Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 13:27:14 -0800
> From: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Alarm annunciation with ALH and other PC based systems
>
> Hi All:
>
> Sorry that this isn't really an EPICS question, other than the tenuous
> connection via Alarm Handler.
>
> The question has been raised here about how to ensure that the audible
> alarms from Alarm Handler are always audible. A number of places exist
> where this can be disabled. The speakers can become faulty, the
> wall-wart commonly used to power the speakers can become disconnected or
> faulty, the volume control on the speakers can be turned down, the host
> OS software controls can be turned down or muted either through accident
> or software fault, audio cables can become faulty, and sound card
> hardware can become faulty. Most of these will manifest only in silence.
>
> Has anyone undertaken measures to monitor any of these components in
> some way, or implemented hardware which is not subject to the common
> frailties of commodity audio equipment used for control room alarms?
>
> Any suggestions cheerfully accepted. Thanks.
>
> Rod Nussbaumer
> E-Linac Controls, TRIUMF
> Vancouver, Canada.