Last week we installed a Vipedia network to upgrade the Wylfa Site voice alarm system. A proposal that we had been working on since May 2019. The former power station needed to provide a new point of control for their voice alarm system. However, due to cost, it was not feasible to install the necessary cabling between the main PAVA system and the new location.
How to overcome this whilst still maintaining compliance to the Voice Alarm standard?
The solution became easy with the discovery of spare fibres in their existing network. These fibres allowed us to create a secure ring network, compliant to current standards. With this network in place we could then interconnect two of ASL’s Vipedia-12-net voice alarm routers. Creating a fully compliant sub-system to the main PAVA system.
The network enables the transmission of microphone audio from the first ‘Local’ Vipedia to an output on the second, ‘Remote’ Vipedia. In addition, it enables emergency messages, stored on the Remote Vipedia, to be triggered. The Remote Vipedia output conects directly into main PAVA System.
The remote Vipedia interfaces with the main PAVA system using a redundant monitored input. By using this approach it was not necessary to modify the main system in any way. The original microphones and emergency message triggers still exist and function. Therefore, the main system remains compliant with the voice alarm standards and the Vipedia sub-system merely provides a compliant backup point of control.
The main PAVA system even provides fault monitoring of the sub-systems audio output and its access signal.
We successfully tested the system from the IRC on Tuesday and Ops were pleasantly surprised by the functionality of the system you’ve provided…
Magnox
You can find out more about our voice alarms systems here.
