a SMS text message to your phone.

And if you get this installed, it would be somewhat trivial, automatic even, to expand the system to monitor, and possibly control, a lot of the things in the building.  Water bowl/container levels, food dispensing, temperature and humidity monitoring, etc.  All of that could be checked with a wifi/sms message and response. 

Do some googling on options, but I'd also recommend checking out the Arduino.cc forums, in particular the project guidance subforum.  There's lots of similar projects you might be able to take from. 

[YNM]

We'll see...

Base components :

- Detector : grab one and see the insides. I've never seen one to be honest. I could only imagine you want to severe the speaker or alarm ringer and extend the circuit.

- Strobe : Any strobelights (or even just flashing lights, or even static lights with some pulser) will do.

- Fire suppression system : Usually sprinklers, but you might be able to get away with something else like a 'trap door with water' of sorts, depending on the structure.

Integrating component : Probably an arduino or no arduinos but still custom. You want a signal detector (to detect what otherwise would have been the built-in alarm in the detector), then some logic circuit that will be able to manage the activation of alarm (maybe get a horn), strobes, fire suppression system and even telephony (maybe a pre-recorded call to the 911).

My only question is "why would you need one such measures", but who am I to limit what people want to do.

Edited July 15, 2018 by YNM

[James Kerman]

1 hour ago, YNM said:

- Detector : grab one and see the insides.

Do your research first, Mate - Many smoke detectors contain a radioactive element.

[YNM]

18 minutes ago, James Kerman said:

Many smoke detectors contain a radioactive element.

Note : Get the model number and the manual for it first I guess.

On-reply : Inside a very small well-protected patch with only a very small amount of the "active ingredient" (if I may say). You can even clean the inside of it if you want to.

My only concern so far is that apparently some models don't actually beep ie. it just sends the warning signal over cable outside already, in which case it'd be unnecessary to open the whole thing in the first place.

[ZooNamedGames]

4 hours ago, James Kerman said:

Do your research first, Mate - Many smoke detectors contain a radioactive element.

Though accurate (typically Americium iirc) it’s very minute. Hell granite has small amounts of uranium and thorium.

[ZooNamedGames]

6 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Gotcha... that makes total sense.... Couldn't figure out what a bunch of bunnies would need a strobe for. 

Ummmm... googling dancing rave bunnies is not advisable.... well ... no don't do it....

 

Well.....  There might be some commercially available wifi setups for this.  

But if you're up for a little coding and Making, and arduino solution would probably suit your needs the best, as you could customize it to exactly your needs. 

Using a MQ-2 smoke sensor, an ESP8266 WIFI breakout, an Arduino, and a solenoid water valve, you should be all set. 

Set up a few sensors along the ceiling to detect smoke, if they do, have it trigger an alert over the wifi, and have it turn on the sprinkler.   We're not talking anything close to NFPA standards, so you should be able to source all the piping and sprinklers you need from the local hardware store.   Small fixed garden sprinklers would work.    Just enough to knock down anything before it get's out of hand and allow you to check it out.  

Instead of Wifi, if the building's location prevents this, the arduino could be used to send out a SMS text message to your phone.

And if you get this installed, it would be somewhat trivial, automatic even, to expand the system to monitor, and possibly control, a lot of the things in the building.  Water bowl/container levels, food dispensing, temperature and humidity monitoring, etc.  All of that could be checked with a wifi/sms message and response. 

Do some googling on options, but I'd also recommend checking out the Arduino.cc forums, in particular the project guidance subforum.  There's lots of similar projects you might be able to take from. 

I’ll heed your advise.

Though we installed electrical power and water to the structure we don’t have a phone line or Ethernet cable but we’ll have to see what can be done. Though running an Ethernet cable through the same line shouldn’t be too troublesome as long as there’s enough room.

Everything you mentioned sounds accurate just need to start financing.

6 hours ago, YNM said:

We'll see...

Base components :

- Detector : grab one and see the insides. I've never seen one to be honest. I could only imagine you want to severe the speaker or alarm ringer and extend the circuit.

- Strobe : Any strobelights (or even just flashing lights, or even static lights with some pulser) will do.

- Fire suppression system : Usually sprinklers, but you might be able to get away with something else like a 'trap door with water' of sorts, depending on the structure.

Integrating component : Probably an arduino or no arduinos but still custom. You want a signal detector (to detect what otherwise would have been the built-in alarm in the detector), then some logic circuit that will be able to manage the activation of alarm (maybe get a horn), strobes, fire suppression system and even telephony (maybe a pre-recorded call to the 911).

My only question is "why would you need one such measures", but who am I to limit what people want to do.

To prevent the building from burning down when I’m not home.

[YNM]

1 hour ago, ZooNamedGames said:

To prevent the building from burning down when I’m not home.

What is it made of ? If you're afraid that the whole dry grass might caught fire, why don't just ask someone to take care for it ?

[LordFerret]

Rather than messing with Arduino, why not look into home alarm systems? Many of them feature a number of different sensors, including temperature/fire, water/flood, as well as intrusion. Most all of them feature the ability to call you, fire, police, etc. The events programming features could enable you to turn on/off various devices, like a light, or an alarm, or a servo which opens up the tap for the water fire suppression system.

Do some searches on the web and check out some of the features various manufacturers offer.

What kind of budget are you working with? That's another consideration.

[ZooNamedGames]

1 hour ago, LordFerret said:

Rather than messing with Arduino, why not look into home alarm systems? Many of them feature a number of different sensors, including temperature/fire, water/flood, as well as intrusion. Most all of them feature the ability to call you, fire, police, etc. The events programming features could enable you to turn on/off various devices, like a light, or an alarm, or a servo which opens up the tap for the water fire suppression system.

Do some searches on the web and check out some of the features various manufacturers offer.

What kind of budget are you working with? That's another consideration.

Home equipment typically lack response measures like fire suppression.

1 hour ago, YNM said:

What is it made of ? If you're afraid that the whole dry grass might caught fire, why don't just ask someone to take care for it ?

It’s an old wood structure but there’s a lot of fluff and hay present. One small fire could still generate enough smog and smoke to choke them out. 

[pincushionman]

Before dismissing the thought of professionally-installed or -monitored systems, check with your insurance. Not only is it their business to be able to make reccomendations on such things, it may result in a reduction in premiums, especially if this would fall under an existing business/farm policy.

[YNM]

11 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

It’s an old wood structure but there’s a lot of fluff and hay present.

Well idk, try give it a shade. I've barely seen any chicken pens here on accidental fire.

11 hours ago, pincushionman said:

Before dismissing the thought of professionally-installed or -monitored systems, check with your insurance. 

 

12 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Rather than messing with Arduino, why not look into home alarm systems ?

I'd say that the only reduction in cost with self-made system would only be possible on the firefighting mechanism, the detectors and controllers are pretty much fixed cost since you have to buy something that's premade.

[0111narwhalz]

28 minutes ago, YNM said:

I've barely seen any chicken pens here on accidental fire.

Anecdotal, but my cousin had a chicken pen burn down. It happens.

[YNM]

49 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Anecdotal, but my cousin had a chicken pen burn down. It happens.

Is it that dry and hot there ?

One more advantage of living in the proper tropics then !

[pxi]

22 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Though we installed electrical power and water to the structure we don’t have a phone line or Ethernet cable but we’ll have to see what can be done. Though running an Ethernet cable through the same line shouldn’t be too troublesome as long as there’s enough room.

Just a couple of things to think about -

CAT5 cable can be susceptible to electromagnetic interference when run alongside power cables for long distances.  You do have versions of CAT5+ that are better shielded than normal, though they are more expensive.  Just don't run your cables right alongside the power if you can avoid it.

Be aware of the max distance you can run a CAT5 cable - 100m.  Be absolutely sure you use solid-core cable, as the maximum length on stranded cable used for patch leads is far lower. If your run exceeds 100m that you're going to be looking at repeaters or moving to something like fibre.

On the upside, if you only want/need 100Mbps ethernet, you can get away with wiring up pins 1, 2, 3 and 6, and using the remaining pairs for the phone line.  (You can also buy ethernet splitters that will do the same job, but really two dual-socket faceplates will perform the same function and will likely be cheaper.

[ZooNamedGames]

5 hours ago, pxi said:

Just a couple of things to think about -

CAT5 cable can be susceptible to electromagnetic interference when run alongside power cables for long distances.  You do have versions of CAT5+ that are better shielded than normal, though they are more expensive.  Just don't run your cables right alongside the power if you can avoid it.

Be aware of the max distance you can run a CAT5 cable - 100m.  Be absolutely sure you use solid-core cable, as the maximum length on stranded cable used for patch leads is far lower. If your run exceeds 100m that you're going to be looking at repeaters or moving to something like fibre.

On the upside, if you only want/need 100Mbps ethernet, you can get away with wiring up pins 1, 2, 3 and 6, and using the remaining pairs for the phone line.  (You can also buy ethernet splitters that will do the same job, but really two dual-socket faceplates will perform the same function and will likely be cheaper.

Total distance is <50ft so I’m not concerned.

[Gargamel]

13 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Total distance is <50ft so I’m not concerned.

A decent wifi repeater in the house located near the (coop/pen, whats the term here?) might save you the cost and trouble  of running a line. 

[ZooNamedGames]

4 hours ago, Gargamel said:

A decent wifi repeater in the house located near the (coop/pen, whats the term here?) might save you the cost and trouble  of running a line. 

Only issue is it’s walls are metal and it kills WiFi and cellular connectivity 

[linuxgurugamer]

36 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Only issue is it’s walls are metal and it kills WiFi and cellular connectivity 

Most routers and repeaters have the ability to make the antenna remote from the box

This whole discussion reminds me of a talk given back when personal computers were kits.

The speaker asked the audience what they would do with a computer.er  A number of suggestions were made, including one which was to do medical monitoring.

At that, the speaker asked the audience if they would really want to trust their life to something they had soldered together on the kitchen table.

It may cost a bit more, but I'd let a professional do th ou s job for you