Make It Work - Hunting Ground Faults - Mobile

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 155

Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Copyright 2019 by Douglas Krantz – All Rights Reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means including storage and
retrieval systems without written permission from the
author.

Douglas Krantz’s Technician’s Corner


6520 Irving Ave So
Richfield, MN 55423

Visit my website www.douglaskrantz.com

ISBN: 978-1-951415-05-1

Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by


corporations, associations, educators, and others. For
details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.

U. S. trade bookstores and wholesalers: Please contact


Douglas Krantz’s Technician’s Corner at

doug@douglaskrantz.com

2
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Dedication

To my wife, who actually listened to me as I described


many parts of this book. Thank you.

3
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Table of Contents
Preface ........................................................... 8
What Causes a Ground Fault?....................... 11
General Ground Fault Causes .........................................12
When to Fix a Ground Fault .......................... 16
Ground Fault – Electrical Circuit ....................................17
Fire Alarm System Ground Fault Detector .... 20
Danger – Ground Fault ................................. 24
First Ground Fault – System Still Detects and Warns ....25
Second Ground Fault – Failure of System .....................26
Disconnecting the Ground Fault Detection Circuitry .....27
Friday Afternoon Repair ................................................29
Troubleshooting the Ground Fault While Not Using the
Ground Fault Light ........................................ 31
The Ground Fault Light Shows Something Is Wrong .......32
Troubleshooting Error – Unreliable Ground Fault Light 33
Troubleshooting Error – Light is Off but Ground Fault is
Still on the System.........................................................34
Troubleshooting Error - Ground Fault Disconnected but
Light Still On ..................................................................36

4
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Troubleshooting Error – Double “On” Indication ..........37
Troubleshooting Error – Multiple Ground Faults ..........41
Troubleshooting Error – False Positive Indication .........41
Troubleshooting Error – Delayed Turn-On/Turn-Off .....42
Unreliable Ground Fault Light .......................................44
Troubleshooting – Look at What the Panel is Looking At
..................................................................... 45
How the Panel Detects a Ground Fault ...........................46
Finding the Reference Voltage ......................................49
Floating Ground Voltage ...............................................56
Troubleshooting – Categorizing Ground Faults60
Threshold ......................................................................60
Categories .....................................................................62
Ground Fault Condition .................................................63
Ground Fault Type ..........................................................66
Hard Ground Fault ........................................................67
Soft Ground Fault............................................................71
Induced (Ghost) Ground Fault ........................................84
Source or Power – “Normal” Ground Fault versus
“Induced” Ground Fault ................................................86
Power from Outside the Fire Alarm System ..................87
Detecting an Induced Ground Fault ..............................89
5
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Many Types of Induced Ground Fault ...........................100
AC Current Crosstalk Inside Conduit ...........................101
Stray AC Voltage on Conduit Ground ..........................108
Speaker Circuits ..........................................................113
Radio Frequency EMI ..................................................119
The Hunt .................................................... 122
Give Notice if Notice is Needed...................................122
Guess-and-Verify.........................................................123
Divide-and-Conquer – Looking for Ground Faults .......124
Further Hunting Tips .....................................................128
Get the “Low Hanging Fruit” First ...............................128
Take Lots of Pictures ...................................................129
Disconnect the Panel to Troubleshoot ........................131
Check Addressable Missing Devices ............................132
When There Aren’t Any As-Builts ................................133
Figure Out How the Building is Wired .........................137
Check Supervision Voltage for Loop Being Worked On
....................................................................................139
Check for End of Line Resistor .....................................141
Turn On the Horns and Strobes...................................142
Find Out Wire Distance to the Ground Fault by Checking
Resistance-to-Ground .................................................143
Follow the Wire ...........................................................145
6
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Put the System Back Together after Taking It Apart ...147
CYA Paperwork............................................................148
References ................................................. 150

7
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Preface

This book isn’t about how to correctly install a fire alarm


system, this book is about how to fix an existing fire alarm
system. Specifically, how to understand a ground fault.

Ground Faults have a bad name:

• Sometimes they’re difficult to detect


• Sometimes they’re intermittent
• Sometimes they’re on the system all the time, but
the panel doesn’t always detect them
• Sometimes, even though the panel does detect
ground faults, the ohmmeters commonly used don’t
detect the ground faults
• Sometimes, the ground faulted wires are hidden in
walls and ceilings, making it hard to even guess
where the wires end up

Ground Fault

In a building-wide Fire Detection and Alarm System (FDAS),


a ground fault is more than a name or description, a
8
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
ground fault is the location of electrical trouble. It’s where
electricity is being shorted to ground, or it’s where
unwanted electricity or power is finding its way into the
fire alarm system.

While Ground Faults seem hard to find and fix, most


ground faults have a really simple cause; the wires in the
fire alarm system are making electrical contact with
building ground.

At least that’s the cause of many ground faults.

Unwanted Electricity

Some ground faults, especially the ones that aren’t making


direct physical contact with the building ground, are a little
more difficult to find. These ground faults, while not falling
under the normal definition of a ground fault, are still
causing unwanted electricity to flow in the fire alarm
system.

These faults induce power from other electrical systems


into the fire alarm system.

9
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Because they’re little understood, the faults that induce


unwanted electricity are the real “Ghost Ground Faults”.

Proper Troubleshooting – Finding the Hidden Problem

Because most causes of fire alarm system problems are


not obvious (we, as technicians are paid to find unobvious
causes to problems), all service technicians, having arrived
on site to fix a ground fault, make a lot of guesses.

Each guess has to be verified.

Knowing the causes and ways of verifying ground faults


reduces the number of guesses that have to be made.
Fewer guesses mean fewer verifications are needed, and
shorter troubleshooting time.

This book in dedicated to understanding all types of


ground faults, to learning how to differentiate between
different types of ground fault, and to locating and fixing
all ground faults.

10
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
What Causes a Ground Fault?

Ground faults are common; they can and do occur in


almost any kind of fire alarm system. For the technician,
fixing a ground fault is easy; trying to find the ground fault
in the first place is the cause of headaches.

The ground fault is the location where unwanted


electricity is leaking into or out of the fire alarm system.

A ground fault can be caused by a direct or indirect


connection with building ground, so the system leaks
electricity (this is a common type of ground fault). A
ground fault can also be caused by a direct or indirect
connection with other power sources forcing unwanted
electricity into the fire alarm system (not as common of a
type of ground fault).

The resulting effect can be a combination of anything from


a continuous or an intermittent turning on of the ground
fault light, to electrifying the fire alarm system so it will
produce electric shocks, to the fire alarm system acting
dangerously.

11
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Because there are so many possibilities for the causes and


effects of any ground fault, in order to find a ground fault,
the technician has to start out with a good guess of caused
that ground fault. (It saves time if a technician looks in the
right place.)

General Ground Fault Causes

To many people, the term “ground


fault” implies a metal-to-metal
contact between the fire alarm
system and building ground. There
are many causes of ground faults,
and bad installation practices are just
some of the causes.

• Bad Installation – A wire tightly


tied to a threaded rod is one of
my favorites.

• Bad Installation – Shiners (bare copper showing),


overly stripped wires, and nicked or split insulation
12
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
from overeager stripping of outer jackets can easily be
the cause of ground faults. Often these recur over and
over, each ground fault in another part of the building.
Sometimes after the original installation, they keep
occurring for 15 or 20 years.

• Bad Installation – Too many wires inside a junction


box. When the wires are pressing hard enough against
each other or against the sides of the j-box, the
insulation can be displaced, pushing the copper of the
conductor against other conductors or the box.
Displacing the insulation can take years, but eventually
contact is made from one wire to the other wires. or to
sharp edges inside the junction box.

• Bad Installation – Including the


Fire Alarm Wire with AC Power
Wire Inside the same Conduit
– Once in a while, the ground
fault light on the fire alarm
panel turns on with a
magnetically coupled power
transfer from another power

13
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
source somewhere, that induced power can turn on
the ground fault light.

• Bad Installation or Service - Pinched wires can be


between the box and the device. Again, displacing the
insulation can take days, months, or years.

• Damage to the Fire Alarm System after the System is


Installed – These ground faults can be caused by a wire
falling on a sharp ceiling grid, a forklift knocking a
device off the wall or the ceiling, a door holder that is
damaged by the door repeatedly being slammed
against it.

• Water Leaking on the Wire or


the Device – Water, being a
semi-insulator, conducts only
if the voltage is high enough.
Water-based soft ground
faults can be in the ceiling,
walls, or floor. They can even
be in junction boxes in the
ground. If the water is in a conduit, soft ground faults

14
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
can be the middle of a conduit. Buried wire insulation
that isn’t suited for wet and buried conditions can be
the location of the ground fault.

• Damage During Remodeling or Construction – Those


doing demolition or construction might not notice the
fire alarm wiring or devices, or they might not care.

• Faulty Ground Fault Detection


Circuitry Inside the Fire Alarm Panel
Itself – The panel may be ground
faulting itself, or the panel might be
giving false indications of a ground
fault. If they’re cracked, the
batteries inside the panel might be
the source of a ground fault.

• Rarely, but this does happen, a signal from radio


station is picked up on the long-wire antenna (for radio
signals, a fire alarm loop is a long wire receiving
antenna). This kind of signal reception causes the
ground fault light to turn on, and often other troubles
show up on the fire alarm system.

15
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When to Fix a Ground Fault

Sooner or later, all ground faults have to be


fixed.

The idea behind the special ground fault


light showing on the panel is that before there is a second
ground fault occurs, the first ground fault will be fixed.
Whereas the first ground fault doesn’t usually cause a
problem, almost always a second ground fault is rather
nasty.

The second ground fault can set off a false alarm or short
out the whole fire alarm system.

