Greetings! In this article, we'll look at some of the problems with the Salwico Consilium fire system on a 10+ year old vessel and how to troubleshoot these issues.
In the official instructions for this system, you can find a lot of information about the problems that occur during the operation of the Salwico fire alarm. But today we will consider only some of them.
Any fire system on a ship is powered by two sources (main switchboard and emergency switchboard, usually 220V), and additional batteries (usually two 12V each, connected in series).
Attention! If you have an old Salwico Consilium fire system on your vessel, avoid turning it off completely, as this may cause it to fail to boot later.
The first problem that happened with this system was error No. 158 BATTERY CABLE / FUSE FAULT.
At the same time, the "CHARGERM 90 charger" is present in the name of the error. This alarm came out once a day, and could disappear for a week. What is the reason of this problem will be written below.
According to the instructions, this could be a problem with the cable or fuse from the charger to the batteries. There is no fuse in this circuit, the cable contacts were retightened, and later the cable was completely replaced with a new one to eliminate the issue of cable and bad contacts.
The above actions did not help, the error continued to come out from time to time. Next question was about the condition of the internal batteries. The time to replace them was just right, so the option of bad batteries also took place. But the corresponding BATTERY FAULT alarm for batteries did not come out, i.e. this indicates that the capacity and voltage of the batteries are normal, sufficient for operation.
.JPG "Control panel (inside view)")
The next step was to replace the charger with a new one. Since the ship was built, a new CHARGERM charger has been included with the spare parts of this system.
The system was previously de-energized and the same address for the new charger was specified using DIP switches as on the old unit.
As a result, after replacing the charger and starting the system, the BATTERY FAULT alarm came out. The explanation for this most likely is that the batteries really should be replaced and they do not want to work with a new charger. Therefore, the old charger was installed back until new batteries received.
So what's the problem? Let's return to the fact that this error is not permanent, it came out once a day in the period from 12 to 16 p.m., or it could not come out at all. It should also be said that during this period of time the ship worked near the equator and the temperature in the superstructure increased significantly. And since the system is located on the ship's bridge and at the peak of solar activity it heated up significantly, the air temperature in the room varied from + 30 to + 40 ℃ (the air conditioner in the superstructure could not cope, and the separate air conditioner did not work on the bridge).
Such overheating may already be unacceptable for relatively not new electronic equipment, as well as for old batteries (about 4 years old). This charger can operate within -5 to +55℃. But since the equipment is already old, then the temperature limits change and most often downwards.
It turns out there was an overheating of this unit and batteries. It was also noted that after leaving the high temperature zone, the work of the fire system improved and the error stopped coming out.
The optimal temperature limit when charging batteries is from -5 to + 40℃. Unfortunately, alarm No. 229 OVERHEATED did not come out to confirm this version. But this is due to the fact that the thermistor on the charger is set to a higher temperature, and the electronic components of the board and the batteries themselves can no longer withstand even a lower temperature. Also, as a rule, when charging old batteries, much more heat is generated than when new ones are charged.
As a result, a fan was temporarily installed inside the control panel, which provided additional cooling for the charger and batteries. Installing a new battery and charger later will fix this problem completely.
This problem is very common on old vessels. Over time, the temperature limits of the operation of electrical equipment decrease and the electronics begin to overheat. Therefore, you can often find additional fans in different systems on such ships. The solution to the problem is to replace these units and install additional cooling.
The next problem that may appear on old systems is cable break messages. In our case, error No. 142 CABLE BREAK NEGATIVE. In this case, the first loop and the minus line are indicated.
.JPG "LOOP ANALOGUE 1 CABLE BREAK NEGATIVE, FAULT (142)")
This error indicates that a cable break has appeared in the first loop (negative conductor).
Go to Service Menu - Loops - Loop 1 - Press “2” and see that the entire negative line of the loop is not responding.
Thus, all 57 units in the loop (sensors, insulators and manual activation buttons) lose the negative line. It happens for a short time and disappears almost immediately. At first, the source of the problem was difficult to find, but over time, the error began to hang longer and the problem worsened.
The instruction suggests a way to find the place of the break. SCI units are short circuit isolators for detecting a short circuit in a section of a circuit or in a sensor. This loop also involves heat and smoke sensors, and manual buttons to activate the alarm.
The instructions are to disconnect the cable from the LOOP MX No. 1. I recommend that you first de-energize the circuit.
