Here we will continue to discuss EN50131-1 General Requirements. This standard is one of the key documents of the EN series and provides clear guidance on systems requirements. This article is a précis of some of the main areas within the standard that may be of particular interest to you.
Operating requirements
Last month we looked at Access levels and discovered that there were four. Access levels 3 and 4 are prevented from accessing the system before a level two (user) has logged them onto the system. Interestingly access levels 2, 3, and 4 can be remote providing that equivalent levels of authorisation are achieved. The functions and controls at the various levels are restricted. The owner of the security system has complete authority over the system and can, if they wish, delegate this authority to others. This permits organisations that are capable of doing so to "manage" their own alarm system in terms of maintenance and repair etc.
Setting/Set
Dependent on the grade of system when the setting procedure has been satisfactorily completed an indication is required which is time limited to a maximum 180 seconds to annunciate that the system is set/part set. As a result once setting has been completed it is not obvious whether the alarm is set or not.
Unsetting
A maximum of 45 seconds is allowed to complete the unsetting procedure. If this time is exceeded, an alarm condition must be notified. Completion of unsetting is required to be indicated for a maximum of 30 seconds.
If an alarm occurs during the unsetting procedure it must be indicated or notified by an internal warning device. Where remote notification is used the alarm condition must not provide remote notification until the indicator or internal warning device has operated for a maximum of 30 seconds.
Restoring of systems (Resetting)
For those who have many years experience within the security systems industry you may now find it strange that access to the restoring of systems is restricted to users with access at level 2. This means that all systems are effectively user reset as far as alarm conditions are concerned. Remote reset may be achieved providing access at level 2 authorisation is achieved and information is available to deduce the reason for the alarm activation.
The resetting of tamper conditions at grades 1 and 2 can be achieved by the user(s) with access level 2. Resetting of tamper conditions at grades 3 and 4 requires level 3 access, e.g. an engineer.
Indications
All mandatory indications have to be located in one position; additional indications can however be located at other locations throughout the protected premises.
The conditions that have to be indicated will vary dependent on grade and must remain available until acknowledged. Up to ten door contacts or similar can share a common indicator but other detectors, e.g. movement detectors must have individual indication.
Inhibit / Isolation operations
Inhibiting of system functions is permitted but this is restricted to access level 2 users. When an inhibit function is applied the condition must be cancelled when unsetting the system.
Isolation of functions within the system is slightly different. Access to isolation is restricted by the grade of system. Level 2 users have access to the means of isolation at grades 1 and 2 but in grades 3 & 4 systems level 3 access is required.
Tamper security
The requirements for tamper protection vary dependent on the grade of system and where the system component is located e.g. within or outside the supervised premises.
If the system components are located externally to the supervised premises they must have appropriate means of tamper protection and detection. The following explains whether tamper detection is mandatory or optional for the required grade of system.
Tamper detection for the following components are mandatory at all grades:
- Control Indicating Equipment
- Ancillary Control Equipment
- Alarm Transmission Equipment
- Power Supplies
- Detectors
- Junction boxes
Tamper detection for detectors and junction boxes at grade 1 is optional.
The standard recognises that it may be impractical to provide tamper detection to magnetically or mechanically actuated switches. It also acknowledges that in certain grades it may be necessary to protect magnetically actuated devices against tampering with an external magnetic or electromagnetic source.
Finally in the tamper detection section the standard describes the forms of tampering to be detected. In all grades it is mandatory to detect tampering by opening a component by normal means.
In grades 2, 3, 4 wireless detectors must also include tampering by removal from mounting. Whilst this is mandatory in grades 2, 3 and 4 it is optional at grade 1.
Detecting the penetration of warning devices is mandatory at grades 3 and 4 and optional at grades 1 and 2. Detection of penetrations is also mandatory for CIE, ACE and ATS in grade 4 but optional in the other grades.
Detect tampering by reorientation of the field of cover of a detector is mandatory in grades 3 and 4 but optional in grades 1 and 2.
Finally movement detectors must include anti-masking" in grades 3 and 4 whilst at grades 1 and 2 this is optional.
Interconnections
This is the connection between system components e.g. control unit and detector. There are no restrictions on the type of interconnection used; it can be hard wired, wire free or any other reliable technology. The standard does require that the interconnections are monitored to ensure that communication of intruder, tamper or fault signals can take place when necessary.
To ensure communication, between all system components is possible, periodic communication must take place at regular intervals during both the set and unset periods.
The interval between periodic communications is specified in Table 9 and ranges from every 4 hours in grade 1 to every 15 minutes in grade 4. Periodic communication must also take place during setting to ensure the system is working properly albeit this is optional in grade 1 systems.
We have covered a lot of ground in this article but hope it has been useful to you and we look forward to producing the next instalment. In the meantime I expect that the debate over the date of withdrawal will continue, however we will update you next month if any changes occur.
Source
Security Installer
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