Fire alarm connection for A&H SQ-7/GX4816 sound system.
My church currently has an A&H iLive T112 surface and IDR-32 MixRack sound system which we are going to retire and replace with an A&H SQ-7 and GX4816.
Our church building has a fire alarm system which will send a signal via a relay to our current IDR-32 MixRack to silence the sound system in the event of a fire alarm (so that the congregation can hear the building fire alarms). The cable from the fire alarm relay is connected to the IDR-32 MixRack at the PL-Anet RS485 connection located in the lower left corner at the back of the MixRack (see attached photos). The GX4816 doesn’t seem to have such a connection.
Does anybody know how I can automatically silence the SQ-7 GX4816 sound system in the event of a fire alarm?
I suspect the system is using GPIO for this functionality. The iLive system has a PL-8 which is a 4in/4out GPIO device that connects to the Mixrack via the PL-Anet port. If you investigate further, I think you’ll find this PL-8 device with a direct connection to the fire alarm system. A&H has a GPIO device that works with the Avantis, DLive, and AHM systems. (https://www.allen-heath.com/hardware/controllers/gpio/). However I am not aware of any GPIO support for the SQ.
You could always use a speaker processing unit that supports GPIO (including potentially a AHM system) that you put after the SQ and before the speakers. It would be able to mute the speakers even if the SQ cannot.
Just to clarify… the three AHM systems actually have some GPIO I/O built in. Therefore you won’t have to purchase the external GPIO unit unless you need more than 2 in / 2 out GPIO that the AHM devices offer (which is unlikely for just the alarm system).
Also, your local code may require the fire alarm system be able to automatically disable the speakers. Therefore finding a solution may not be optional.
Any idea how to use MIDI to silence the SQ-7 for a fire alarm? In other words, how do you convert an on/off signal from the fire alarm relay to a MIDI command to silence the SQ-7?
Excuse me if I’m wrong, but based on your questions, it seems to me that your training and level of knowledge are not sufficient to implement something like this.
The problem is that this is certainly a safety device that has to be installed and approved by a specialist company.
Fire protection systems are designed to save lives and if you put something together here and then, in an emergency, a malfunction causes injury or death to people, you have a huge problem.
In principle, it could be implemented using the foot switch socket, but what if someone accidentally pulls the plug or a scene or show is recalled up where the foot switch is not programmed?
So is it an absolute no-go!
Read also what Brain wrote again.
Thanks Brian. Sounds like I can get something like the Allen & Heath AHM-16 16 X 16 Audio Matrix Processor and use it together with the GX4816 and I should be able to send a signal from the fire alarm relay to the AHM and make it silence the sound system?
AHM will sit between the SQ and the PA. The SQ console will still handle all of the mixing requirements and you would take the outputs from the SQ that are destined for your PA system and instead send those outputs to the AHM device. Inside the AHM device, you would handle any speaker processing requirements (splitting audio into matrixes, putting crossovers/EQ/delay/all pass filters/etc on outputs, etc, etc, etc) as well as be able to set up the GPIO input to mute the PA when the fire alarm went off.
While this requires an extra cost for the AHM device, it is a better solution IMHO because it does two things. First, it makes the fire alarm work as expected/required and second, it frees up any speaker processing that you might have planned to do on the SQ console. The three matrix limitation on the SQ might not be so restrictive when you add the AHM for example.
In Case of fire shutdown the Empfängers directly… Dont use SQ for that… That would Not BE a Safe way to shutdown audio. Imagine someone accidrntly Changes the programming of the footswitch.
Ultimately, the final decision on what the system does in the event of a fire alarm is at the sole discretion of the AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) in the US. You would do well to have a sit down discussion with this person as I have had to deal with this at various venues. In the past, a shunt trip simply killed the power to amplifier rack (usually a rapid shutdown in the sequencer) however in a few larger venues we discussed the reality of not having the system available to overcome the noise of three thousand attendees in a nightclub and the inablity of the voice evac system to clearly communicate. In those situations we used a processor such as an AHM to interrupt the console feeds but to give priority to a few mics for communication to the crowd through the House PA. Again, whatever you do get it signed off by the local authorities you have to answer to but as most people on here have said, a GPIO on an AHM is probably the best way to interface the alarm relay.