Next, install temporary jumpers on the short circuit insulators so that you can check the entire circuit. In fact, you just need to transfer the chip inside these insulators to neighboring bypass contacts. The same must be done in manual activation buttons if short-circuit protected contacts are used and possibly in sensors, also if short-circuit protection is used. In our case, short circuit protection is not used in them.
.JPG "SCI (contacts on jumper)")
It can be seen from the diagram above (Fig. 2) that in order to start checking the circuit, it is necessary to install jumpers on insulators and timers (in our case, there are no timers in this loop).
It can be seen from the diagram (Fig. 3) that the first loop consists of 7 zones and each zone (except the first one) starts with a short circuit insulator. Therefore, you need to install jumpers on 6 insulators. After de-energizing the circuit, installing jumpers and disconnecting the chip from the unit of the first loop, we check the circuit from plus to plus and from minus to minus (using tester).
To de-energize the circuit, it is necessary to turn off two 220V circuit breakers (on the main switchboard and the emergency switchboard), and also remove power from the batteries!
When the cable was checked from plus to plus, the tester showed 0 Ohm, when checking from minus to minus, the tester showed 150 - 200 kOhm. According to the instructions, the circuit resistance should be no more than 185 Ohms. In our case, it really turned out to be a break in the negative conductor somewhere on the first loop.
Then I recommend not to use this method, but to try to cut off each zone by jumping plus and minus starting from the first zone. We put a jumper at the output of the LOOP MX 1 unit (for example, 11 - 12) (see Fig. 2) and measure the resistance at the input of the insulator of the second zone (see Fig. 3). If the resistance is 0 Ohms, then go ahead. We put a jumper at the output of the insulator of the second zone and measure the resistance at the input of the insulator of the third zone, etc.
Thus we check each zone. You can split the entire loop in half or start from the last zone and move in the other direction, but here it’s convenient for anyone. The main thing is to understand the principle of cutting off zones.
After checking all zones, we got to the problem area. It turned out that the break is in zone No. 6. Here you also need to search, just cut off each sensor, insulator and button.
As a result, two manual buttons for activating the fire system turned out to be problematic. They are located on the left and right sides on the main deck, just near the exits from the superstructure to the deck.
As a result of severe contamination and oxidation of the contacts, the system eventually began to see a break. Two buttons were found in the stock of the fire system, but already used. They were supplied instead of the old ones, DIP switches were pre-set, as on the old ones.
One button gave an error No. 144 LOOP UNIT TYPE CHANGED. Those, the system decided that a unit of a different type than the original was installed.
The instruction from the maker did not help and the cause of the error is not clear. Therefore, I had to clean the contacts of the old button.
.JPG "Setting the working button (comparison of DIP switches)")
After a thorough cleaning of the contacts, the button was safely returned to work. The second button was also cleaned and put to spare. At the same time, a new checking of the negative line showed 0 Ohm, what was required to be achieved.
Also, during the checking of all zones, bad connections were found on the terminals and chips.
%201.JPG "Short circuit insulator (problem contact, rests on 2 wires)")
%202.JPG "Short circuit insulator (problem contact, rests on 2 wires)")
%203.JPG "Short circuit insulator")
.JPG "Terminal on the bridge (problematic contact, 3 cores remained in operation)")
Such problematic connections can lead to a broken line over time, so all bad contacts have been updated.
What else has been done? Before starting to search for a troubleshooting problem, an attempt was made to replace the LOOP MX No. 1 on LOOP MX No. 4, which is not used in the system, and the line is bypassed with jumpers. This was done in order to eliminate the problem with the unit, which could occur due to the same overheating described above with the CHARGERM unit.
But this action did not bring a positive result. By the way, after the launch, the system took a long time to load and at first did not see the sensors of the first loop, but eventually it loaded completely.
What other problems can happen with the Salwico Consilium fire system? During long-term operation, individual sensors may also fail, due to breakage or contamination. Sensors that are located in the engine room are especially heavily contaminated.
The system provides monitoring of sensor pollution and it can generate the corresponding error No. 130 DIRTY SENSOR. You can see in advance the degree of contamination of the sensors using the menu.
In this case, the sensor must either be cleaned or replaced if cleaning does not help. Because Since the system uses addresses for each unit and sensor, then when replacing sensors, it is necessary to assign the corresponding address to them. To do this, you need to use a special device.
If you need instructions for working with Salwico Consilium, then write, I'll post it. If you have experience with this system, then share it in the comments to the article or in the official groups of the site in social networks.
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