How do we know whether sensor is working or not?

Thread Starter

mukesh1

Joined Mar 22, 2020
68
I have a question. Suppose I have a fire alarm system in which one smoke sensor connected to the microcontroller. Whenever a fire is detected in a room, it is buzzer starts ringing. But what if the fire sensor has been damaged and there is a fire in the room, so system will not be able to give me the right information

So what can be the solution to this type of problem? How do we know whether our fire sensor is working or not?
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
28,619
My smoke detectors have a flashing LED, approx every 60sec.if the device is OK.
Of course this relies on personal observation, If a non-attended device was needed, I guess the LED output could be monitored remotely if the units can be modified to do this.
Max.
 

kaindub

Joined Oct 28, 2019
129
This is a serious answer. Get a can of smoke. Its used to test smoke detectors. Spray it around the sensor and see the ouptut.
 

Picbuster

Joined Dec 2, 2013
1,047
I have a question. Suppose I have a fire alarm system in which one smoke sensor connected to the microcontroller. Whenever a fire is detected in a room, it is buzzer starts ringing. But what if the fire sensor has been damaged and there is a fire in the room, so system will not be able to give me the right information

So what can be the solution to this type of problem? How do we know whether our fire sensor is working or not?
When designing an alarm system you should/must implement the following.

Sensor self test.
main system request ==> Are you still alive signal from mains system to sensor and test turnaround time?
answer to system <== yes , No or nothing(oops unit or line dead?)

main system self test.

A complete error detecting and signalling system created by main system.

UPS should be in the ' are you still alive' loop.

Result each node must have it's own address.

Each node could be asked to provide measurement results ( status ups, voltage, gas levels and more)

Each node has it's own alarm (sound light++++) but is able to transmit without beings asked an alarm to the main system.

Difficult no. But yes some work has to be done.

Picbuster
 
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