Some ground fault trick&tips for notifier: -You could have multiple ground faults on NACs so always leave all the circuits unplugged - If the trouble says “Ground fault loop 1”,the fault is on your addressable loop/zones; if the trouble just says “ground fault” it’s on your panel NACs -bad battery’s can cause ground faults too
Ancillary voltage can cause grounds (24vac control voltage for example) also, dissimilar ground potential. if you have remote amp cabinet with different ground and no ACT-1 audio coupling transformer, this can cause ground faults. Multiple chargers connected to the same set of batteries. 55ah batteries serving a 640 with an amplifier. If the charger isn’t disabled on the amplifier, you’ll get a ground.
Take out the guess work or waiting for the panel to clear by using your meter at the panel, each time you remove a circuit check resistance to ground on each wire and you will find out very quick which circuit your fault is on. It can also tell you a lot about what type of ground fault you are looking for, for instance low resistance to ground is most likely a pinched wire, higher or fluctuating resistance is usually water in a device.
Yea it can take upwards of 30 seconds for a ground to go away on those CPS-24 power supplies the 320, 640 and 3030 use. Its also a good idea to pull all 4 NACs and keep them off.
I appreciate the video. Headed into about 1,000,000 ft.² factory to trace the ground on Loop one and Loop two. The ground LED info will be very helpful. The ground fault disable switch does nothing on the CPU-640 board. Curious if the LEM has a disable jumper? I have my Fluke ready!
I want to tell you, a ground fault can destroy a fire alarm panel...especially if it should happen to go into alarm. On some high end panels, it will shut off the troubled circuit and protect it and as soon as the ground fault is corrected, the panel will restore operation of the previously troubled circuit. However, many cheaper panels don't do this, particularly the Fire Lite MS-2 panel. On those, the second a ground fault occurs, done. The panel is garbage. And, on cheaper panels, if the ground fault occurs on the nac and the nac activates, say the panel goes into alarm, done...it will damage the nac. Higher end panels are far more forgiving so stick with higher end panels and watch out for ground faults.
As you Said it depends any panel should be fine with just a ground fault shouldn’t hurt anything just on some if it’s on the nac and actually goes into alarm but if it didn’t go into alarm any panel should be fine
If you have a mild ground on on one leg of an SLC…with SLC connected, short the non grounded leg of the SLC. If the ground is on the IDC side of a module, that module will go active. Make sure you’re disabled before doing this😂. This tip comes from a 30 year Notifier installer/programmer. When I started installing we were putting in 1010/2020s with AMG analog voice.
Oh yeah that could work I never thought of that thanks for that tip next time I run into a ground fault on a module or conventional system altogether I'll have to give that a try
@@nics-systems-electric both guys in the video, too many errors due to lack of knowledge. Would have been better to either redo the video or edit out the mistakes.
