Help with Zelio!

I need help. I have 6 zelios that need to talk with each other. I'm setting up an evacuation system at my mill. I have 2 pull station at each zelio and a horn coming into it. What is the easiest way I can set this up..When the zelio is pulled all horns will sound for a given amount of time (30 seconds or so)

Cheers!!

Hello,

I have not used Zelio but these look much like the small Siemens Logos and I have used lots of these.

These small logic relays are not really ment to talk to each other per say.

Could you do it with these logic relays, Well, yes, BUT you would have to have to Daisy chain a hard wired circuit through 1 relay output of each Zelio (in you logic make these relays N/C) then take the end of that circuit and parallel it to an input of each Zelio.

(Depending on the voltage you are using you may have to watch phasing of the inputs to each as it will need to be the same for all the controllers)

When a pull station is activated have it open the relay for that related Zelio which will open the Daisy chain and transition the inputs to all Zelios from 1 to 0 (true to false) set your logic in each Zelio so that upon this transition each will set off the Horn at its location.

Honestly though I would not do this if I were you.
You will have to run hard wire anyway so why have the Zelio in the circuit at all. It will just be another point of possible failier of your circuit.

For instance if one is powered down for some reason.
You dont want these horns going off and evacuating your plant for no reason.

I would probaly just hard wire all your pull stations (N/C) back to one central location and Daisy chain them through a group of termial blocks (at once cental location)this will make troubleshooting a wire break much easier.

Then use the end of this circuit to control a relay that will set off all the horns and have a timer to set the duration of the alarm.

If you wanted you could use one Zelio at this locaion for the inputs from the pull stations, timer and output to the relay driving the horns, make sure your relay is rated to for the combined current of all horns.

If you have a Zelio with a Screen on it you can use this to see any wire break from the pull stations to your inputs)

Also If this is critial system that is regulated by a goverment agency you may need to see if the Zelio qualifys for this application. Not sure of your regs so I cant say.

I have not seen your plant to know the logistics of doing this, so maybe in your case it would not be that easy.

If you had controllers in all these locations that were already on a common network then what you are trying to do may be more fesible.

I may be wrong about this and if I am others will be along shortly to tell me so, but just from a quick look that is how I see it.

Hope this helps. If you need a drawing let me know and I can put something together for you.

BCS

Zelio

Well. Maybe the zelio isnt the way to go really then. Myself and a couple of other guys are just brainstorming on what we should do. We could put a micrologix contoller in? Wire everything back to it but that would be alot of wiring. We have ethernet run between stations as it is right now with number 14 wire going to each horn. So since we have the wire there already we might aswell use it. I see your point if one zelio crashes for whatever reason.

Shorter reply this time.

After walking away and thinking about this for more than 2 seconds.

I think you would be better off hard wiring this like I described but purchase or build a system that is like a fire alarm system.

That way a wire break will give you a fault indication and not set off the alarm horns.

I am sure your management would not be very happy for work to stop and your plant be evacuated for no reason.

BCS

Right on thanks. Ur way seems logical. I thought i could maybe get away with the zelios, but coming back to a common spot makes more sense. Cheers

We have ethernet run between stations as it is right now with number 14 wire going to each horn.

Click to expand...

The Schneider Zelio Logic Smart Relay does not have a built-in Ethernet port (only wireless Bluetooth). You must buy a separate add-on module to get whatever communications you desire. The SR3NET01BD module is the add-on Ethernet communications interface.
http://www.schneider-electric.com/p...-plc-for-commercial-machines/531-zelio-logic/

Lancie1 said:

The Schneider Zelio Logic Smart Relay does not have a built-in Ethernet port (only wireless Bluetooth). You must buy a separate add-on module to get whatever communications you desire. The SR3NET01BD module is the add-on Ethernet communications interface.
http://www.schneider-electric.com/p...-plc-for-commercial-machines/531-zelio-logic/

Click to expand...

Lancie

I did not even consider looking to see if add-on comms were avalible for these small controllers.
Thanks for pointing this out for the OP. (and myself)

OP
So if you got the comms modules for each of these then "Maybe" it would be "Possible" to use them for what you are trying to do.

I am not sure of how you would message back and forth between 6 of them via ethernet.
Lancie might be able to help you there?

You might still want to look into a way to give fault indication for cable break and not have alarm sound if this does happen.

Personally I still think that you would be better off with a hard wired system for this instead of using 6 Zelio.

Sorry for misleading you if it is indeed possible to accomplish this with a Zelio.

BCS

I think you were about right with your first assessment - maybe possible, but with Zelios, it will be a limited system. If the evacuation function is critical, or required by some regulation, this is not the way to go.