Remember, though, the ground fault light is a warning


light. It is there to say “Even though it seems like nothing
right now is wrong with the fire alarm system, soon lots of
things could go wrong.”

Especially when talking over the phone to someone on


site, a technician can’t tell whether it’s a single ground
fault that by itself doesn’t compromise anything, whether

16
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
something else is having a problem that is causing the
ground fault, or whether the ground fault is causing a
problem with something else. The only way of telling for
sure is for the technician to go on site and look.

Most of the time, a single ground fault, with no other


troubles on the panel, isn’t going to compromise the fire
alarm system. However, the fire alarm system is a life-
safety system; it’s a good idea to fix a ground fault right
away, if for no other reason, because soon something else
may go wrong.

Ground Fault – Electrical Circuit

A ground fault is an unwanted extra electrical circuit.

An electrical circuit is a circle path; the beginning of the


path is also the end of the path. If the circle isn’t complete,
so all electricity isn’t able to completely go around in a
circle, it isn’t an electrical circuit.

17
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

The first diagram shows the


electrical circuit path
of a ground fault.

Basically, we can’t lose the


electrons as they flow
through the circuit; in order
to flow again and again, the
electrons have to return to the power source.

A ground fault requires a complete electrical path for the


electrons to flow from the power supply or battery,
through the circuit (which includes the building ground
system), and back into the power supply or battery.

Fixing a ground fault is


stopping the electrical flow.
Once the circuit is opened
(the ground fault is fixed), the
electrons can’t return to the
power source; the electricity
stops.

18
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
By reinsulating the wire or replacing a device, the
technician interrupts the electrical path and removes the
ground fault.

To interrupt the path:

• The wire is reinsulated using electrical tape


• The wire is replaced
• The wire is moved away from the ground fault path
(the wire is redressed)
• The bad insulation is cut off by shortening the wire
• The device that is providing the electrical path is
removed or replaced

So the electrical path is interrupted and electricity won’t


be able to flow back to the power source, some or all of
these cures are used.

19
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Fire Alarm System Ground Fault Detector

20
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Inside the fire alarm panel is a connection to ground. It’s
an electrical path to the metal of the building.

Even though each manufacturer uses a different design for


the panel’s internal ground fault detector, the detectors all
look for some sort of voltage imbalance between its
internal reference voltage and the ground connection.

As long as the voltage is the same between these two


points, the panel does not go into trouble.

However, if the internal reference voltage is different from


the building ground voltage, the ground fault light and the
trouble light turn on.

Normally, nothing else in the entire building’s fire alarm


system is supposed to be connected to the metal of the
building. Because nothing is connected to building ground,
there isn’t a complete electrical path from the panel’s
power supply, to building ground, and back to the panel’s
power supply through its ground fault detection circuit.

21
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

If a wire on any fire alarm circuit touches metal of the


building, that touch completes the electrical path from the
power supply, through the circuit, through the building
ground, and back into the panel through the panel’s
ground fault detection circuit.

Because of the internal resistors used for the ground fault


detection circuitry, the current for the panel’s ground
22
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
detector; the panel’s ground detector usually doesn’t
affect the fire alarm system.

23
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Danger – Ground Fault

Someone thinks that ground faults are


dangerous; in addition to a trouble light, a
separate ground fault light is installed on the
fire alarm panel.

There is a reason for the separate ground fault light;


ground faults are extremely dangerous. Yes, a broken wire
is dangerous, a faulty smoke detector is dangerous, a bad
backup battery is dangerous, but these are nothing
compared to a second ground fault.

Each ground fault is an electrical short to building ground.


The first ground fault is an unused extra electrical path.
When the panel detects a ground fault, it turns on the
warning ground fault light. Because there’s only one
ground fault detector and light, the fire alarm system can’t
give a second warning.

The second ground fault changes everything. The second


ground fault uses the building ground system to short out

24
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
fire alarm power supplies and fire horns, or it shuts down a
whole loops of detectors, or it cause false alarms, or
possibly it shuts down the whole fire alarm system.

First Ground Fault – System Still Detects and


Warns

The internal resistors in the panel’s detection circuitry


keeps the ground fault current is kept low enough to be
safe. A single ground fault is a small current leak; it’s not a
dead short. With a single ground fault, the trouble and
ground fault light turns on, and usually nothing else
happens. The fire alarm system still detects fire and warns
people of fires.
25
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Second Ground Fault – Failure of System

Many problems occur with a second


ground fault.

The nightmare scenario; a catastrophic


failure of the fire alarm system is an
extreme example of what could happen with a second
ground fault.

26
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
A catastrophic failure probably won’t occur with a second
ground fault. There is a good possibility, though, that the
fire alarm system won’t detect all fires, won’t warn
everyone of fire, produce a false alarm, or some other
perilous failure will occur.

Recommendation: Fix the first ground fault


before a second ground fault occurs.

Disconnecting the Ground Fault Detection


Circuitry

Sometimes, the ground fault light shows up for


a little while, and before the ground fault is
found and fixed, the light turns off. This is an
intermittent problem, and sometimes hard to fix. People
then have a desire to disconnect the ground fault circuitry.

Yes, fire alarm service technicians have disconnected


ground fault detectors.

The ground fault may be difficult to find, and may require


days or even weeks to finally fix, but disconnecting the
27
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
ground fault detection circuitry so the occupants aren’t
annoyed is not an option.

Whereas disconnecting the circuitry is one way of stopping


the annoyance to the building occupants, disconnecting
the ground fault circuitry comes at a dangerous cost. The
cost is at a later date when a second ground fault occurs
somewhere else and wreaks havoc with the fire alarm
system.

Keep in mind that if one ground fault occurs in a particular


fire alarm system, another ground fault has a better
chance of occurring.

Disconnecting the ground fault detection circuitry


is like using tape to cover the “low fuel” light on a
28
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
fully loaded passenger jet. Yes, this has happened,
the light was covered by someone in the
maintenance facility because it was faulty. The
pilots then improperly performed a fuel quantity
conversion, and while flying above 30,000 feet,
ran out of fuel.

You guessed it, they did a forced landing at an


abandoned airport. That time, at least no one
was hurt.

Friday Afternoon Repair

In order to eliminate the annoyance to the


occupants over the weekend when the ground
fault is still on the fire alarm system on Friday
afternoon, many times the ground fault detection circuitry
is disconnected.

The intention is to come back the following Monday and


find the ground fault.

29
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The problem is that to the untrained building owner, once
the ground fault light is turned off, the ground fault
appears to be fixed. The owner doesn’t want to pay a
service charge for a problem that’s not there, so the
technician doesn’t even have a chance to come back to fix
the ground fault. The ground fault doesn’t get fixed.

All this is to say that the ground fault light and trouble
buzzer isn’t just to announce a problem, but to make sure
the building owners are annoyed enough to get the fire
alarm system fixed.

If the service technician has to leave the site, the detection


circuitry should remain connected. Then the owner will
request that the service technician return to fix the ground
fault.

30
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Troubleshooting the Ground Fault While Not


Using the Ground Fault Light

The turned-on ground fault


light on the front of the fire
alarm control panel shows
that the panel has
detected a ground fault. As
a troubleshooting tool, the
temptation is to use this
light.

However, beyond telling


the owner of the building to call for help, the ground fault
light actually makes troubleshooting harder, and it
distracts the technician.

During troubleshooting, the ground fault light often shows


false positives or false negatives. As the technician is trying
to find the ground fault, if, instead of watching more
reliable indicators, the technician watches the ground fault
light, the frustrated technician will go in many false
31
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
directions. (In the US, this is called going on Wild Goose
Chases.)

The Ground Fault Light Shows Something Is


Wrong

The ground fault light on the panel can only indicate that
something is wrong; somewhere in the building, inside the
panel, or anywhere outside the panel, electricity is leaking
to ground.

The light cannot indicate if:

• One of the batteries is cracked and leaking the


electricity to the case of the panel
• Water is filling up a junction box in the trash room
• A wire is pinched inside a door holder back-box on
the third floor

The ground fault can be:

• A hard ground fault where a conductor is shorted


directly to ground somewhere in the building
32
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
• A soft ground fault where electricity leaks from the
fire alarm system to ground through water or thin
insulation
• An induced ground fault where the electricity is
directly or indirectly forced into the fire alarm system
from some other source of power or signal
Troubleshooting Error – Unreliable Ground
Fault Light

The light showing a ground


fault might be erratic;
sometimes it just turns on
and off. When the light is on,
the owner calls for service,
but by the time the technician arrives, sometimes the light
has turned off.

Does this mean that the ground fault is gone, or does this
mean the ground fault is still on the system, but not quite
bad enough to turn on the ground fault light?

Many times, when arriving on site, the technician finds the


ground fault light turned off. The arriving technician
33
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
thinks, incorrectly, that at the moment, the ground fault
gone and doesn’t check the system further.

Troubleshooting Error – Light is Off but Ground


Fault is Still on the System

A false-negative indication is where the


ground fault light is turned off, but the
ground fault is still there.

Intermittent Hard Ground Fault

The light being turned off on arrival may mean it’s an


intermittent ground fault; sometimes there’s a solid
connection with ground, and sometimes there’s no
connection at all.

With this kind of ground fault, the ground fault light is an


absolute indication that shows the status of the ground
fault. However, because the potential of a ground fault is
34
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
still there, the ground fault light is really showing a false-
negative indication. At the moment, the wire just isn’t
touching ground.

Continuous Soft Ground Fault or Induced Ground Fault

Then again, the ground fault light being turned-off may


just mean that the panel doesn’t think that at the
moment, the ground fault is bad enough to turn on the
light.

The electrical leakage is still on the system, and the


leakage was a little greater when the owner saw the
turned-on ground fault light. However, at the moment, the
leakage has reduced slightly; even though there’s still

35
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
electrical leakage, the leakage isn’t quite enough to turn
on the ground fault light.

