How to create a Dead Man trigger?
Problem
We have had a request from a customer for a Base Station Operator “Dead Man” facility. We have looked at it here but can’t see how we could do it. Have you any ideas?
The concept is very simple. During the evening shift when everyone has left for the day, they want the Operator to have to push a button on his desk say every 30 minutes to 1 hour, indicating he is OK. Should that button not be pressed for say 5 minutes after the required time then an alarm must occur and this will be an audible alarm internally but also a text message externally.
Can you think how we could set up an event based on an input that needs to be triggered every 30 minutes?
This is a common requirement for large facilities where guards patrol and touch sensors around the site to indicate they have been there. More often than not this is managed by the Intruder panel or Access system but in this case the client has neither.
Solution
You can achieve this by using a virtual input as a level trigger, where the level goes low if the operator doesn't push the button:
Setup an event that is triggered by an input (the button the operator needs to push). The action for this event is to pulse a virtual input for some period (the period the operator need to repeatedly push the button). - (Max pulse duration 3600000 ms (1 hour))
Setup a second event that is triggered while the virtual input is low. This is the event that will trigger when the operator is "dead". The action is to sound an alarm etc. They'll probably only want this event enabled during the evening shift.
Browse through our useful tutorial videos and manual resources that can be found using the links below:
https://cathexisvideo.com/support/videos/
https://cathexisvideo.com/support/documents/
We have had a request from a customer for a Base Station Operator “Dead Man” facility. We have looked at it here but can’t see how we could do it. Have you any ideas?
The concept is very simple. During the evening shift when everyone has left for the day, they want the Operator to have to push a button on his desk say every 30 minutes to 1 hour, indicating he is OK. Should that button not be pressed for say 5 minutes after the required time then an alarm must occur and this will be an audible alarm internally but also a text message externally.
Can you think how we could set up an event based on an input that needs to be triggered every 30 minutes?
This is a common requirement for large facilities where guards patrol and touch sensors around the site to indicate they have been there. More often than not this is managed by the Intruder panel or Access system but in this case the client has neither.
Solution
You can achieve this by using a virtual input as a level trigger, where the level goes low if the operator doesn't push the button:
Setup an event that is triggered by an input (the button the operator needs to push). The action for this event is to pulse a virtual input for some period (the period the operator need to repeatedly push the button). - (Max pulse duration 3600000 ms (1 hour))
Setup a second event that is triggered while the virtual input is low. This is the event that will trigger when the operator is "dead". The action is to sound an alarm etc. They'll probably only want this event enabled during the evening shift.
Browse through our useful tutorial videos and manual resources that can be found using the links below:
https://cathexisvideo.com/support/videos/
https://cathexisvideo.com/support/documents/
Updated on: 12/10/2022
Thank you!