Hello

 

I surveyed to take over an existing 22 door Paxton access control system & I noticed that there were one of these white plastic boxes over nearly every door that was wired up to the system. I have done some research online & they seem to be part of the fire alarm to monitor the sounders however could they be connected to the door Maglocks to unlock upon the fire alarm activating?

 

I'm not experienced at all in fire alarms & hoped that someone can help please.

 

Thanks

could they be connected to the door Maglocks to unlock upon the fire alarm activating?

Seems possible yes.

There input / output units. Inputs wont be connected i dont think, just using the output side to drop the power to the maglocks in an event of a fire.

Thanks guys for your views on this, it does seem logical that they drop power for the maglocks.

I'd deffo go with dropping power to mags

Everyone above is correct. They will either drop the power to the mags and or keypads/readers to allow the use of exit routes which may be blocked by mag doors or to speed up people leaving a mag door area where lots of people are leaving.

Back in my school days, all fire exits were protected by keyswitches and mags (to prevent kids bailing off) and mags were deactivated during alarm conditions by XP95 IO units.

As far as I know, they don't actually switch the raw 230v supply going to the PSU, just activate a relay inside the PSU which powers down the mags as the units are only capable of switching up to 30V @ 1A.

You can get mains rated xp95 i/o units, only come with 1 relay though, unlike the rated ones which have 2. We tend to use the mains ones a lot as much more robust.

Everyone above is correct. They will either drop the power to the mags and or keypads/readers to allow the use of exit routes which may be blocked by mag doors or to speed up people leaving a mag door area where lots of people are leaving.

Back in my school days, all fire exits were protected by keyswitches and mags (to prevent kids bailing off) and mags were deactivated during alarm conditions by XP95 IO units.

As far as I know, they don't actually switch the raw 230v supply going to the PSU, just activate a relay inside the PSU which powers down the mags as the units are only capable of switching up to 30V @ 1A.

I'd rather hope they were just switching the feed to the mag locks from the controller door relay. Anything else is very bad form.

I'd rather hope they were just switching the feed to the mag locks from the controller door relay. Anything else is very bad form.

Take what I say with a pinch of salt considering I never actually worked on the system, just from observation and the occasional chat with the spark who installed the system. (Connections to alarm relays were done by the fire installers) When the system powered down during a fire condition, the keypads would deactivate along with the locks. The system was also a single door system in this particular area and the keyswitch areas were just mags, psu and switch.

When we install we only drop power to mags (or any fail safe unit). Most defiant way of ensure they release. Dropping power to the access unit or keypad may not drop power to mags if they are powered from a different source