Troubleshooting Error - Ground Fault


Disconnected but Light Still On

Often, the method used to start


troubleshooting is to disconnect one loop
of wires at a time from the control panel
until the ground fault light turns off, and
then the technician knows that the ground
fault is on the disconnected loop.

The problem is that many times this method of


troubleshooting doesn’t work. Especially on addressable
systems, even though the loop with the ground fault has
been removed from the panel, the ground fault light can
remain turned on.

36
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Troubleshooting Error – Double “On” Indication

Plus Equals

If the ground fault light is already on, a second turning on


of the ground fault light doesn’t make the light brighter, a
second turning on of the ground fault light only keeps the
light on after the first ground fault has restored.

37
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

On some addressable systems, the addressable modules


are intelligent enough to detect a ground fault themselves,
and transmit the ground fault information to the panel.
This detection of the ground fault by the module is in
addition to the panel’s detection of a ground fault and is a
second indication of a ground fault.

When that happens, there are two ground fault detectors,


the panel is one and the module is the second.

Yes, there’s only one ground fault, but both the panel and
the module have detected the ground fault. Until both the

38
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
module and the panel have cleared the ground fault, the
light will stay on.

When the Signaling Line Circuit (SLC) used communicate


between the panel and module is disconnected, the
ground fault is removed from the panel. However, because
the disconnected module can’t tell the panel that the
ground fault is restored (after all, the module is
disconnected), the ground fault light on the panel is still
turned on.

Keep in mind that the modules don’t give a continuous


indication of anything on an addressable system; the
39
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
modules only send a signal when they become active,
when they become normal, and when they are polled.
When the loop with the ground fault is disconnected from
the panel, the panel can’t receive a “ground-fault-is-gone-
away” signal from the module, and the light stays on.

On the other hand, using the voltmeter to measure the


battery-to-ground voltages, along with being familiar with
the normal voltages on the model of fire alarm panel being
worked on, the technician can see whether or not the
ground fault is really disconnected or still on the panel.

Tip: Read the panel.

If there’s an addressable module somewhere is


saying “Ground Fault”, don’t waste time at the
panel, check out that module. Going to the
module that is saying “Ground Fault” is often a
short-cut to finding the ground fault.

40
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Troubleshooting Error – Multiple Ground Faults

Once in a while, there’s more than one


ground fault to deal with. There’s no single
method that should be used to find each of
the multiple ground faults. However, for
troubleshooting when standing at the panel, it’s useless
trying to find out what loop each ground fault is on by
looking at the ground fault light.

Each ground fault turned on the ground fault light, and the
light will not turn off again until all ground faults are
disconnected or fixed.

Troubleshooting Error – False Positive


Indication

A false positive indication is where the


ground fault light is turned on but there
truly isn’t a ground fault.

41
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
A few panels “latch” the trouble indicator. Latching means
that once a trouble occurs, the panel turns on the trouble
light and the panel keeps the trouble light turned on even
after the trouble is cleared.

In some ways, latching helps, because the then technician


knows there had been in trouble. But in other ways,
latching can be confusing because even when the ground
fault is disconnected, the ground fault light is still turned
on and won’t turn off until after the panel is reset.

Troubleshooting Error – Delayed Turn-


On/Turn-Off

Wait for it…

There are some models of panels that, most of the time,


don’t even have their internal ground fault detection
circuitry connected to ground. The panel will only

42
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
internally connect the ground fault detector and check for
a ground fault about once every minute.

The light may be off when an intermittent ground fault


occurs, and depending on the time in the cycle that the
ground fault becomes active, it might take nearly a minute
before the ground fault is detected.

This time delay hinders the technician. When


disconnecting a loop, because the light stays on, the
technician doesn’t know if the loop with a ground fault is
disconnected for nearly a minute. Then when reconnecting
the loop, the technician has to wait for nearly a minute to
see if the light comes on again.

The technician needs a lot of patience while waiting for


the panel to get around to checking for a ground fault.

43
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Unreliable Ground Fault Light

In other words, after arriving on site to troubleshoot,


beyond seeing that the ground fault light is on or off, don’t
look at the light again; watching the light will only slow
down the troubleshooting.

When hunting for ground faults, better than looking at the


unreliable ground fault light, look at the battery voltages-
to-ground measurements. The next chapter will explain
battery voltages-to-ground measurements.

44
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Troubleshooting – Look at What the Panel is
Looking At

45
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Almost always, the ground fault is not in the panel; almost


always the ground fault is someplace else besides the
panel.

As such, the panel cannot say anything more about the


ground fault than “The ground fault exists.”

Because the panel can’t say anything more than “There’s a


Ground Fault,” when troubleshooting, look at what the
panel is looking at, don’t look at the panel.

How the Panel Detects a Ground Fault

Every model of panel has its own method of measuring to


see if there’s a ground fault. Some will measure the
current flowing to or from the Fire Alarm System’s Ground
Sensing Connection, some will measure the voltage at the
Ground Sensing Connection and compare that to the
Internal Reference Voltage.

All of the Fire Alarm Control Panels, though, are actually


looking to make sure that the voltage at the Fire Alarm
46
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
System’s Ground Sensing Connection is the same voltage
as the Internal Reference Voltage.

Imprecise Electronics

Electronics are never precise; there’s always a little slop in


the system. The most precise specifications for electronics
will always show a + or – amount. From one standpoint,
that means that even the most precise specification is not
precise.

In a building-wide fire alarm system, ground fault current


may be too little to measure, but there’s always a little
electrical leakage. In the fire panel’s maintenance book,
there is a section showing the specifications. One of the
specifications is the current or resistance that triggers the
ground fault circuitry. A technician probably won’t need to
use that specification very often, but it’s a good idea to
know that it’s there.

47
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

I highly recommend that technicians who are


serious about troubleshooting study the
specifications for the panels they are working
with. When a technician doesn’t know the
specifications, troubleshooting is like trying to
assemble a pocket watch while blindfolded.

48
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Finding the Reference Voltage

49
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The fire alarm control panel has an Internal Voltage
Reference Point. For the technician, though, finding that
point on the printed circuit board is impossible. There’s no
test point to connect the voltmeter to, and there’s no
documentation to tell the technician where to find this
reference point.

A technician can, however, find out what the panel is


seeing for building ground.

Call Technical Support

Usually, calling tech support can get the technician


information on where to connect the voltmeter and what
voltage should be there. If technical support can’t give the
information, the technician has to determine the voltage,
sort of. It’s a kind of guess-and-verify situation.

Figure It Out Yourself

The technician has to be familiar with how to find the


reference voltage.

50
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The reference voltage is a comparison voltage; it’s the
voltage measured from the positive battery terminal as it
is compared to building ground, and it’s a second voltage
measured from the negative battery terminal as it is
compared to building ground. Measuring this voltage can
tell the technician a great deal about whether there is a
ground fault in the first place, and it also shows other
information about the ground fault.

Power Supply

51
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

These plus and minus terminals of the batteries can be


considered the same electronic points as the positive and
negative power supply on the printed circuit board.

Troubleshooting Trick
52
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

When you don’t know the normal ground reference


voltage of the panel – turn your thinking around.

Instead trying to figure out what voltage is normal for the


panel, assume that what you read is either normal, or
shows ground fault. Then, when disconnecting loops to
find out which loop has a ground fault, only look for a
change in this voltage. If the voltage changes, you’re
connecting or disconnecting the ground fault. It’s a
troubleshooting start.

Exact Reference Voltage Isn’t Important

When measuring them, the exact voltage seen on the


batteries isn’t the important part. It’s the compared
voltage ratio measured between each battery terminal
and building ground that’s important.

53
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Remember that the


battery voltage
should be 12 or 24
Volts Nominal (12
Volts or 24 Volts are
the names of the batteries, not their voltages).

A 12 Volt battery can measure anywhere from 10 to 13.75


Volts, and a 24 Volt Battery can measure anywhere from
20 to 27.5 Volts. That’s not a precise 12 volts or 24 volts,
so the measurements are not going to be precise.

Compare Voltages

When comparing the battery terminal voltages to ground,


if the voltages on the plus or minus side of the batteries
are approximately the same, chances are good there’s
really no ground fault. When comparing the battery
terminal voltages to ground, if the voltages on the plus or
minus side of the batteries are vastly different, chances
are good there’s a ground fault somewhere.

54
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Exception

Don’t count on the measurements to always be proof of


ground fault, become familiar with the voltage
measurements on the model of panel being worked on.

I have found (and confirmed with the manufacturer’s


technical support) that on one panel, the voltage
measured to the negative terminal of the battery
compared to building ground is supposed to be about 1.2
volts.

That 1.2 volts is what I measured when there was no


ground fault on the system. When the intermittent ground
fault returned, the voltage went to about 0.8 volts.

If something looks different from what you think it should


be, do as I did and call technical support. Technical support
is there to help.

Bottom line though for long term troubleshooting, get


used to reading the battery-voltage-to-ground

55
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
measurements for each make and model of fire alarm
panel you’re working on. The measured voltages are
different for each make and model, but learning to make
these measurements is a good start to becoming an expert
ground fault fixer.

Floating Ground Voltage

For ground fault detection, most panels are continuously


connected to building ground. However, a few fire alarm
panels actually connect to ground for a short time once
every minute or so. For that kind of panel, most of the
time, the whole fire alarm
system isn’t connected to
building ground at all.

Because the panel isn’t


connected, using a
voltmeter makes the
voltmeter the only
electrical pathway. The

56
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
voltmeter conducts current to ground from the long, thin
capacitor called a fire alarm loop.

Any residual voltage between the fire alarm system and


building ground is going to discharge through the
voltmeter.

