14 April 1997

Alarm features in Boiler Controllers, Cascades and Pump Changeover modules

Boiler Controller


The two extra inputs are treated as digital inputs and their current state is viewable in Doorway as I1 and I2. A '1' condition indicates that the terminals are shorted.
What was the OCCD state has been moved to a new 'sensor' ZDMD (S8 or C57)  which gives the Maximum zone trim as a 0-100% sensor variable.

Two new config variables will be supported

The sense of the alarm state is defined by config variable ALST 'alarm_state' 0 or 1, this equates to open circuit or short circuit on the input terminals.

ALRM Alarm mode

This takes a number of values which function as follows


ALRM value

Function

0

no alarms

1

no alarms but will respond to STOP alarms from it's own PCO modules , extra digital inputs disable boilers. Disable sense set by ALST 

2

Alarm active, sense determined by ALST
When in alarm Boiler is Locked out, output stays on as in Cascade module


3

General Alarms: Alarm state defined by ALST

4

General Alarms, Alarm state defined by ALST Master off.
When input 1 is in alarm all outputs are shut off, this will include Boilers on cascade modules and pumps on PCO modules




A 'danger of freezing alarm' FREZ has also been added, this will create an alarm if the lowest temperature reading of Flow, Return and VT is lower than 5 degC. Frost protect should prevent this happening. Five degrees is used to allow for measurement errors and poor conductivity between the sensor and the water.

If there is no valid Outside Air reading either from the local sensor of from the network then this causes an alarm OUTF 'outside fail'

The state of the alarms can be monitored in Doorway by reading config variables 90-99

C90 NOAL no alarms
C91 GENA general alarm A
C92 GENB general alarm B
C93 LOKA lockout alarm A
C94 LOKB lockout alarm B
C95 FREZ danger of freezing alarm
C96 STOP Master stop alarm (firelink)
C97 OUTF outside temperature fail

To use these alarm features new Boiler hardware is required with issue 3a or later software. The SLT also needs to have new software 1g3 or later.

Cascade Module


Two new config variables have been added and the old config LOCK removed. The new variables ALRM alarm_mode and ALST alarm_state mimic the operation of the same name variables in the boiler controller.

ALRM Alarm mode

This takes a number of values which function as follows


ALRM value

Function

0

no alarms

1

no alarms, digital inputs disable boilers. Disable sense set by ALST 

2

Alarm active, sense determined by ALST
When in alarm Boiler is Locked out, output stays on.


3

General Alarms: Alarm state defined by ALST



The state of the alarms can be monitored in Doorway by reading config variables 90-99

C90 NOAL no alarms
C91 GENA general alarm A
C92 GENB general alarm B
C93 LOKA lockout alarm A
C94 LOKB lockout alarm B

The alarm features are introduced with issue 1c software, which may be run on all existing hardware options.



Pump Changeover Modules


Two new config variables have been added. The new variables ALRM alarm_mode and ALST alarm_state have similar functionality to similar variables in the Boiler and Cascade modules.

ALRM Alarm mode

This takes a number of values which function as follows


ALRM value

Function

0

no alarms

1

Flow fail alarms A & B , the sense of the flow input is determined by ALST. The 'no flow' condition being equal to the alarm_state. A short is a '1' condition. 

2

Flow fail alarms as above, but if both pumps have been tried and still no flow has been achieved a STOP alarm is sent. 


  • The STOP alarm from a PCO module will cause the Heat (or cool) source that it is registered with to STOP all plant immediately, provided it has alarms enabled (ALRM>0). When the flow is re-instated, this may require use of the manual facility, a CLRS clear_stop alarm is sent which will remove the remote_stop condition from the main plant.

    The main plant can be brought back on by setting ALRM to zero temporarily or by resetting the control module.(power down, power up sequence) 

    The state of the alarms can be monitored in Doorway by reading config variables 90-99

    C90 NOAL no alarms
    C91 FLFA flow fail A
    C92 FLFB flow fail B
    C93 STOP stop main plant
    C94 CLRS clear stop

    The alarm features are introduced with issue 1c software, which may be run on all existing hardware options.

    The third relay, used to signal an alarm now closes if any pump has produced a flow failure.