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FireNET FN-DAC Digital Alarm Communicator I & O Manual - v 1.0
Appendix C – Application Note: Zone and Address
Programming
The FN-DAC communicator can be configured to report events by Zone or by Address.
Each option has particular features that you should be aware of when planning your
FireNET system installation.
Reporting by Zone –
When using zone reporting, loop devices, panel inputs, outputs and serial I/O modules
are assigned to different zones for identification purposes. The FireNET system
supports up to 500 zones.
To utilize zone reporting, you must assign devices (inputs and outputs) to zones. This
may be done on an individual basis for smaller systems (1 to 1), or you may want to
group devices in an area into a single zone for reporting (for example one floor of a
building). The communicator will report the zone number with the event.
Some advantages of zone reporting are:
•
Multiple input modules (for example DIMM) can report individual inputs by zone
•
Inputs and outputs can be assigned or grouped into zones as determined and
defined by the system designer. This may be preferred in some installations.
Things to be aware of when using zone reporting:
•
By default, all loop devices will be assigned to the same zone, and panel I/O are
assigned to zone 0. For effective reporting, assign devices and I/O to zones as
necessary.
Reporting by Address –
Address reporting configures the FN-DAC communicator to report the address of the
loop device, rather than the zone that it is assigned to. This option allows for the
reporting of up to 999 unique addresses. In addition, when using Contact ID format,
the address of the panel is reported. This makes it possible to get a unique “Point ID”
from nearly every address on a 64 panel FireNET system.
Reporting of loop device addresses is as follows:
Loop 1 = Addresses 1 – 254
1
Loop 2 = Addresses 255 – 508
Loop 3 = Addresses 509 – 762
Loop 4 = Addresses 763 – 999
2
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