The voltage shown on a voltmeter is really a measurement


of the current through the meter times the fixed
resistance of the meter. The result is shown as a voltage.
(This is Ohm’s Law.) Once the voltmeter discharges the
residual voltage, there will be a very small current, which
is a low voltage reading, often less than 1.0 volts.

When trying to measure the voltage from the plus or


minus battery terminals to building ground, these will be
weird readings on the voltmeter.

The Weird Readings are Normal

On a “floating” fire alarm panel, when trying to


measure the voltage to ground on both the plus
and the minus side of the batteries, the voltage

57
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
will start out lower than expected, and drift down
even lower over the next few seconds.

This isn’t something wrong with how you’re


measuring the voltage, this isn’t something wrong
with your voltmeter, this isn’t something wrong
with the fire alarm system or the fire alarm panel.

When there isn’t a ground fault in a floating


voltage fire alarm system, this is normal and
expected.

A weird reading is good.

When there’s a ground fault, the ground fault will


discharge the voltage before a measurement can be taken
so the voltage readings will be closer to a normal panel’s
the ground faulted measurements; the measured voltage
will be close to zero on one side of the batteries and close
to full battery voltage on the other side of the batteries.

Get used to which panels “float”.

58
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Most Reliable Method of Confirming the Ground Fault

Measuring battery-voltage-to-building-ground is the most


reliable method of determining if there truly is a ground
fault. A few times these measurements won’t work. Most
of the time, though, this kind of measurement will show
whether or not there is a ground fault – and that’s much
better than trying to watch the ground fault light.

59
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Troubleshooting – Categorizing Ground
Faults

A doctor categorizes an illness before coming up with a


treatment plan; a technician should categorize a ground
fault before coming up with a troubleshooting plan.

Before going out and looking for the ground fault, it would
be a good idea to know just what to look for. To find, many
ground faults require specialized detection equipment,
and using the right detection equipment saves a lot of
time.

Threshold

A broad definition of a ground fault is “electricity going


where it isn’t supposed to go.”

60
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

The trouble is that there is always a small amount of


electricity going where it isn’t supposed to go.

A better definition for a ground fault is “enough electricity


going where it isn’t supposed to go that it does, or at least
could, cause a problem.”

61
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When the quantity of electricity crosses the line between
“not enough electricity to cause a problem” to “enough
electricity to cause a problem”, the amount of current flow
has crossed a threshold.

Because there’s always at least a little extra power or


signals (or just plain electricity), the ground fault detection
circuitry has a threshold that has to be reached before the
ground fault light is turned on. Less electricity than this
threshold, the ground fault light is off; more electricity
than this threshold, the ground fault light is on.

In their maintenance manual specifications, many panels


show this threshold. If the instruction manual isn’t
available, talk to technical support for the panel. They’ll be
glad you asked.

Categories

Categorizing the ground fault - checking to see how the


ground fault is acting - helps when trying to guess where
to go and what to take when looking.

62
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The word “guess” is being used very carefully because all
troubleshooting is really a guess-and-verify process. Guess
the direction to go to find a problem, and verify that the
problem is actually in that direction.

The two categories that ground faults fall into are:

• Condition
• Type

Ground Fault Condition

The condition of the ground fault is the status of the


ground-fault-light on arrival at the building site. The
ground fault light is:

• On – Steady
• On – Intermittently
• Off – Steady

Remember, once you’ve arrived and looked at the ground


fault light on the panel, don’t look at the light again until
after the ground fault has been found and fixed.

63
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

On – Steady

The ground fault is probably active on the


fire alarm system.

On – Intermittently

The ground fault could be intermittently


active (coming and going). This is the
“Dreaded Intermittent Ground Fault”
where it can’t be found if the light is off.

The ground fault could also be continuously active. If the


ground fault is constantly active, even when the ground
fault light is off, it is getting better and worse, only turning
on the ground fault light when its condition crosses a
“threshold” and the panel considers the ground fault to be
“bad enough.”
64
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Off – Steady

The ground fault could be gone, or the


ground fault could be active, just not bad
enough to turn on the ground fault light at
the moment.

Check Out the Ground Fault

In essence, when arriving on site to troubleshoot a ground


fault, check out the system very thoroughly before just
saying “The ground fault is gone for now, call me when it
returns.” More often than not, the ground fault is actually
there, just not bad enough to cross the threshold and turn
on the light.

65
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Ground Fault Type

• Hard – this is a direct DC (Direct Current) electrical


path making a low resistance connection from the
copper current carrying wires to the building ground

• Soft – This is an indirect DC, sometimes high


resistance, and usually voltage dependent electrical
path to ground – water or pinched insulation are
common causes for this type of ground fault

• Induced – This is a forced-into-the-system AC


(Alternating Current) or DC signal or power – usually, it
can’t be measured with an ohmmeter. Sometimes the
effects from inducing the ground fault accumulate over
long distances or from multiple places

66
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Hard Ground Fault

The easiest to categorize and


most common type is the hard
ground fault. For the technician
hunting a ground fault, either
it’s there or it isn’t. Besides a
standard multimeter, no other
test equipment is required to
find the hard ground fault.

When using a standard


ohmmeter, the measured
resistances will usually be less
than 20 Ohms, often less than
10 Ohms. As the technician gets
close to finding the ground fault in the building, the
resistance gets down close to 0.0 Ohms.

The hard ground fault is easy to visualize because we have


all seen that touching two wires together makes an
electrical connection. It should be realized, though, that
most of the hard ground faults are caused by bad
installation practices.
67
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Nicked wire insulation, badly striped insulation, overly


zealous wire pulling, too many wires in a junction box, are
all bad installation practices that result in hard ground
faults. The ground faults aren’t there when the Certificate
of Occupancy is signed by the fire marshal. Later, however,
after the system has been in operation, the bad
installation practices are discovered. The “later” can be
days, weeks, months, and even years.

A common cause of hard ground faults is remodeling work


or other construction work.

68
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Using an Ohmmeter When Looking for a Hard
Ground Fault

A Hard Ground Fault can be thought of as a metal-to-metal


contact.

Using a light bulb and a battery type continuity tester, the


continuity of a hard ground fault can easily be tested. One
lead of the continuity tester is connected to the wire being

69
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
tested, and the other lead of the tester is connected to
building ground.

If between the wire being tested and building ground


there’s a metal-to-metal contact (hard ground fault), the
light turns on.

An ohmmeter will show more detail about the ground


fault. Connecting an ohmmeter the same way as the
continuity tester, if the ohmmeter shows 5 ohms to 15
ohms, the metal-to-metal ground fault is quite far away
along the wire. The wire has resistance, and this resistance
shows up on the ohmmeter.

Then again, if the resistance is less than 1.0 ohm, the


metal-to-metal contact is close because only short wires
will have low resistance.

Of course, if the resistance is somewhat the same as the


end of line resistor, then the ground fault is being
measured through the end of line resistor, and the ground
fault is on the other wire.

70
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Soft Ground Fault

More difficult to
categorize than a hard
ground fault is the soft
ground fault.

Oftentimes, even
though the ground
fault light on the panel
isn’t turned on, the
soft ground fault is
still on the fire alarm system.

A soft ground fault is a connection made through a semi-


insulator; between the fire alarm copper conductor and
building ground metal, a soft ground fault is formed by a
material that conducts poorly, and varies its resistance
according to the applied voltage.

A semi-insulator is a voltage-dependent resistor:


apply a greater voltage and the resistance goes

71
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
down, apply a lessor voltage and the resistance
goes up.

A soft ground fault is a real problem with high power


transformers, motors, and power lines. If the
insulation on the wire is leaking current, the
insulation is breaking down. Soon, a fire could result.

A Megger is a brand name test instrument used to


test for voltage dependence on the insulation on
wires (Soft Ground Faults). Called an Insulation
Tester, over a dozen manufactures make this test
instrument.

The semi-insulator electrically bridges the gap between


the copper fire alarm conductor and the metal of the
building ground system. It can be in the form of squished
or worn insulation around the wire, water (clean or dirty),
or even in the form of charred or damaged components.

72
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Measuring a Soft Ground Fault

When measuring a soft ground fault, different ohmmeters


will give radically varying results. These hard-to-
understand results are mostly caused by the different
voltages of the batteries inside the ohmmeter.

For instance, the resistance can be over 10 Meg Ohms


when measured with a 3 volt battery ohmmeter, but the
resistance can be less than 100,000 ohms when measured
with a 9 volt battery ohmmeter, and less than 100 ohms
when measured for ground fault presence by the fire
alarm panel with its 24 volt battery.

With a soft ground fault, one ohmmeter does not work like
another ohmmeter. Sometimes an insulation tester is
needed just to detect the same ground fault as the fire
alarm system can detect.

73
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Water Based Soft Ground Fault

A soft ground fault can be caused by a water based


electrical path to ground.

Water inside a conduit, water dripping on a smoke


detector because of an air conditioner leak, water coming
down an outside wall can get onto fire alarm circuitry and
cause a soft ground fault.
74
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Squished Insulation Based Soft Ground Fault

A soft ground fault can also be caused by pinched


insulation on wire, creating a weak electrical path to
ground.

A wire pinched between an air plenum and a concrete


wall, a wire pinched between a door holder magnet and its
back-box can squeeze the insulation so it is thin, and
causing a soft ground fault.
75
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Worn Insulation Based Soft Ground Fault

Insulation can be worn off, making it thin.

A wire to an air handler coming out of an unprotected


conduit or a wire coming out of an unprotected hole in a
junction box can easily cause a soft ground fault.

76
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The wearing off of insulation, though, can take many years
before the insulation is thin enough to become a soft
ground fault.

