The Pertronic F220 fire panel and the F220-Net2 Network System were designed to provide an economical upgrade path for owners of existing F120A systems. With the right planning, any Pertronic F120A system can be converted at reasonable cost with minimal down-time.

Planning begins with a survey of the existing system, aiming to identify all components that need to be replaced. Typically the existing detectors, cabling, warning system, ancillaries, and fire panel cabinets can be retained. Display units, network controllers, fire panel master-boards, network cards, and power supplies must be upgraded to comply with the latest version of AS 1670.1. We recommend upgrading the loop driver boards, especially on older systems. Consult your local Pertronic office when planning starts.

A critical step is converting the F120A configuration programs. The files need to be exported from the fire panels, and then imported into Pertronic FireUtils® for conversion. After exporting the files, the F120A system should not be altered until the system has been upgraded.

Before delivering the new components, we can factory test them as a system. This will allow Pertronic engineers to verify that the configuration program has been successfully converted and everything is ready to go.

To minimise cost, we recommend implementing the upgrade shortly before the system’s annual test. Detector testing will verify the upgraded system while also satisfying the annual test requirement.

A day or two before upgrading the fire panels, install and connect the new power supplies, leaving the existing fire panels running on the old supplies. We do this ahead of the changeover because each fire panel usually draws mains power from a separate board, and it can take some time to locate and isolate each individual feed.

During the second stage, each fire panel needs to be briefly powered down while the battery connections are changed over (typically fifteen minutes per panel). On a large site, several technicians usually work in parallel, with Pertronic providing technical support. To replace the masterboard, keyboard & display, network cards, and loop drivers and change over the power supply, typically takes less than one hour per panel.

On systems with FireMap graphics, allow additional time to adapt FireMap to the new fire panels.

Recent projects confirm that with the right planning, even very large F120A networks are easily upgraded. Contact your local Pertronic office to find out more about upgrading F120A systems to F220-Net2 technology.