DualCom Pro Fire

Fire alarm signalling systems must meet stringent safety and compliance standards. Our devices offer resilient, monitored connectivity to keep fire alarms active and compliant with regulations, even during network disruptions.

DualCom Pro has been certified as an EN54-21 compliant component.

Country-specific guidelines for Fire Installations should also be followed. For example:

• BS5839-1:2025 in the United Kingdom
• SBF 110:8 in Sweden

CSL provide 4 options for integrating with Fire Panels:

• Input Pins & Output Relays
• Manufacturer Protocols
• Printer Interface Communications
• ESPA 4.4.4

In most territories, including the UK, Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, to be compliant with the local regulations, Pins & Output Relays must be used. Manufacturer Protocols and Printer Interface Communications can be used to provide supplementary information for the ARC, Installer and Emergency Services.

The Quick Guide provides guidance on how to configure and connect up a DualCom Pro to be compliant with EN54-21.

This solution works with all known fire panels that comply with EN54-21. CSL has validated it with many of the main manufacturers’ panel ranges, including, but not exclusively:

• Advanced
• Bosch
• C-Tec
• Carrier
• Honeywell
• Inim
• Johnson Controls
• Kentec
• Labor Strauss
• Protec
• Siemens
• Vanderbilt

In some territories, emergency services will not attend sites on notification of a fire alarm unless a confirmed fire signal is also received.

Where three or more distinct notification events are required, CSL provide a pin profile “PinLearn EOL Pins 1-12”.

Note that only pins 1 and 2 are monitored for tamper and short circuits in DualCom Pro 2 and DigiAir Pro 3. If other pins need monitoring, please call Tech Support.

Other territories may have a policy of only responding to specific fire alarms, such as a heat detector or sprinkler.

In these cases, this can be achieved by installing a panel where CSL DualCom Pro provides Manufacturer Protocols support or Printer Interface Communications to provide supplementary information to the ARC.

With Serial protocol implementations for fire panels, the panel sends alarm and restore events to the DualCom Pro, which is then responsible for transmitting these to the ARC.

The DualCom Pro will additionally generate events if communication is interrupted on one or both of the communication interfaces or if the connection to the panel is lost.

These events can provide much richer detail to the ARC compared to pins, as to the nature of the fault, its location and which sensor has generated the event, along with any other relevant information.

For example, on a site using ‘pins only’, the ARC will receive:

• [NUA8001|AChannel 1 Alarm]
• [NUR8001|AChannel 1 Restore]

And from a site using the manufacturer’s protocol:

• [Nti11:13:02/da03-31-25/ri001^Fire Zone 01 ^/FT0007|ACall Point ID:002895]
• [Nti11:13:52/da03-31-25/ri001^Ground Floor End ^/FT0003|ACall Point Ground Floor Lobby ID:002931
• [Nti12:36:15/da03-31-25/FH|AFire Alarm Reset]

The Manufacturer Protocols currently supported by DualCom Pro include:

• Honeywell Gent
• Inim Previdia (using CSL’s protocol)
• Kentec
• Carrier EMS Smartcell
• Advanced BMS Protocol

The DualCom Pro is also capable of listening to the printer port output of fire panels and will generate events based on this.

It should be noted that some panels using printer interface communications do not send restore events.

These will be sent when the Engineer goes to site and resets the panel.

The DualCom Pro will additionally generate events if communication is interrupted on one or both of the communication interfaces.

These events can provide much richer detail to the ARC compared to pins, as to the nature of the fault, its location and which sensor has generated the event, along with any other relevant information.

For example, on a site using ‘pins only’ the ARC will receive:

• [NUA8001|AChannel 1 Alarm]
• [NUR8001|AChannel 1 Restore]

And from a site using the manufacturer’s protocol:

• [Nri0003/FA2048|AFIRE ALARM-CALL POINT 64-GROUND FLOOR OFFICE AREAS-GRND FLR STAF]

Please note, the text on the printer interface communications is typically in the local language of the Installer, and CSL only supports some languages.

• Advanced MX Pro
• Labor Strauss BC600
• Labor Strauss BC216
• Carrier Aritech 2X-F Series
• Honeywell Notifier
• Inim Smartloop
• Johnson Controls FireClass
• Johnson Controls Tyco MX

ESPA 4.4.4 was created in 1984 by the European Selective Paging Manufacturers Association and has since become an industry standard. ESPA 4.4.4 is a serial protocol, originally created for interconnecting paging equipment with phone exchange systems and computers. This protocol is supported by a large number of systems, such as fire alarms, intruder alarms, nurse call systems and DECT cordless telephony.

The protocol is message-oriented and based on short messages being sent over a serial data link.

The DualCom Pro is capable of listening on the RS232 output of fire panels and will generate events based on the text following the second Unit Separator control character (ASCII code 31) in these messages. English, Dutch, German and Danish are currently supported.