Using an Expensive Ohmmeter or an Insulation


Tester

A Soft Ground Fault can be thought of as a failure of the


insulation to keep all of the electrical current from flowing
between a fire alarm conductor and ground. It’s similar to
a hard ground fault in that the conduction is between one
or the other conductor and building ground, but it’s
different because there is no direct contact between the
conductor and ground.

The ground fault is soft because there is a semi-insulator


between the conductor and building ground. The semi-
insulator acts like a full insulator when the applied voltage
is less than, say, 4 to 5 volts. An ohmmeter with a 3 volt
battery is useless when the semi-insulator won’t conduct
at less than 4 to 5 volts; a 3 volt ohmmeter will read
infinite ohms.
77
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

The semi-insulator starts conducting more and more as


the voltage increases to maybe above 8 or 15 volts. Often,
ohmmeters with a 9 volt battery will detect a semi-
insulator that conducts at least a little at 9 volts; a 9 volt
ohmmeter may read the soft ground fault as anywhere
from 10 K Ohm to 10 Meg Ohm.

Then above 15 volts, the semi-insulator is often more of a


conductor. The ground fault detection circuitry in the fire
alarm panel uses at least 12 volts to detect a ground fault;
the ground fault light on the panel will often be turned on.

78
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Measuring with an Expensive Ohmmeter or
Insulation Tester

An insulation tester can be set to work at 20 to 40 volts. It


can detect ground faults that even the fire panel can’t
detect, yet.

79
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

The electrical breakdown voltages on the semi-insulators


are different for each soft ground fault, but overall, a semi-
insulator is an insulator at lower voltages, and a conductor
at higher voltages.

Remember, though, that the fire alarm panel will be using


at least 12 volts and up to 24 volts to detect a ground
fault. The bottom line is the fire alarm panel is using a
much higher voltage to test for ground fault than even
expensive voltmeters.

Example: Insulation Tester versus Expensive


Voltmeter

Insulation testers give a more definite reading of the soft


ground faults than even the best ohmmeters. After all, an
insulation tester is really an ohmmeter on steroids.

One time, I found a faulty lightning arrestor (surge


protector) that had lowered its threshold from 25 volts to
80
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
about 15 volts. Even though the panel intermittently
turned on its ground fault light, an expensive voltmeter
didn’t detect a problem.

The former fire alarm company’s technicians couldn’t find


the ground fault for weeks, and basically gave up even
looking.

Even though I was not familiar with the building, using an


insulation tester, I found and fixed the ground fault in
about 4 hours.

Off the Shelf Insulation Testers

The issue with using off-the-shelf insulation testers is that


until recently, there were almost no insulation testers that
tested circuits using less than 100 volts. Even now, the
ones that test using lower voltage usually have an
adjustment switch to allow it to switch from 100 volts
down to as low as 10 volts.

Having a 10 volt to 100 volt switch means that people (like


me) can accidently leave the tester on a higher voltage

81
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
range than 50 volts, or even greater, so the insulation
tester can, given the right circumstances, damage fire
alarm equipment. If a commercially made insulation tester
is used, make sure of the switch settings each and every
time.

The insulation tester I built for myself uses a battery


voltage of slightly less than 40 volts. Rather than using a
commercially made insulation tester that has some
potential to damage the fire alarm system, I prefer to
make my own insulation tester. That way I know that I am
not going to accidently damage the fire alarm system.

Build Your Own Insulation Tester

82
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
To build an insulation tester for use on fire alarm systems,
use the instructions printed in the Nuts and Volts
Magazine September 2010 Issue, Page 42. It’s on the web
at

http://nutsvolts.texterity.com/nutsvolts/201009/?folio=4
2&pg=42#pg42

When calling up that site, just by X-ing out of the


subscription request drop-down, you can read most of the
article. However, even if you're cheap like me, you still
might want to subscribe. The subscription isn't all that
expensive, it’s a good magazine for the electronic
hobbyist, and besides, you can read the full article.

The advantage to building your own tester is that you


learn more about soft ground faults, and more about the
testing for soft ground faults. Not only that, without
spending much money, you can possess a very useful test
instrument.

The disadvantage to the home-made test instrument is


that it really is a one-person test meter. It will never be an
industrial strength meter to be shared with other
83
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
technicians around the shop; unlike most store-bought
meters, it won't stand up to abuse.

Induced (Ghost) Ground Fault

You’ve experienced Hard Ground Faults that are real


metal-to-metal contacts, you’ve experienced Soft Ground
Faults that are metal-to-water-to-metal or metal-to-thin-
insulation-to-metal contacts, and once in a while, you’ve
experienced induced ground faults that aren’t hard or soft
ground faults.

Induced Ground Faults seem to be ghosts that are almost


impossible to detect, and even harder to find.

If the definition of a ground fault is a “physical description”


of a connection to building ground, then many induced
ground faults probably aren’t really “ground faults.” If the
definition of a ground fault is “functional description” of
electricity going where it doesn’t belong, then induced
ground faults are also “ground faults.”

84
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Induced ground faults, while not happening very often,
can’t always be detected with normal test equipment like
a standard ohmmeter or DC voltmeter, and they don’t
always turn on the ground fault light. Even though they
compromise the fire alarm system, sometimes they may
not even turn on the trouble light.

The induced ground faults may occur at random times or


they occur at certain times during the day or night.

They’re difficult to see – these are the real “Ghost Ground


Faults.” The induced ground faults really give ground faults
in general a bad name.

85
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Source or Power – “Normal” Ground Fault
versus “Induced” Ground Fault

Ground faults are electricity going to where it doesn’t


belong. Induced ground faults are electricity or Electro-
Magnetic Interference (EMI) from outside the fire alarm
system being forced into the fire alarm system.

With induced ground faults, knowing the source of the


introduced electricity or EMI is the first step in finding the
ground fault.

86
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Normally, we as technicians are so used to assuming that
the electricity for the ground fault is only from the fire
alarm system that we don’t even think about it.

The path for the extra electricity in a normal ground fault


goes in a well-defined route. The whole fire alarm system
is designed to function despite having a single ground
fault.

The assumption about where the extra electricity goes (its


pathway) works well with the hard and soft ground faults
that are most common. That’s because the power supply is
in the fire alarm panel.

Power from Outside the Fire Alarm System

The assumption that the fire alarm system is powering the


ground fault doesn’t work with induced ground faults.
Induced ground faults are caused by electrical power that
is introduced into the fire alarm system from other power
and signal sources. That extra electricity then messes up
the works. Sometimes that extra electricity is even
dangerous.

87
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

An induced ground fault can come from anywhere, follow


any electrical path through the fire alarm system in the
building, and leave the fire alarm system anywhere.

Knowing the exact pathway that the extra electricity is


taking as it goes through the fire alarm system isn’t the
important part; stopping the electricity from getting into
the fire alarm system is the important part.

88
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Detecting an Induced Ground Fault

Where the conductor is directly shorted to ground (hard


ground fault), it can be followed through the building
wiring using a standard ohmmeter.

When the conductor is partially shorted to ground through


water or thin insulation (soft ground fault), it can usually
be found with some higher priced ohmmeters, or easier,
found with a 20 volt to a maximum 40 volt insulation
tester (which is an ohmmeter on steroids).

Induced ground faults are different.

An ohmmeter or insulation tester usually can’t detect the


induced ground faults. To find them, induced ground faults
often require an AC or DC voltmeter, or even an
oscilloscope.

Fortunately, induced ground faults are not common, but


they do occur. When they do, a technician can spend a lot
of extra time trying to figure out what kind it is.

89
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Different Equipment Needed

Using an ohmmeter, or possibly an insulation tester, the


common ground faults are easily detected. Usually, the
resistance is measured between the fire alarm wires and
building ground. Even if the connection goes through
water, this is an electrical connection with ground.

However, the induced ground fault is different. Even


though to start tracking the induced ground fault, the loop
has to be disconnected the fire alarm system, a second
source of power or signals is still being applied to the loop.

This outside power can be:

• Directly applied DC
90
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
• Directly applied AC
• Magnetically coupled AC from power wires or speaker
audio wires inside conduit
• Received from a nearby radio or television station
• Other Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)

Remember, when looking for an induced ground fault, you


aren’t looking for a resistive connection to ground, you are
looking for a direct or indirect connection to external
power.

Induced Ground Fault Measuring Points

The measurements used to check for induced ground


faults include the common mode method and the
differential mode method. Usually, the common mode
method is the only test needed to find hard and soft
ground faults.

91
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Common Mode

In common mode measurements, each wire is checked for


AC or DC voltage using building ground (common to both
wires) for the reference voltage.

Common Mode Voltage is the AC or DC voltage common


to, or the same on both wires in the circuit.

92
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Differential Mode

The measurements used to check for induced ground


faults also include the differential mode method, not
usually used when looking for hard and soft ground faults.

In differential mode measurements, the pair of wires is


checked for the difference in AC or DC voltage using one
wire as the reference voltage for the other.

Differential Mode Voltage is the AC or DC voltage


difference between the two wires in the circuit.

93
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Using Hints to Categorize

Sometimes shortcuts can be used when first looking for


induced ground faults. The shortcuts are hints that can
save a lot of time, at least at the start.

The hints can show where the power or signal came from,
like:

• DC voltage gives the hint that the interference might


come from a DC power supply, and is coming into the
fire alarm system on a cross-connection that isn’t
supposed to be there
• 50 Hz or 60 Hz AC signal gives the hint that the
interference comes either directly or indirectly from
utility power
• 830 KHz (830,000 CPS) signal gives the hint that the
interference might be from an AM radio station

Watch out for DC measurements which are really AC


based. Sometimes an AC signal has a DC component.
When hunting ground faults that show both AC signals and
a DC component, chase down the AC signals first. When
94
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
the induced AC component of the ground fault is fixed, the
DC component may be corrected at the same time.

