Fan Safety Alarm Circuits

Tech Tuesday Fan Safety Alarm Circuit

You’ve got an Air Handling Unit (AHU) in need of a fan-safety-shutdown. You need to isolate field devices from your building automation controller. Your middle name is Alan. If any of these things are true, you’ve come to the right blog post. If all three of these things are true, that means our mind reading technology is working.

RIBMNLB

The first product in Functional Device’s line of Fan Safety Alarm Circuits is the RIBMNLB. RIBMNLB combines all the relay logic to facilitate fan status, fan safety control, and damper actuator control. It is intended for use in a circuit that will control fan start/stop and fan safety shut-down circuit monitors three critical inputs:

  • Low-limit freeze protection (to stop fan and remove power from damper actuator)
  • Static pressure (to monitor for hi/low pressure condition)
  • Smoke detector / fire alarm

One aspect of the RIBMNLB that can be applied to more general use cases is the isolation of field devices from the building automation controller. The logic table below is the default configuration of the RIBMNLB. However, it can be simply reconfigured in the field to monitor normally open inputs or disable unused inputs.

Dry Contact Inputs
(From Field)
Isolated Dry Contact Outputs
(To Controller/Fan/Actuator)
Low Limit Static Pressure Smoke Detector/FA Master Relay Low Limit Static Pressure Smoke Detector/FA
CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED
OPEN x x OPEN OPEN x x
x OPEN x OPEN x OPEN x
x x OPEN OPEN x x OPEN
OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN

Other Fan Safety Alarm Circuits

RIBMNLB Family

We offer a range of other Fan Safety Alarm Circuits to meet your needs. Only have two inputs? Take a look at the RIBMNLB-2. Have 6 normally open inputs? Take a look at RIBMNLB-6NO. Need BACnet capabilities? Take a look at RIBMNWLB-7-BC. While all these devices offer similar functionality, having a device that’s sized correctly and has the correct logic directly out of the box can save on valuable space and time. If you’re interested, be sure to check out the linked datasheets to see all the extra features such as latched inputs and 24V sourced outputs.

For questions or details on any of our products, please go to our website or contact us directly.

Noah Smith
Noah Smith

Noah Smith, or as his friends call him "Noah", is a design engineer at Functional Devices. He graduated from Indiana University in 2018. Just kidding, he graduated from the superior Purdue University with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering in 2018.

Outside of work, Noah spends his time fantasizing about going back to work. He is a seasoned traveler, having visited almost two states. His weekends are spent with his wife and what has been described as "too many cats."

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