10/29/2019
Tech Works CI-Series Systems Planning & Installation Manual Page
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CI-BUSS Collaborative Intercom
Basic System Overview
The Tech Works
CI-Series Collaborative Intercom
system was designed to allow many
standardized components such as professional microphones, speakers, and headsets to
Collaborate to create a unique audio communication environment to best suit the particular
application. The CI-Series is a modular, expandable solution which gives professionals
working in separate rooms and environments the ability to speak to each other, hands free
and seamlessly, as if they were in the same room. For professionals working in controlled
environments such as Operating Rooms, Cath Labs, or Clean Rooms - sterile, hands free
communication is not only essential, but can be critical. Typically, these environments are
noisy; full of equipment and hard, reverberant surfaces. The rooms become an acoustical
challenge, resulting in unclear and unintelligible communication. The CI-system is based on
a sophisticated Automatic Level Control technology which delivers consistent, crystal clear,
intelligible sound, from a whisper to a shout.
An operator station can selectively speak with up to 4-different rooms or controlled
environments. Inside the controlled environment, there are many speaker and microphone
options; from personal headsets to boom mics and ceiling speakers, the CI-Series has a
solution for each professional working in your facility. And no one person dictates how the
other communicates; customizable flexibility is what makes the CI-Series Collaborative
Intercom truly unique.
Tech Works products use two simple Buss structures that support Collaboration Intercoms (CI-
BUSS), and Paging Amplifier (PA-BUSS) Signal Distribution. The use of standard busses allows
Tech Works products to plug together.
Simple systems may require a single Box; more complex systems may require several boxes.
The Collaboration Intercom Buss, CI-BUSS; has bi-directional Audio pathways for
Communications, and Control. Expansion is easy; units daisy-chain together to form Collaborative
Groups.
The PA-BUSS supports one direction; Background Music, Paging, Announcement Loops,
selective Monitoring/Communications and many other features.
All signals are electrically isolated to perform in the harshest environments, using transformers,
Opto-isolators, and floating elements, to eliminate ground loops. Short Circuit Protection ensures
units recover from temporary faults. Standard Category-6 wiring and terminations are used for
ease of installation.
Audio Signals are low impedance, transformer balanced and "Line Level" to provide maximum
isolation from crosstalk, and noise.
Each Product is "configurable", the functional sections are connected with jumpers. Therefore,
products may be 'customized' for the application.
The wiring architecture is Master to Slave. So to connect to functional units together all you do is
plug the CI-Master of one unit to the CI-Slave of the next unit.