If the power or signal is induced magnetically (like extra


wires in a conduit) or electrostatically (Electro-Magnetic
Interference or EMI), the source can seem to be from a
ghost. Common sense, though, can sometimes be used to
help locate these sources of power and signal.

When looking for ghost ground faults, make sure there’s


nothing else in the conduit besides fire alarm wires, and
check for radio and TV towers in the area. Checking for
these problems could save a lot of time.

95
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Safe to the Fire Alarm System

The fire alarm system is designed to detect and handle a


hard or a soft ground fault safely; when this type of
ground fault occurs, the ground fault light comes on and
nothing burns out in the panel or any other device.

96
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The internal power supplies for the hard and soft ground
faults include the internal power supply and the backup
batteries in:

• The main control panel


• Auxiliary control panels
• Annunciators
• Booster Notification Appliance Circuit (NAC) power
supplies
• Auxiliary power supplies
• Other fire alarm equipment

97
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Unsafe to People and the Fire Alarm System

Induced ground faults are different; induced ground faults


are powered by external AC or DC power sources.

Until the induced ground fault is found and fixed, what the
added electricity is doing to the fire alarm system is
anybody’s guess.

Usually, the induced power and signals are safe, but


sometimes utility power is introduced. With utility power,
the system becomes a shock hazard to people, and
98
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
probably burns out the ground fault detection circuit in
the control panel. (I know from personal experience that
firefighters complain about being shocked.)

Sources of Induced Power and Signals

The sources of power or signal for an induced ground fault


include:

• Utility power
• Building service equipment like HVAC air handlers
• Elevator control systems
• Radio and TV stations
• Other

When the fire alarm wire is physically touching other


sources of power, the induced power is caused by a
directly connected ground fault. For instance, the induced
power could come through carbon paths in a burned-out
control relay. Lightning or transient voltage spikes have
often produced this electrical pathway.

99
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When the carbon path connects the fire alarm system
wiring to utility power, the whole system becomes
electrically hot. More than once, I’ve had to correct this
type of problem.

Induced ground faults don’t have to be directly connected.


Using crosstalk (ElectroMagnetic Interference or EMI),
they could be caused by an indirectly coupled ground
fault. For instance, power can be magnetically coupled
into the fire alarm wire using transformer action inside a
conduit.

Many Types of Induced Ground Fault

Three of the harder to detect types of induced ground


faults are:

• Magnetically coupled AC current crosstalk from non-


fire alarm wires in the same conduit as fire alarm
wires
• Stray AC voltage on conduit ground (safety ground)

100
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
• Radio Frequency EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference
or RF)

AC Current Crosstalk Inside Conduit

This interference comes from transformer action


(crosstalk) between wires inside the magnetic core, called
conduit.

A common source for this kind of induced ground fault


would be where the fire alarm wires share the same
conduit as, say, an air handler.

101
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
How Does Conduit Make Crosstalk Worse?

Starting out, we
see the
magnetic field
around a
magnet.
Whether it’s a
bar magnet or
an
electromagnet,
a magnet
generates a
magnetic field.

102
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

If we add a
magnetic
conductor
to pass the
magnetic
field from
one pole of
the magnet
to the
other, the magnetic field is concentrated, making it
stronger.

103
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

To transfer power and signals from one wire to the other,


a transformer uses this generated magnetic field. The
wires, whether coiled or not, generate a magnetic field
and also produce power using this generated magnetic
field.

104
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Just as with any other transformer, a conduit is a long


magnetic core (it’s made of iron), and the wires, even
though they aren’t coiled, still magnetically transfer power
and signals between each other.

105
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
This is a real problem. (Don’t laugh, I’ve had to correct this
exact problem.)

You’re right, originally there was no issue. The original old


fire alarm system probably was a 110 Volt AC system and
the newer fire alarm system just used the same old wires
in the building. Obviously, the company upgrading the fire
alarm system thought (incorrectly) that a fire alarm wire is
a fire alarm wire. (I’ve seen this done in several older
buildings.)

One particular system had some of the fire alarm wires


routed through the main utility power disconnect panel
for a school.

Remember, though, for the fire alarm technician,


the biggest concern is not the exact route that the
electricity takes, the biggest concern is to get the
fire alarm wire out of that conduit.

106
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Follow the Wire

This kind of crosstalk can usually be detected and followed


through the building using an AC voltmeter instead of an
ohmmeter.

The magnetically coupled signal (induced ground fault)


may be inserted into the system in several places; the fire
alarm wires may share several conduits with AC power
wires. Removing the fire alarm wire from one conduit may
reduce the signal only a little bit. Just keep on following
the AC.

To reduce the induced power or signal to a manageable


level, there might be several places where the fire alarm
wire has to be removed from conduit.

107
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Stray AC Voltage on Conduit Ground

Ohms Law is E = I x R, and even though conduit is often


used as a safety ground, conduit is still a long resistor.

108
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Electrical current passing through a resistor will produce a
voltage from one end of the resistor (conduit) to the other.
Simply because conduit is supposed to be ground-voltage
potential, doesn’t make it so; Ohms Law does not go away
for conduit.

Several times, I have measured a 0.7 volts AC difference


between ground at one end of a conduit compared to the
other.

Ground-Voltage Sensitive

When there is ground-voltage sensitive equipment, like in


fire alarm systems, the use of conduit as the only ground is
a real problem. The power source for this kind of ground
fault is the stray electrical currents in the building ground
system itself, and also the conduit safety-grounding
system.

The stray electrical currents could be from:

• A leakage to ground in an air conditioner somewhere

109
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
• Some leakage in the lighting system
• Some other source of stray current on the grounding
system

Because the stray electrical currents exist, there is stray


voltage. The stray voltage can turn into an induced ground
fault.

Safety Ground vs Signal Ground

Keep in mind the difference between a conduit safety-


ground and a green wire signal-ground:

• The safety-ground of the conduit grounding system is


there to prevent electrocution or an electrical fire
• The signal-ground of a green wire grounding system
is there to prevent interference on electronic signal
systems, including fire alarm systems

110
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When a separate green ground wire for signal ground isn’t
installed, the AC voltage riding on the conduit ground can
get into the fire alarm system. It has happened.

Whereas this isn’t normally thought of as a ground fault,


this is an induced ground fault from the stray currents in
the safety grounding system. The electricity from this
induced ground fault can affect the fire alarm system.

Look Around in Data Rooms

Inside recently installed data


rooms, there is a big copper
ground plate. The ground plate
is connected with a heavy green
insulated ground wire directly to
the building ground stake.

This extra ground is not installed


because someone wants to
spend money uselessly. This
extra ground is installed to

111
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
prevent stray voltages on the safety-ground system from
getting into sensitive electronics in the data room.

Keep in mind that the fire alarm system is also made up of


sensitive electronics.

While that heavy of a green wire ground isn’t usually


needed for safety with the low current fire alarm system, a
separate green wire ground is needed for signal ground –
to reduce the effects from the stray electricity in the
building’s safety ground system.

112
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Speaker Circuits

Another source of interfering signals is magnetically self-


induced.

Even though in reality, the power source for the


magnetically self-induced ground fault is originally in the
fire alarm system, because the power is being magnetically

113
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
transmitted and then coupled magnetically back into the
system, this cross-talking is still an induced ground fault.

High power audio cables, the ones powering the speakers,


should never be in the same conduit as low power
microphone audio or even pre-amped audio. The high
currents in the speaker lines will couple power into the
microphone or pre-amped audio circuits (crosstalk), and
then electronically feed back into itself.

Many times, this feeding back is so high pitched it can’t be


heard, but it will overpower any other audio on the system
and it will sound like the audio just cuts out, or gets quiet
and bad sounding.

When the electronic feedback occurs, sometimes the


overload light will turn on for the audio amplifier, but
don’t count on it.

Even overhead paging circuits, although they have nothing


to do with the fire alarm system, can interfere with fire
alarm circuits (crosstalk) like the Signaling Line Circuit (SLC)
and cause intermittent troubles on the fire alarm system.

114
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
On one occasion, that took some hard troubleshooting at a
large hospital to find and fix the crosstalk.

This cross-talking doesn’t even require conduit as a


magnetic core. When the cables are just bundled together,
this cross-talking will occur.

As a general rule of thumb, keep all speaker level audio


cables out of the same conduit and out of the same cable
bundle that has any other fire alarm circuits, or for that
matter, any circuit at all. If you talk to commercial audio
reinforcement people or sound studio people, they will tell
you to keep speaker wires at least several inches away
from any other wire.

115
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Crosstalk into the Speaker Line

In order for a human being to hear fire alarm evacuation


instructions, a speaker system creates sound. That means
that crosstalk interference into a speaker circuit is a
problem; the human ear automatically adjusts to even a
quiet sound if the environment is quiet enough.
116
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

In a quiet environment like a bedroom in an apartment or


condominium, even the quietest sound emanating from a
speaker will be heard.

If the speaker circuit is picking up crosstalk from the


Signaling Line Circuit (SLC), then, even though the picked-
up crosstalk produces a very faint sound, people will hear
the quiet sound and they will complain.

Quite a number of places have this problem.

An example is a condominium in a nearby city. When their


first fire alarm system (conventional) was installed, the
Initiating Device Circuit (IDC), which uses non-varying DC
voltages to send signals, was installed in the same bundle
as the speaker wires. At the time the system was installed,
this bundling of wires was not a crosstalk problem.

Later, the fire alarm system was upgraded to an


addressable system. With the upgrade, to eliminate th
high cost of rewiring the whole building, the old wires
were used. This put the AC signals on the Signaling Line
Circuit (SLC) next to the speaker wires in the same bundle.
117
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The SLC signal was magnetically coupled through crosstalk
from the SLC into the speaker wires.

