C-Guard

The Real Cost of a Carpark System Isn’t the Detectors

A multi level carpark might have twenty detection points. You buy them once, then service them for the next fifteen years.

That service cost has two parts. Labour, which usually means two people, a ladder and a screwdriver at each head. And test gas, which is used up at each point and isn’t cheap.

The C-Guard was designed to cut both. Calibration takes 45 seconds and one person, and the system itself can be tested without any test gas at all.

Testing the Ventilation Without Test Gas

This is the feature worth understanding.

The C-Guard has a zero gas activation mode. Enter it, and the detector raises its output to 12 mA and holds it there for five minutes. That’s a mid scale signal, which the control system reads as a real gas level.

So the fans start, the alarms sound and the dampers move. The whole ventilation response runs exactly as it would in a real event, for long enough to check it properly. There’s no gas cylinder, no regulator and no consumable.

For a building manager who needs to show that a carpark ventilation system works to AS 1668.2, that turns a gas dependent job into a push button one. Across twenty points, it removes test gas from the maintenance budget.

Calibration in 45 Seconds, By One Person

Calibration is non intrusive, with no screwdrivers, no meters, no special programming tools and no laptop.

Zero stability logic handles drift correction, and the whole cycle takes 45 seconds. One technician can complete a head without a second person reading a meter at the panel.

On a twenty point carpark, moving from two people to one, and from several minutes to 45 seconds per head, changes what a service visit costs.

No False Alarms While You Calibrate

Calibrating a live detector normally means someone at the panel putting the point into inhibit, or accepting that the fans will start and the alarms will sound while you work.

The C-Guard locks its output at the zero gas reading until calibration is finished, so nothing downstream reacts. Fail safe logic keeps monitoring running in the background, so the point isn’t simply switched off while the work happens.

One Board for the Whole Fleet

The design philosophy is one card to suit all applications.

Many Gastech customers work in remote locations, and holding stock for several detector types and ranges is expensive and hard to manage. So the C-Guard card is configurable across gases, ranges and sensor styles, with enough program memory to hold the detection logic for each gas type.

In practice, a site holds one spare card rather than one for each variant. Cards are easy to upgrade as requirements change, and there’s spare capacity on the board for future features. Sensors are 4 series plug in units, shared with the rest of the Gastech fixed range.

A Housing Built for a Carpark

Carparks are hard on equipment. Vehicles clip things, people interfere with things, ramps get wet and washdown happens.

The enclosure is high impact, UV stable, chemically resistant nylon, rated IP65 and designed to be vandal proof. The sensor is protected inside it. The housing is grey, so it blends into carpark walls rather than drawing attention.

At 250 grams and 140 x 56 x 100 mm, it mounts on a wall without a fabricated bracket.

Where It Sits in the Gastech Range

The C-Guard is deliberately focused: carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, in non classified areas, for ventilation control.

That focus keeps the cost down. If your application needs hazardous area certification, a wider gas list, relays or a local alarm at the detector, the rest of the Gastech range covers it. The D-Guard²R adds relays, the D-Guard²S adds a sounder strobe, and the D-Guard² is certified intrinsically safe for classified areas.

For a commercial carpark, or a plant room that needs vehicle exhaust monitoring, the C-Guard is the right tool, and anything more is unnecessary cost.

Where It’s Used

Commercial and residential carpark ventilation, basement and underground parking, loading docks and delivery bays, vehicle workshops and service bays, bus and truck depots, forklift charging and operating areas in warehouses, plant rooms with vehicle access, generator halls, vehicle decks on ferries and ro-ro vessels, ambulance bays and hospital carparks, and tunnels and covered ramps.