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Looking for schematics for Fire-Lite MS-424A

P

Patrick Finnegan

I'm looking for schematics so I can try to repair some Fire-Lite
MS-424A fire alarm systems, including the BPR and PSB-24 power
supplies, ANC-2B zone modules, INC-9 control/indicator module.

Thanks for any help,

Pat Finnegan
 
P

Patrick Finnegan


Yes, I've already looked at the 7-page "install" manual on firelite's
site. Unfortunately, there's not much useful in there, and all of the
manual links I've found via google are copies of the not-so-useful
manual. I'm looking for someone who has a PDF or paper copy of
schematics. If I can't find that, I guess I'll be creating my own...
 
N

nick markowitz

Yes, I've already looked at the 7-page "install" manual on firelite's
site.  Unfortunately, there's not much useful in there, and all of the
manual links I've found via google are copies of the not-so-useful
manual.  I'm looking for someone who has a PDF or paper copy of
schematics.  If I can't find that, I guess I'll be creating my own...

If you are planning on doing actual electronic repairs to boards etc I
strongly recomend against it as you would be violating UL label and
leaving your self open to a major lawsuit should a board fail , board
repairs should only be done by factory authorised repair person.
 
C

Crash Gordon

Dood...send it back to the factory for repair...or triple your liability
insurance coverage.



--
**Crash Gordon**
 
P

Patrick Finnegan

If you are planning on doing actual electronic repairs to boards etc I
strongly recomend against it as you would be violating UL label and
leaving your self open to a major lawsuit should a board fail , board
repairs should only be done by factory authorised repair person.

These are for my own experimentation, so I don't really care if I void
UL approval, and I've actually repaired fire alarm systems for a past
job. I am just hoping for something to help me out, so that I don't
have to spend as much time figuring out what's broken on them.
 
F

Frank Olson

Patrick said:
I'm looking for schematics so I can try to repair some Fire-Lite
MS-424A fire alarm systems, including the BPR and PSB-24 power
supplies, ANC-2B zone modules, INC-9 control/indicator module.

Thanks for any help,

Pat Finnegan


This is proprietary information. No one has factory schematics but the
factory.
 
J

JoeRaisin

Patrick said:
These are for my own experimentation, so I don't really care if I void
UL approval, and I've actually repaired fire alarm systems for a past
job. I am just hoping for something to help me out, so that I don't
have to spend as much time figuring out what's broken on them.

Others have spoken about the liability so I'll just speak to the sheer
irresponibility of perfoming unauthorized repairs on a peice of
life-safety equipment.

Then again, for someone who is prone to trying to repair a board rather
than replace it, my guess is you would more attentive to the money it
would cost you rather than the lives you are risking.

If a board has proper power applied and all the appropriate inputs but
does not generate appropriate responses then the board is bad. What
more do you need to know? Replace it.

Or would you truly be comfortable looking into the eyes of someone who
lost a loved one due to your cobble-job and telling them, "Well, it was
cheaper to do it that way, and it seemed to work okay..."

For ****'s sake, do the job right or get another job.
 
A

alarman

JoeRaisin said:
Others have spoken about the liability so I'll just speak to the sheer
irresponibility of perfoming unauthorized repairs on a peice of
life-safety equipment.

Then again, for someone who is prone to trying to repair a board
rather than replace it, my guess is you would more attentive to the
money it would cost you rather than the lives you are risking.

If a board has proper power applied and all the appropriate inputs but
does not generate appropriate responses then the board is bad. What
more do you need to know? Replace it.

Or would you truly be comfortable looking into the eyes of someone who
lost a loved one due to your cobble-job and telling them, "Well, it
was cheaper to do it that way, and it seemed to work okay..."

For ****'s sake, do the job right or get another job.

1. The man just wants schematics so that he can experiment on some old
boards.
2. He stated that he has been previously employed repairing fire alarm
systems.

He may be qualified to do board level repairs, or he may not. If he is,
he'll do it as well as anyone at the "factory". If he wants to assume
liability, how is that any skin off our noses?
 
D

Doug

--

alarman said:
1. The man just wants schematics so that he can experiment on some old
boards.
2. He stated that he has been previously employed repairing fire alarm
systems.

He may be qualified to do board level repairs, or he may not. If he is,
he'll do it as well as anyone at the "factory". If he wants to assume
liability, how is that any skin off our noses?
 
J

Jim

1. The man just wants schematics so that he can experiment on some old
boards.
2. He stated that he has been previously employed repairing fire alarm
systems.

He may be qualified to do board level repairs, or he may not. If he is,
he'll do it as well as anyone at the "factory". If he wants to assume
liability, how is that any skin off our noses?

Well, I think the concern is ..... that he may not know or have
considered the ramifications of his "repairs", especially if he isn't
in the installation trade. He may have repaired PCB's, ( as have I,,
but in another industry) and even fire PCB's, but not being in the
installation business, doesn't realize what "unauthorized" repairs can
result in.

The "skin off our nose" ,I think, is the concern over his actions
being the cause of of harm to someone. Once it's been determined that
he realizes the "ethical" downsideside of him doing "unauthorized"
repairs and he decides to do it anyway, THEN .... it's on his head.

And what difference does it make? ................. no one here has
the schematics anyway. So he's on his own. We can only hope that if he
didn't realize what he was doing ............ and if he now he
does, ....... he will not continue.
 
C

Crash Gordon

If he was though...he'd know better than anyone here where to get
schematics, no?



--
**Crash Gordon**
 
A

alarman

Crash said:
If he was though...he'd know better than anyone here where to get
schematics, no?



Probably, but knowing where to get them and being able to get them are not
necessarily the same thing.
 