Yes, this is a very low-level sound. Yes, people do complain


because, even though the sound is quiet, they do hear it in
their home. No, it’s not cheap to fix once the building is
finished and occupied.

For these people, because the fix was very expensive, the
best that could be done was to tell the people that “this is
the way it is.”

Bottom line, just keep speaker wires separate from


anything else.

118
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Radio Frequency EMI

No matter
how many
splices are in a
wire, any wire
is an antenna.
The same wire
can be used as
a transmitter
antenna or as
a receiving
antenna. In
fact, the same wire can be used to receive and transmit at
the same time.

Because of Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI or RF), the


received signals are sometimes a problem. Particularly
from AM radio, FM radio, and TV transmitters, RF from
transmitted radio signals can induce ground faults in a fire
alarm system.

Some of these RF induced ground faults have shown up as


intermittent panel troubles, ground faults, line/dev faults.
119
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
In extreme cases, false alarms and overall failure of the
whole fire alarm system can result.

On the fire alarm wires, on the building ground system, on


the sprinkler system, on the electrical system, the power
for this RF interference is often coming originally from an
off-site radio or TV transmitter.

Often, the radio or TV transmission antenna is within sight


of the building, but
in some cases, the RF transmitter can be as far away as
five kilometers (three or four miles).

Conduit will usually shield the wiring from these EMI


induced ground faults. However, any free-wiring in the
building can pick up the radio frequency (RF) signals, and
then carry the picked-up RF signals inside conduit back to
other equipment. Even the conduit of the electrical system
and the iron pipes in a sprinkler system are receiving
antennas and can crosstalk interference to the fire alarm
system.

In a few cases, this RF or EMI interference has been a huge


problem.
120
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Usually AC or DC voltmeters, ohmmeters, and insulation


testers are low frequency devices; these will not detect
radio and TV signals. The only way to detect this kind of
interference is to use an oscilloscope, or at least look out
the window to see if there are any nearby radio or TV
towers. (Just seeing a tower on the other side of the street
can tell a technician a lot about the interference.)

Keep in mind that, by international treaty, the radio and


TV stations are not responsible for any interference that is
received in the fire alarm system. However, to help
understand the interference, a call to the Chief Engineer of
the interfering station may result in getting good free
advice. It’s a good idea to get the free advice. I’ve done
that.

121
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
The Hunt

Correcting a ground fault so it won’t interfere with the fire


alarm system is not difficult; most of the time stopping a
ground fault requires re-insulating or replacing the wire, a
device, or the component that is leaking electricity or
inducing the electricity. Sometimes, just moving a fire
alarm wire will correct the ground fault.

Finding the location of the ground fault is the time-


consuming part.

Give Notice if Notice is Needed

In a few places, 24 hour notice is required to even enter


apartments, condominiums, or even some offices. If the
exact location isn’t known for where the ground fault is
located, the best notice is for all occupants to be ready for
noise (a ground fault on a Notification Appliance Circuit or
NAC) and entry to fix the ground fault. If building
management won’t give this kind of blanket notice, make
sure every possible place that might be entered is given
notice.
122
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Remember, it is better to give notice and not enter than to


not have permission to enter where the problem is
located. (I had to enter an apartment at 11:00 PM on a
holiday once to fix a problem.)

Guess-and-Verify

All troubleshooting
is guess-and-verify.

A technician
guesses at where
the problem is, and then verifies whether the problem is
there. Then guesses again and verifies again. Then guesses
again …

Get used to it, part of the hunt is making wrong guesses. If


a technician isn’t making wrong guesses, the technician
isn’t trying. Remember, wrong guesses are good, they
show where the problem isn’t.

123
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When troubleshooting, though, what takes the greatest
time is verifying all of the wrong guesses.

Divide-and-Conquer – Looking for Ground


Faults

Divide-and-Conquer for troubleshooting ground


faults is different from Divide-and-Conquer for an
open fault on a circuit. Dividing and conquering
for a ground fault requires that the circuit be
disconnected at each location that is checked.
Only after the ground fault is found can the circuit
be re-connected.

Usually, somewhere in the building, the ground fault is


hidden. But to make sure the ground fault isn’t in the
control panel, the loop with the suspected ground fault
has to be separated from the panel.

124
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When a loop, both sides of it, is separated from the panel,
the separation divides the loop from the panel. The

ground fault can then be verified to be either in the panel,


or in the loop. If the ground fault is outside the panel, one
of the easier methods to use to find the ground fault is
“Divide-and-Conquer”.

If the ground fault is in the loop, somewhere in the


building, that’s an awful lot of devices that have to be
looked at. What’s even worse, the ground fault could be in
the wiring hidden in the walls between devices.

A technician can get started and systematically search for


the ground fault. To systematically search, start at one end
of the loop and work toward the other, looking for the
ground fault at each device.

125
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
But then again, the technician can save time and hunt for
the ground fault the easy way… Divide-and-Conquer. To

divide and conquer, guess where the middle of the loop is,
and divide the loop there. When divided, there are now
two shorter loops to be verified to have a ground fault,
one shorter loop at a time.
Divide and conquer again. Once the ground fault is verified
to be on one of the loops, go to the middle of that loop.
Divide the loop so there are two loops, and verify which
loop has the ground fault.

126
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Divide and conquer again. The loops are shorter.

In not too long, the number of possible places to look for


the ground fault is manageable.

127
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Further Hunting Tips

There is no set way to troubleshoot, there are lots of


ideas, though.

Get the “Low Hanging Fruit” First

Check the low hanging fruit, the easy stuff, first. If by


checking the easy stuff, the ground fault can be found or
at least followed, lots of time can be saved.

For instance, if the Signaling Line Circuit (SLC) loop of wire


is going through a smoke detector on a high ceiling, and
also goes through a nearby pull station, divide the SLC loop
at the pull station. Even if the pull station isn’t near the
center of the SLC loop, a lot of time could be saved
compared to getting out a tall enough ladder.

128
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Take Lots of Pictures

A technician can’t take too many pictures. Pictures are a


memory device. Pictures can be used to verify where the
wires had been landed on the printed circuit card or on the
device like a detector or horn/strobe.

Take pictures because no one can assume that the color of


the wire insulation is an absolute indication of polarity.
Not everyone follows the normal color code standard for
positive and negative wires; the wire may have been
installed in reverse. A technician needs a really good
memory to always land the wires on the terminals they
came off of; pictures taken before the wires were
disconnected is one of the best means of remembering.

129
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Voltmeter Verification of NAC Wires

To confirm the connection, a voltmeter can also be used.


Be extremely careful, though, when confirming the
polarity for a Notification Appliance Circuit (NAC). Keep in
mind that when the NAC circuit is not in alarm, the polarity
on the wires is opposite of the terminal markings on the
horn/strobe.

To find out about the polarity reversal on a


Notification Appliance Circuit (NAC or loop with
horns and strobes), see

www.douglaskrantz.com/BlogReversingNAC.html

for more details.

130
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Owner Verification (Explaining the Ground Fault)

When the ground fault is found, before making repairs,


take pictures of the actual ground fault. When trying to
explain to the owner what happened, pictures help a lot.
Sometimes, unless there is a picture to help explain things,
the owner won’t quite even be able to grasp what caused
the ground fault. (Like when a junction box in the trash
room ceiling is full of water.)

Disconnect the Panel to Troubleshoot

Once the loop with the ground fault is found, disconnect it


from the panel so the panel doesn’t affect the
measurements. Remember, the panel has ground fault
detection circuitry, so the panel is also connected to
building ground. When the panel is disconnected from
loop of wires being troubleshoot, the panel won’t affect
the readings.

Also, keep in mind that if the loop is a Class A loop, all four
wires of the loop have to be disconnected from the panel.

131
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Check Addressable Missing Devices

A modified divide-and-conquer can be done on a T-tapped


Signaling Line Circuit (SLC). This works especially well when
the locations of T-taps are known.

The first step is to disconnect the panel like would be done


on a normal divide-and-conquer. Then go to the first big T-
tap or Star-tap. Breaking the circuit apart at the T-tap or
Star-tap divides up the circuit into three or more even
shorter segments.

132
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Find the segment with the ground fault, and disconnect it.
Reconnect all of the other circuits, and reconnect the
panel.

There needs to be some common sense used here. If the


ground fault shows up again at the panel again, that
means that the ground fault is on the shorter loop still
connected to the panel. At this point, the panel will show
trouble with the devices are not on the ground fault.

Usually, though, the ground fault does not come back on


the panel. When the ground fault has not returned, many
of the devices will have been reconnected, and the only
devices that are in trouble will be on the segment with the
ground fault. Their location will be displayed on the panel
as being in trouble, and that will save time trying to figure
out where wires run.

When There Aren’t Any As-Builts

So a technician can see where to go to find a ground fault;


as-builts show where circuits run in a building. For a

133
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
technician trying to find a ground fault, though, as-builts
are usually not available.

The problem is that to be able to use building As-builts


when following the wire to a ground fault, there’s only
three prerequisites needed.

1. The process of making an As-Built diagram of the


building in the first place was completed according to
the NFPA Code
2. All modifications made in later years to the system,
after the original construction, have also been
changed on the original As-built drawings
3. The As-builts drawings are actually on site and
available to be used

There are dozens of reasons that as-builts are not


available. What’s worse, each reason by itself can prevent
the as-built drawings from being available to use.

