This page is intended to give an introduction to the new European standards which are being introduced in the UK, to replace BS4737. It also gives guidance on how to ensure that securiy products can be installed to meet the new standards.

• What is EN50131
• What is PD6662
• What does it mean in real terms
• What does the new terminology mean
• What are Security Grades
• What if I don't have all components of the same grade
• What are Access Levels
• What are Environmental Class Signalling Equipment
• What difference will we see when using the new panels
• What signalling changes are required
• What Power Supply changes are there
• How does it affect Detectors
• How does the remote servicing work

What is EN50131

EN50131 is a collection of different standards designed to cover the design and installation of all aspects of Intruder and Hold-Up Alarm Systems. EN50131-1 is the main document. This is the generic standard, upon which all of the other component standards are based. The component standards give more detailed specification on specific parts of the alarm system as shown below:

• EN50131-1 Generic standard
• EN50131-2 Standard for detection devices
• EN50131-3 Standard for control panels and peripherals
• EN50131-4 Standard for warning devices, bells, sounders etc.
• EN50131-5 Standard for interconnections, wires, wireless links etc.
• EN50131-6 Standard for power supplies
• EN50131-7 Application guidelines, mainly for installers

However, not all of these standards are published. Currently only prEN50131-1: 2004, a redraft of the generic standard, EN50131-6 and EN50131-7 are being introduced. This means that there are some holes in the detail covered by the standard. To get around this, the British Standards Institute has created another document called PD6662

What is PD6662?

PD6662 is a document which takes prEN50131-1, and also calls up the relevant parts of BS4737 to fill in the gaps left in EN50131 due to the component standards not being published yet. Additionally, it calls up DD243, which is not being replaced by EN50131. This gives us two things:

• 1. A more complete document to work with, causing less ambiguity.
• 2. A hybrid standard which has many familiar features of the old BS4737.

Both the above points should mean an easier transition into EN50131. As and when the component standards within EN50131 are published, PD6662 will be updated to remove the relevant references to BS4737. There, over the coming years, the will be an incremental changeover to the full EN50131 family of standards. Until this all happens, in the UK, we will be installing systems to PD6662: 2004, rather than EN50131

What does it mean in real terms

What we will see are some slight changes in the look and feel of the alarm system in use, some changes to the signalling, changes to detectors and bell boxes at the higher security grades, and a requirement for the installer to document all aspects of a survey before installing the system.

The following is a brief list of the phrases and abbreviations, not described elsewhere in this page, which are used commonly in the new standards.

A system must meet one of four security grades, depending on the level of risk. These roughly translate as follows:

It is the installer's responsibility to ensure that a system of the correct grade is installed. This must be done via a properly documented Site Survey. The advice of the customers' insurers should be sought if there is any doubt on the grade required. Executive Security will be concentrating mainly on grades 2 and 3, as this is where the vast majority of the installation will fall. All components will be marked with their security grade.

All components in a system must meet the security grade of the system. The grade of an entire system is equal to that of the lowest graded component. A component with a higher grade than the system can be used, without affecting the system's grading as a whole.

EN50131 separates access to the system into four levels:

This is mostly straight forward. However, it is important to note that a level 3 installer is not allowed to access the system until they have been authorised by a level 2 user .

There are 4 classes which determine any component's suitability for different environments. However, there are only two which will be of any relevance:

All components will be marked with their environmental class.

Signalling Equipment

EN50131 closely specifies the performance and requirements of the signalling used at each security grade. Different levels of performance are given different ATS ratings. The differences in requirements are fairly technical and will be covered by the manufacturer. However they cover aspects such as frequency of signalling, line verification, time to transmit and encryption of the data. There are 3 ATS levels which are important:

The main thing to take from this is that on Grade 3 systems and above, we must install signalling equipment that includes encryption. Current digital communicators will not meet this requirement!

The new Galaxy Ethernet module will allow signalling over Local and Wide area networks to suitably equipped monitoring stations using SIA 3 protocol. This has encryption and heart-beat monitoring to allow it to comply with the requirements of ATS 4 for Grade 3 compliance.

User interface

By and large this will be the same. However, users now have the ability to override conditions which may previously have prevented the system from setting. System faults and tampers (on grade 2 systems) can be omitted for one set period, by the user, at the time of setting.

Indications

Indications about the state of the system cannot be shown at level one. In the unset state, if a tamper, line fault or some other event occurs, which would have been shown on the keypad immediately, the situation can now only be indicated to the user after they have entered their code. However, to alert the user to the fact that there is something to be indicated, there is a new "Alert condition". This will beep the keypad and give the display "Alert - Enter Code", in order to bring a user to the keypad.

The kinds of signals which are transmitted to the monitoring station are more extensive. For instance, when a tamper or fault condition occurs in either the set or unset states, they must be transmitted to the monitoring station. This requires more channels on communicators and pushes us towards communication formats such as SIA and Contact ID, rather than channel based signalling.

One of the biggest physical changes concerns power supplies. To start with, the system must be able to run on the standby battery for 12 hours rather than 8. In fact, on grade 3 systems, this is actually 24 hours unless AC loss is specifically signalled, in which case it is 12 hours. Additionally, the system must be able to recharge a flat battery to 80% of the rated capacity in 24 hours for grade 3 systems and 72 hours for grade 2 systems. This means two things:

• 1. Batteries must be a lot bigger.
• 2. The power supplies need to be more powerful for a given size of system.

The rating of a power supply must be specified as follows: The rated capacity is that which it can continually supply, whilst still having enough reserve to charge a flat battery and power the main control panel. This means that on a grade 2 system, a 1 amp supply really needs to be about 1.4 amps, and on a grade 3 system, a 1 amp supply really needs to be about 2 amps in capacity.

Under PD6662, detectors are still covered by the imported sections of BS4737. On grade 2 systems, current detectors will be satisfactory, provided they bare the appropriate EN compliant markings. On grade 3 systems, there is a requirement for Anti-Mask operation on movement detectors. This means that any PIR fitted on a grade 3 system, must have anti-mask capability, and the control panel must be able to detect and act on the anti-mask signal. On the new grade 3 complaint Galaxy system, this is taken care of by a new resistance level in the existing zone circuit. A 12k resistor fitted across the anti-mask relay output on the detector will allow the anti-mask functionality to be included on the same pair of wires as the existing alarm and tamper functions.

As with current practise, Grade 2 and Grade 3 (policed) systems require two service inspections to be carried out each year. However, EN50131 allows one of those visits each year to be a remote inspection, carried out via remote servicing software on a Computer.. On the new Galaxy alarm panels, the remote inspection technology is included and the Downloading software packages include the necessary facilities to retrieve the remote servicing data.

Additionally, the panels can be programmed during an engineer visit, to automatically dial up on the remote servicing date, and automatically send the remote servicing data, without an special user intervention.