J

JoeRaisin

alarman said:
1. The man just wants schematics so that he can experiment on some old
boards.

No, he wants to experiment so he can more readily troubleshoot the board
later. Why would he need to do that if he wasn't planning on field repairs?
2. He stated that he has been previously employed repairing fire alarm
systems.

He said he had repaired fire alarm systems for a past job - how do you
know he wasn't the maintenance man at some church?
He may be qualified to do board level repairs, or he may not. If he is,
he'll do it as well as anyone at the "factory". If he wants to assume
liability, how is that any skin off our noses?

Yeah, a solder job done on a garage work-bench is always as solid as one
done in a factory setting.

I'll admit I assumed the worst case scenario, so if the OP can assure us
that I have it wrong and these refurbished boards will NEVER end up
installed in a life-safety situation then I'll be happy to apologize.

But it's kind of a sad statement that someone risking the lives of
people we don't know is no concern of ours.
 
N

nick markowitz

No, he wants to experiment so he can more readily troubleshoot the board
later.  Why would he need to do that if he wasn't planning on field repairs?


He said he had repaired fire alarm systems for a past job - how do you
know he wasn't the maintenance man at some church?




Yeah, a solder job done on a garage work-bench is always as solid as one
done in a factory setting.

I'll admit I assumed the worst case scenario, so if the OP can assure us
that I have it wrong and these refurbished boards will NEVER end up
installed in a life-safety situation then I'll be happy to apologize.

But it's kind of a sad statement that someone risking the lives of
people we don't know is no concern of ours.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

In Pa. we have a catch all law called risking a catastrophe.
and if he did put such a board in service and it failed and caused
major damage ,injury or death he would be facing felony charges if AHJ
so desired.
This law also effects professionals who fail to notify or otherwise
fail to stop a problem from happening that is with in there power.
So yes it is other peoples buisness who posts what on this board .
So as a professional I posted the approriate response with out getting
nasty.


I still repair industrial electronic boards mostly power supplies for
equiptment no longer made or supported but nothing which is lifesafety
oriented or would pose a hazard when it fails.,
 
F

Frank Olson

nick said:
In Pa. we have a catch all law called risking a catastrophe.
and if he did put such a board in service and it failed and caused
major damage ,injury or death he would be facing felony charges if AHJ
so desired.
This law also effects professionals who fail to notify or otherwise
fail to stop a problem from happening that is with in there power.
So yes it is other peoples buisness who posts what on this board .
So as a professional I posted the approriate response with out getting
nasty.


I still repair industrial electronic boards mostly power supplies for
equiptment no longer made or supported but nothing which is lifesafety
oriented or would pose a hazard when it fails.,


We do board level repairs on DVRs and the higher wattage emergency light
units when we can identify the specific component that failed. On one
job involving a Notifier 5000, I noticed that the system wasn't
detecting ground fault troubles of any kind. On closer inspection, some
Nimrod had cut a resistor in the ground fault detection circuit. I knew
the responsible party and reported it but all he got was a discrete
letter telling him not to do it again. He's still out there performing
his brand of trouble shooting. The ground fault which he couldn't trace
resulted from the improper installation of a remote annunciator. To top
it all off, the verification agency he hired passed the job. We
replaced the whole board. On another job involving an Edwards 8500, a
rat (the four legged kind) got into the FACP cabinet and chewed through
a couple of wires on one of the paging amplifiers. There were turds all
over the entire rack of amps. I changed the amp and cleaned out the
panel. When I originally saw the turds in the bottom of the can, I was
reminded of that scene in the movie "Mouse Hunt", where the exterminator
(played by Christopher Walken) picks one up and examines it, then tastes
it and remarks that the mouse has a slight calcium deficiency.
 
C

Crash Gordon

Yep...and have we ever seen proprietary schematics? No and never.

Methinks you'd have to be insanely passionate about repairing a board to
backwards engineer a schematic !

Or from Belgium

bring on the tinfoil


--
**Crash Gordon**
 
P

Petem

alarman said:
1. The man just wants schematics so that he can experiment on some old
boards.
2. He stated that he has been previously employed repairing fire alarm
systems.

He may be qualified to do board level repairs, or he may not. If he is,
he'll do it as well as anyone at the "factory". If he wants to assume
liability, how is that any skin off our noses?


For one thing, lets say he fix the damn board but the board fail to perform
in an emergency who will be held responsible?

the whole industry will be pointed and we will all suffer from this, even if
after the fact someone point in the rapair man he will be considered by most
poeple as someon ein the trade and we will still suffer..
 
D

Doug

Petem said:
For one thing, lets say he fix the damn board but the board fail to
perform in an emergency who will be held responsible?

the whole industry will be pointed and we will all suffer from this, even
if after the fact someone point in the rapair man he will be considered by
most poeple as someon ein the trade and we will still suffer..

What happens if a brand new board, power supply, smoke detector or any other
component fails?
The same thing, the finger gets pointed at everyone.

Doug
 
A

alarman

JoeRaisin said:
No, he wants to experiment so he can more readily troubleshoot the
board later. Why would he need to do that if he wasn't planning on
field repairs?

He said he had repaired fire alarm systems for a past job - how do you
know he wasn't the maintenance man at some church?


Yeah, a solder job done on a garage work-bench is always as solid as
one done in a factory setting.

I'll admit I assumed the worst case scenario, so if the OP can assure
us that I have it wrong and these refurbished boards will NEVER end up
installed in a life-safety situation then I'll be happy to apologize.

But it's kind of a sad statement that someone risking the lives of
people we don't know is no concern of ours.

My point was that he doesn't need a nanny. If you can help him with
schematics, that's fine. If not, then why assume that he's an idiot?
 
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