• The installer didn’t think As-builts are important so


no As-builts were made
• The installer “forgot” to document parts of the
installation so the As-builts are incomplete
134
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
• Some of the As-builts were lost during construction
so the As-builts don’t include some areas
• It will take 2 hours to get to the shop to find the As-
builts, and 2 hours to return to even start hunting
the ground fault on site – 4 hours of time wasted just
driving
• The fire alarm company’s office didn’t compile
everything so the As-builts are incomplete
• The plans that were submitted to get the bid were
sent to the contractor instead of the final As-built
plans so the As-builts show what was proposed to be
done rather than what was actually done
• After the contractor submitted the As-builts to the
owner, the owner kept the As-builts at the main
office, so the As-builts are only available to the
architect
• The plans are in a locked room on site preventing any
access to the As-builts
• The As-builts are so old that they are in danger of
being torn apart when unrolled, so the technician
can’t look at the As-builts
• No one on site knows how to get a hold of the plans
so the As-builts stay in storage

135
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
• The building was remodeled, and the As-builts were
never updated – crucial changes aren’t shown on the
plans
• The original installation was done by a different
company so the original As-builts are not available
• And so on…

Needless to say, there are far more reasons that As-builts


are not available than reasons that As-builts are available.

Yes, make an effort to find accurate as-Builts; no, don’t


waste too much time looking for them. Remember, the
task at hand is not to correct past mistakes on the As-
builts made by who-knows-who; the task at hand is to fix a
ground fault.

136
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Figure Out How the Building is Wired

When there aren’t any accurate As-builts, the technician


has to be the one figuring out where the loop actually
runs.

The wires for the loop are hidden in the walls and ceilings
of the building, figuring out where the wires run is a guess-
and-verify process.

The loop of wire for the Mini-horns in an apartment


building, for instance, often are routed horizontally
137
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
through the basement garage, and rise vertically to each
stack of apartments above there. Then again, the
horizontal segment may run though the second-floor
apartments, or the horizontal segment may run through
the attic.

In the same building, the wires for the detectors are often
run horizontally down the hall. Older retro-fit buildings,
may have the detectors in vertical risers, also.

To reduce wire length, the door holders often are run in


vertical risers with T-taps to the other side of the door pair
at each floor.

None of these ideas are reliable, though. Don’t even count


on identical buildings being wired the same way, all wire
paths have to be verified.

138
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Check Supervision Voltage for Loop Being
Worked On

Supervision voltage is the voltage sent out by the panel to


“supervise” the loop; the supervision voltage is used to
check the continuity of the wires in the loop.

Whenever checking for the ground fault at a device, make


it a habit to check for supervision voltage before
disconnecting wires from any devices on the loop.

139
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

If the loop is disconnected inside the panel, but there’s


supervision voltage present on the wires of the device, go
someplace else because that device is not on the loop with
the ground fault.

140
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Check for End of Line Resistor

Finding out
which pair of
wires in a box
goes to the
end of the line
resistor tells
the technician
to check for
the ground
fault nearer
the panel, or
further from
the panel.

Of course,
when the loop
is taken apart in other places, this won’t work, but try it
anyway; trying it may save time.

141
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Turn On the Horns and Strobes

This tactic, of course, will only work if the ground fault is


on a Notification Appliance Circuit (NAC). When there are
people occupying the building, this is also a last-resort
tactic to find out where the wires run.

Sometimes, checking supervision voltage doesn’t show


where the circuit with the ground fault runs in the
building. Sometimes the technician has to annoy everyone
by turning on the horns and strobes, and walking through
the whole area to see and hear what is sounding off.

There is no really good method to turn on the horns and


strobes without activating an alarm or performing a fire
drill.

Talk to management first. Let management know what is


going on. Remember the management may have better
ideas. Find out the best time to sound the alarm. If you
don’t talk to anyone first, just watch their annoyance level
skyrocket.

142
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When putting the panel into alarm or into drill, first
disconnect one wire from each of the normal NACs
(Notification Appliance Circuits, the circuits with the horns
and strobes).

Leave the NAC with the ground fault connected to the


panel as normal.

Once the horns or strobes on the ground faulted circuit


are found, other methods of fining the ground fault can be
used.

Find Out Wire Distance to the Ground Fault by


Checking Resistance-to-Ground

Here’s a trick I was taught a few months after I started in


the fire alarm business.

143
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
When measuring a hard ground fault with the ohmmeter,
look closely at the exact resistance reading. Usually, it will
show the resistance of the wire between the technician

measuring the ground fault and the actual ground fault.


The greater the resistance, the farther it is to the ground
fault; the lessor the resistance, the closer it is to the
ground fault. Depending on how accurate the meter is at
very low resistance, if the meter measures 0.0 Ohms, the
ground fault is within a few feet.

Think of troubleshooting this way as the game of “Warmer


and Cooler”. When the resistance goes up, it’s getting
cooler; when the resistance goes down, it’s getting
warmer.

144
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Knowing this can save a lot of time in the divide-and-
conquer troubleshooting process.

Follow the Wire

Many times,
while
troubleshooting
(hunting ground
faults counts as
troubleshooting),
giving up and
doing the
troubleshooting
the hard way is
actually the easy
way.

Following the
wire is often the
final tip for
looking for the ground fault because the short-cuts shown

145
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
earlier all have their limits. Those earlier tips will only get a
technician close to a ground fault.

One example is a ground fault inside of a conduit. Even


dividing-and-conquering won’t help when the ground fault
is found to be somewhere inside a 200 foot long (60
meter) conduit.

Yes, this happens, and once the earlier tips have been used
up, physically following the wire (or the conduit) shows
where to find the tight elbows. I have found several
ground faults that way.

In another instance, the wire could be


tied tightly to a threaded rod and now
the threads have cut into the
insulation, causing a ground fault.

Then again, the wire could be pinched


between metal and concrete, or a
metal truss and the ceiling deck.

Once the divide-and-conquer tip has reached its limit, start


following the wire.
146
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Put the System Back Together after Taking It


Apart

Put everything back together again. Use the trouble light


on the panel to indicate when everything is back together.
If the light is still on, find the trouble and fix it.

To make sure all the wires are landed exactly where they
were removed, use the pictures that were taken.

Perform a full walk-through of the areas that were taken


apart, looking for anything that was missed: loose ends
like open ceiling tiles or junction box covers, devices
hanging by their wires, or anything else that can be seen.

To make sure that after it had been taken apart, it was


completely put back together, test the fire alarm system.

Emphasis for the test should be:

147
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
• “Does the system detect fires?”
• “Does system warn people?”
• “Does the system shut down, open, or close what it’s
supposed to?”

Also, make sure the system calls the Central Station


Monitoring (CSM).

After testing, the monitoring company should always be


asked questions to make sure the CSM did receive alarms.
If everything is restored at your end, make sure that they
show that everything is restored at their end.

CYA Paperwork

After troubleshooting and fixing the fire alarm system, do


the CYA paperwork to show that the fire alarm system was
troubleshoot and fixed. Remember, if it aint on paper, it
didn’t happen; make sure that everyone will know it did
happen. (Make sure it is shown in writing that the system
was working as normal when it was finished.)

148
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
If later, for any reason, there’s a fire or an injury, those in
authority will read everything about the maintenance that
was done on the fire alarm system. When completing the
paperwork, make sure that those in authority will know
that the fire alarm system was tested and it worked as
normal once the maintenance was completed.

149
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
References

Keep in mind that Codes, Rules, and Laws are always


changing; the electron, though, has not changed from right
after the big-bang until now. Even though some of the
books listed here were published before you were born,
the books are, and will be, valid.

National Fire Alarm Code Handbook


Including NFPA 72, 1999 through 2017
Published by the National Fire Protection Association, Inc.,
One Batterymarch Park, Quincy, Massachusetts 02169

National Electrical Code Handbook


Including NFPA 70, 1990 through 2017
Published by the National Fire Protection Association, Inc.,
One Batterymarch Park, Quincy, Massachusetts 02169

150
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults

Fire Alarm Signaling Systems – Second Edition – 1994


Richard W. Bukowski, P. E.
Robert J. O’Larghlin, P. E.
A joint project of: National Fire Protection Association and
Society of Fire Protection Engineers

Electronic Communication – Fourth Edition - 1980


Robert L. Shrader
Published by McGraw-Hill Book Company – Various Cities

International Building Code – 2006


International Code Council, Inc., 4051 West Flossmoor
Road, Country Club Hills, IL 60478

Basic Electronics – 1977


Bernard Grobe
Published by McGraw-Hill Book Company – Various Cities

151
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Audio Cyclopedia – Second Edition - 1974
Howard M. Tremaine
Published by Howard W. Sams Co., Inc., The Bobbs-Merrill
Co., Inc., Indianapolis, Kansas City, New York

Conventional Current and Electron Flow


http://www.mi.mun.ca/users/cchaulk/eltk1100/ivse/ivs
e.htm
Marine Institute
Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of
Newfoundland
Last Referenced January 2019

Conventional Current and Electron Flow


http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_1/7.html
All About Circuits
EETech Media, LLC.
Last Referenced January 2019

Mysterious Rays
152
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
http://www.aip.org/history/electron/jjrays.htm
AIP | American Institute of Physics
Last Referenced January 2019

Experiments by J.J. Thomson in 1897 led to the discovery


of a fundamental building block of matter
http://www.aip.org/history/electron/
AIP | American Institute of Physics
Last Referenced January 2019

Diode
http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Diode
Engineering and Technology History Wiki
Last Referenced January 2019

The Vacuum Tube of John Ambrose Fleming


http://history-
computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/diode.html
153
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
History of Computers
Last Referenced January 2019

Cathode Ray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray
Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia
Last Referenced January 2019

Diode
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Diode
New World Encyclopedia
Last Referenced January 2019

WHICH WAY DOES THE “ELECTRICITY” REALLY FLOW?


http://amasci.com/amateur/elecdir.html
William Beaty
Science Hobbyist
154
Make It Work – Hunting Ground Faults
Last Referenced January 2019

155

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy