VESDA-E VEA

Knowing Where, Not Just Whether

This is the capability that separates the VEA from the rest of aspirating detection, and it opens up applications the others can’t serve.

A conventional aspirating detector samples a whole pipe network into one chamber. When it alarms, it tells you smoke is present somewhere along that network. In a warehouse or a plant room, that’s enough, because the whole space is one area and the response is the same wherever it started.

It isn’t enough in a building divided into rooms: a hotel corridor, a hospital ward, a school, an office floor, a prison wing, a block of apartments. Knowing that smoke is somewhere across 40 rooms isn’t actionable in the way knowing which room is.

The VEA solves that with a separate microbore tube to each sampling point. It draws a combined air sample from all of them into a laser detection chamber. When a Fire 1 alarm is raised, a rotary valve then scans the sampling locations one by one to identify which point the smoke came from. In pre alarm, a smoke scan can also be started manually to help investigate the source. That turns an alarm into a location.

Electrical Cabinets

This is worth calling out on its own, because it’s one of the VEA’s strongest applications.

Detecting a fire inside a switchboard or electrical cabinet is difficult. A point detector inside a cabinet is impractical to install and service, and a detector outside it only responds after the fire has left the enclosure. Running a microbore tube into each cabinet gives detection inside the enclosure, and tells you which cabinet, with all the equipment mounted in one accessible place.

On a switchroom with 30 cabinets, that’s one detector, 30 tubes and a single point of maintenance.

It Checks and Cleans Itself

A microbore tube is narrow, so blockage is a legitimate concern. The VEA is designed around that.

Sampling points are cleaned automatically at set intervals. Tube breakage and sampling point presence are checked automatically at set intervals too, so a tube disconnected during other building work is picked up, rather than silently protecting nothing. Single sampling point and single tube blockage detection means a fault is located, not just reported, which is the difference between a fix and a search.

That end to end system integrity monitoring is what allows a 40 point system to be trusted. Without it, a network of narrow tubes across a building would be a maintenance liability.

Testing 40 Rooms Without Entering Them

Local smoke test ports at the detector are used during servicing to verify the system is fully working. Testing and maintenance happen in one accessible place, without interrupting the building.

Consider what that replaces. Testing point detectors in a hotel means booking out rooms or working around guests, floor by floor. In a hospital, it means access to wards. In a prison, it means an escort. In an office, it means after hours. The VEA does it from a plant room, with the building operating normally.

Field replaceable filter, smoke sensor module, pump and rotary valve mean less downtime, with repairs done on site rather than by removing the detector.

Sensitivity per Point

Three alarm sensitivity settings are available for the sampling points, which matters in a building where rooms aren’t the same. The Fire 1 threshold at the sampling hole can be set to high (1.6% obs/m), enhanced (4.0% obs/m) or standard (8.0% obs/m).

A server room and a kitchen on the same detector need different thresholds. Without per point sensitivity, either the kitchen generates nuisance alarms or the server room is under protected. Setting them individually means one detector can cover a mixed floor without a compromise that weakens both.

Two pre alarm levels, Alert and Action, sit below Fire 1.

Installation

Flexible microbore tubes are considerably faster to install than rigid sampling pipe, and they route through a building more easily. Normal diameter tube runs up to 100 metres per tube, and reduced diameter tube up to 15 metres, with tubes of different lengths on the same detector. A linear vacuum pump gives fast detection times over long tube lengths.

The detector has an IP40 enclosure and mounts easily on a steel support bracket. During commissioning, a normalisation process establishes the flow performance for the network as built.

Two Models

On a system with 40 addresses, having that information at the detector is worth it, because that’s where someone will be standing when they need it.

Outputs and Connectivity

Seven programmable relays, each latching or non latching, and two general purpose inputs (one monitored, one unmonitored) are standard. Alarms and fire location can be signalled through the relays and VESDAnet. The optional 40 relay Local StaX module can identify and signal fire source locations on a fire panel loop.

Ethernet is used for configuration and secondary monitoring, and a USB port handles field installation and maintenance. VESDAnet provides two way communication with redundancy, so the network keeps running through a single point wiring failure. Up to 20,000 events are logged, with time and date stamps.

Where It’s Used

Hotels and accommodation. Hospitals and healthcare facilities. Schools and universities. Offices and commercial floors. Correctional facilities. Retail. Electrical cabinets and switchrooms. Data centres. Aged care. Any building divided into rooms where knowing which room matters, and any application where testing needs access to occupied space.