1.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
1.1
Introduction
Proevac is a modular, digitally controlled, voice alarm system. It’s main purpose is to send spoken, live or recorded, voice
evacuation messages. Proevac was designed and certified according to EN 54-16 specification in order to grant a high quality and
high intelligibility sound.
The modularity and scalability of Proevac allow to configure it in order to be tailored according to the building requirements
thanks to the high number of zone that can be fitted and thanks to the high output power that can be handled by each zone.
The internal four channelmatrix arrangement allow to sent up to four audio contents or general purpose audio messages on
different group of zones.
The system core is the
Master
EV PROM5Z
unit that manages all audio flows and performs the monitoring of the whole setup. All
functions related to the each zone are managed by the
EV MCL1Z
modules that are fitted into the Master EV PROM5Z and Slave EV
PROS8Z units and connected to an external power amplifier. Thus, each zone has its own dedicated power amplifier that is
managed independently from all others. This feature allows to set up each zone with a power amplifier that best suits the design
demands of the electrics of the building with a power handling up to 500 Wrms.
The EV PROM5Z Master unit can handle up to 5 zone controller modules and EV PROS8Z Slave unit can be fitted with up to 8 zone
controllers. Slave units are daisy-chained to the Master allowing thus to configure the system up to 108 zones.
Additionally, each Master and Slave unit can handle a spare amplifier that switches over in case of a failure to a zone amplifier.
Each EV MCL1Z zone controller has an embedded memory where two independent messages are stored. Recorded messabes are
triggered by two monitored input contacts. This particular feature allows to send a dedicated alarm message on each single zone.
This means that in case of a fire alarm on a 108 zones system, the equipment will play 108 different messages all together.
Finally, each zone module has its own independent volume and tone control.
The monitoring of the loudspeaker line and related power amplifier is achieved with a tone above the audio band through a FFT
algorithm that allows the system to constantly keep under control both amplifier and loudspeakers without interfering with the
voice message or background music that is being played and without them to interfere with the monitoring itself. The monitoring
is so accurate that it able to catch very small variations of the applied load thanks to a sophisticated algorithm that follows and
compensates both environmental parameters and load drifts. The monitoring functions of the EV MCL1Z module include a
detection of ground leakage of the loudspeaker line.
Where the design of the voice alarm system foresees loudspeaker line redundancy on some (or all) zones, the main EV MCL1Z zone
controller can be matched to the secondary line controller
EV MCL2Z.
The main line controller drives and monitors the power
amplifier and manages the first loudspeaker line (line A) while the secondary zone controller takes power from the same amplifier
and distributes it to the second loudspeaker line (line B) performing load and impedance monitoring. In case of a failure to one of
the two lines, the faulty line is disconnected and power is eventually increased on the healthy line in order to maintain a constant
sound pressure inside the room.
All sound contents are processed by the EV PROM5Z Master that acts as a central sorting device from the inputs to the zone
controllers. The master unit has two input ports from two independent groups of microphone stations connected in parallel in a
bus fashion. Each bus carries audio, data channel and power. The Master unit constantly monitors the performance of the
microphone stations through an integrity check of the communication bus. All microphone stations of the Proevac system can be
configured as a voice alarm call station, or for general announcements. In the first case, if a failure occurs in whatever part of
audio or data path, from the microphone capsule to the Master unit, the system will promptly report a fault.
Proevac has different models of microphone stations:
EV BME1T
and
WG-EFM10
have a single direct access key and are typically
used desktop or wall-mount emergency call stations.
WG-MTU06
and
EV BME10T
allow superior flexibility thanks to their
advanced user interface and are both configurable for general announcements or as emergency call stations.
The functions of all microphone station, their access priority to the zones of the system is defined at the time of the configuration
of the whole system through the BEST (“Basic voice Emergency Setup Tool”) software.
In addition to all described functions, the Proevac system can play two or more recorded alarm messages that are common to all
zones. These messages are triggered by two monitored inputs on the master unit. The master unit as an embedded scheduled
message player for non-fire-alarm purposes that may be useful, for example in a shopping mall to play commercials, welcome
announcements, etc… Finally, the EV PROM5Z master unit has dedicated relay outputs for state reporting to other fire devices,
dedicated inputs to report the state of an external power supply and a background music RCA input.
