Firboy Intermittent Discharge Alarm

[crquisto]

My 406 Aft Cabin gave me about one second of discharge alarm for the Fireboy engine compartment fire suppression system. After returning to port I got several more intermittent and very short beeps. Its a clean system - not Halon - and the bottle still indicates in the upper part of the normal pressure range, so I suspect an indication failure instead of a discharge. The Fireboy discharge alarm is set off simply by low pressure at the sensor on the bottle. Fireboy says its either a bad pressure sensor requiring an expensive return to the factory for replacement or an electrical break in the sensor wiring. Any ideas out there on where to start on the electrical search. Thought I'd act like a boat owner and try the cheapest route first.

[Lyndon670]

How long have you owned the boat? Did the gauge show any anomaly?

[crquisto]

Just bought it last month. Have only cruised about 3 hours and all without incident until this weekend.

[Lyndon670]

Did you get a Survey? The state of the bottle would have been outlined on the survey. It's one of the first things they check when they get into the engine room.

[crquisto]

Yes, I had a survey which said the bottle should be weighed. I did that and it's about one ounce lighter than the original weight. I figure that could be a scale calibration issue. The guage looks good (in the high green). I talked with Fireboy and they said it's either a loose wire, loss of pressure or a broken bottle. Reseated the connectors and have had no further problems. Thanks for your responses.

[cpoint]

I think this is an old post, but I had similar problem last year and after tweaking the wires going into the unit, it stopped giving random discharge alarm. All of a sudden yesterday it started (15 minutes into the trip) beeping regular intervals. Not the discharge alarm though. no red light flashing. I pulled the plug of the unit and plug it back like before, did not help. Not sure what that beep means either. It just keeps beeping, annoying as hell. I was going to yank the wires of the monitor on the helm, but decided to head back with annoying beeping till I figure whats going on. Today I thought it was ok when I started the engine, went to get some fuel, as I started the engine beeping started again. It goes off when engine is off though. Where as the discharge alarm used to be on even when engine was off. Also side note, the new 3 CO carbon monoxide alarms have no power, not sure its related to this beeping. The only thing I can think is I replaced the old radar and chart plotter. Was careful what I cut off. I tried to trace wiring in helm, and looks like red and black are hooked up fine. Also the fire boy alarm did not beep for couple days that I used it after replacing the radar, so not sure its just coincidence. Any ideas from anyone? also what that beep means? is it power? but test button works, makes a different tone beep and red light goes on as it should, so there must be power.

[cpoint]

Closing this issue. After resetting CO detectors power and replacing the fireboy alarm on helm, no more problems. So not sure old unit was bad, or CO detectors power somehow affected it, but its all good now.

[mjk1040]

Me thinks CO detectors power and the fireboy alarm on the same power source?

[cpoint]

Qr Bbpost Me thinks CO detectors power and the Fireboy alarm on the same power source?

you know, you could be right. However there was power to it though when it was going off. That's why I thought may have been old bad unit... who know, least of my problems at this time...