Hey guys, Thanks for the help. Sounds like going with a hard wired system is the way to go.

So basically here is what I got. I have 6 pull stations (At each pull station I have 2 buttons, a fire alarm button and an evac button). I have the horns and buttons for each area coming into a common box (6 locatons) for now. I ran ethernet between all of these common boxes throughout the mill. So basically these best way will be to bring everything back to one common area and monitor from there correct. Just like a school fire system for example. And if I do that what is the best way to monitor these buttons.

You say you have a "Fire Alarm Button" and a "Evacuation Button" at each Location.

Are the Fire Alarm buttons acutally tied into a Fire Alarm Panel?

Or are you just rolling your own Fire Alarm Signal also?

If you are rolling your own Fire Alarm I would be very concerned, and possibly the same would go for the Evacuation Alarm. (If it is governed by any type of regulation)

You will be taking on a lot of liabilty for yourself if something should happen and for some reason these signals fail to function and someone should get hurt or killed because the warning system did not function.

If your Fire Alarm Buttons are tied into and Actual approved and Certified fire alarm panel, then depending on the type of panel you have, you could always tie the evacuation signal into this same fire alarm panel under different zones than the fire alarm and program these zones to output the horns at a different frequency or different timing than the fire alarm so you could tell if the alarm is signaling for a fire (say contiuous ringing for fire) or Evacuation (say intermitent ringing for evacuation).

Either way I am sure your plant will clear out no matter which is ringing but it is often important to be able to tell the difference between the two.

For example on the ships I work on we have a fire alarm system.
If you pull a fire station, or a smoke or heat head triggers you get a steady ringing of the bells, all crew stops what they are doing and goes to the bow of the ship where are life rafts are at. EXCEPT the Emergency & Fire Team, they know when they here this sequence that they need to go to there designated station and prepare to fight a fire and get ready to start dewatering the ship.

But if the Captain decides that we need to abandon ship then he pushes a different button and we get 7 short followed by 1 long ringing of the same bells that the fire alarm uses. Then the entire crew (everyone) will go to the bow and prepare to launch the life rafts.

If someone falls overboard then the Captain has another button on his console that gives 3 long ringing of the same bells. The deck crew will immediatly know to begin launching the skiff, and crew will run to the rails to keep the person in sight and help point in the direction of the person so the skiff crew has an idea of which way to go to pick him up.

(All of these ringing sequences repeat 3 times each to ensure that everyone even if they are sleeping will hear it)

I must admit that the ship I am on right now I did do the programing of the man overboard and abandon ship portion myself using a Siemens Logo (similar to the Zelio) and just tied an output from the Logo into the bell circuit.
I only did this because our fire alarm panel is old on this boat and did not have the capability of being programed for these functions.
Downside to this is we do not have wire break monitoring from the buttons for these funcions so should a wire break or be disconnected from the button to the logo input, then when the Captian pushes the button nothing will happen, he will not have prior fault indication that something was wrong with the circuit.

They used to just have a button that they manual pressed in the same sequence they wanted the bells to ring when I got onboard, this was inefficent as he would have to stay there and push the button until he was done with the signaling sequence. Often times he was not consistant with how long he held the button down and this would confuse the crew as to what the signal ment.

I automated this so he could push the button once and then walk away and continue dealing with the emergency at hand and now that it is automated the signal is exactly the same everytime.

We have been slated to upgrade the Fire Alarm System on this vessel also but it keeps getting pushed back. When we do upgrade then the other functions will get incorperated into it also.

Or Fire Alarm System though IS a Certified Fire System and does have wire break and short circuit fault indication. (Which is required by Law for a Fire Alarm System)

On other vessels I have worked on we have installed new Fire Alarm systems (Consilium is the brand) and we were able to incorperate these features into the new panel so all are covered by wire break and short circuit fault indication.

If you have an existing Fire alarm system then you may want to see if you can incorporate your Evacuation into it in the same manner.

If you dont have an existing Fire Alarm system then I would be very careful about installing something and lableing it as Fire Alarm.

I dont know about in Canada but here in the US that sort of thing is taken very seriously and when the rubber hits the road and someone get hurt or killed there will be a line of Lawyers a mile long look to hang you out to dry. Not to mention the posibility of Jail time in a worse case senario.

I know this was long and not much help but you should get some ideas from it and maybe think about if it is a good idea or not to take this on.

If you have a certified fire alarm panel then you are probably alright, if not I personaly would get one for this application. (Just my opinon)

There are other ways to set up wire break monioring without buying a Fire Alarm System and if you still want to build all of this yourself, just do some google searches on the subject and see if it is something you want to take on.

Good luck and let us know how you decide to go about your project and how it turns out.

BCS