Factory Acceptance Testing
Fike clients are assured their product has been tested and validated by the Electrical Compliance Lab team. However, Fike also offers Factory Acceptance Tests to demonstrate and test the product with clients on-site at Fike. Advantages of Fike’s Factory Acceptance Testing include:
Types of explosion and overpressure tests
Fire and explosion safety products must operate predictably at all times. That’s why any new electrical products must pass a rigorous test plan before being submitted for UL/FM approval and ultimately being offered to Fike clients. To comply with all external standards, such as UL 864, UL 2572 and FM 3010, and to achieve UL/FM approval, the Electrical Compliance Lab performs a series of tests, including but not limited to:
Supply Line Transience
Fike products safeguard against certain electricity spikes, such as the residual effects of a lightning strike entering the AC line. To simulate these conditions, and to protect against downtime or false activation, the safety device must endure a 6,000v pulse 500 times and still operate normally.
Field Wire Transience
This transience test applies to notification appliance circuits, signaling line circuits, speaker circuits and other lines exiting the device, each of which is subjected to 100v, 500v, 1000v, 1500v and 2,400v to test whether the circuit functions as designed. Each voltage requires two positive and two negative pulses induced into the product.
Internally Induced Transience
All Fike electrically powered products operate from a primary and secondary source. In the event of a power outage, the safety device must seamlessly transition to the secondary power source. For example, if a fire panel is in a clean agent release state and the facility loses power, the fire panel must flawlessly switch to backup power while continuing the release of suppressant. This transfer between power sources can cause transience and our products are tested for 500 cycles consecutively and must still operate normally.
Variable Voltage
Whether the incoming power to the safety device is 110 percent or 85 percent of the listed voltage, the product must operate as listed with no adverse effects.
Strobe Sync
In order to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and protect those with Photosensitive Epilepsy, Fike fire panels must harmoniously sync hundreds of A/V fire alarm devices all within 10 milliseconds and at a rate of 1hz.
Troubleshooting and Diagnostics
The Electrical Compliance Lab is equipped with one of every electrical product offered by Fike. If a client identifies a problem, Fike’s technical support can load the client’s version of software into the device and attempt to recreate the issue.
Oftentimes, the issue is solved with simple troubleshooting. Other times, a bug may be diagnosed, in which the electrical compliance team will take necessary steps to solve the problem. Most importantly, the Fike team will work with the client to maintain protection while the engineering team work toward a UL/FM-approved solution.
