fire alarm – TruXter Tech

Super Hero Symbols for Fire Alarm

Posted on2017/05/032017/05/19AuthorTruXter8 Comments

As a fire alarm designer who has pretty much simplified fire alarm design, I’ve decided to make a handful of super hero symbols that resemble fire alarm symbols for autocad.
Understand that I can’t really use all of their symbols, and I can’t really figure out how to make them all relate.
So I stuck with the basic symbols.
Pull station = The Flashish looking
Smoke Detector = Supermanish looking
Waterflow = Wonder Womanish looking
Strobe = Captain America-ish looking
Horn Strobe = Green Lanternish looking
Duct Detector = Dare Devilish looking
Smoke/Heat Combo – Dead Poolish
Tamper SWitch – Thor Hammerish looking
……And a few more

Right click and save 1600kb.

Of course the symbols do not look exactly like the actual character’s logos. That would just be weird. It’s kind of nice having them resemble the real deal.

Feel free to use these when messing around. These are not to be sold because… Well you know. Neither of us is Marvel or DC.
These autocad block for fire alarm design are also not NFPA 170 (and likely ahj) approved symbols. These do not come with any guarantee of passing plans review at all. They do come with guarantee that I doubt they will pass but I won’t bet on that.
They are however in their own blocks and can be dropped right in your autocad template for messing around.
Enjoy.
Here’s some more free fire alarm blocks for autocad

If you’d like to see more of my work go to firealarmdwg.com For a large bundled set of Fire alarm symbols and blocks. About ten years of work.

Comment below if you have any requests or suggestions.

Fire Alarm Symbol Brushes For Gimp

Posted on2015/07/07AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

As you may know I have been working on a fire alarm autocad template full of blocks and symbols to make my fire alarm design job a bit easier.
I also have been working on a fun side project. Fire Alarm Templates.

Sometimes I get floor plans in tiff or jpg format. When I do I have to lay that in as an xref and trace the walls. Well sometimes the bid is too low to do that efficiently and the company still make a profit. Sometimes there is just a need to get a quick device count for a bid. Well I came up with a way to get the symbols onto the tiff to send back to the customer.

To get these brushes for free, just download from here

Fire alarm Symbol Brushed for Gimp
And then place the brushes into this folder on your computer (with g.i.m.p. turned off)

C:\Users\(your-Name)\.gimp-2.6\brushes

Currently only works as the pencil mode brush. Scale it at size 10.

This has made take-off and bid tasks much faster and much easier. Except the fact that you have to eyeball the coverage. No tool as of just yet for measuring coverage. This will come eventually.
Use your best guess.

DISCLAIMER:

These symbol brushes are for general idea only, not for construction and not for permit use.

Fire Alarm Template Update May 2015

Posted on2015/05/102017/01/02AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

**Update**
The Fire Alarm Template has been updated and is currently listed on This site with an updated photo.
Added an access control template (more robust that initial announcement).
If you are looking for the fire sprinkler template, please comment below.
**Update**

If you haven’t been following my other project, I have an Autocad template that I have been working for about 8 years. The idea of this template is to offer a low cost alternative to the people in the fire alarm industry and less costly alternative to simplifying their fire alarm designs.

The fire alarm Template I sell at The top of the page here Fire Design Blocks Is currently for sell.
Things that are being added to the next fire alarm template are blocks that have these features:
Horn/strobes-Strobes with candela rating and amperage, built in them.

Both “the last strobe” and “the last horn strobe”. These blocks are their own block with multiple devices inserted that way you can drop the single device in a location and select from a drop down menu to change the orientation of the device and the candela. Yes you can still just buy each of these independently if you are not in need of the full alarm template with all fire alarm blocks added.

Dynamic Title block. To change settings for all of the title blocks. Such as job name, jurisdiction, notes for technicians.

Initiating devices with addresses ready to type in.Smoke detectors,heat detectors,control modules,relays, and pull stations. You just insert their block and you will be prompted to type in the address. There is also a version of the fire alarm devices for each that does not have this option, if you are just doing a quick mark up.

All of the previous blocks and template features are still included in the new fire alarm template. The difference is a small handful of blocks have been altered a pretty good amount. In this case it would be in your best interest to keep both templates if you qualify for a the new template after purchasing the current template.
The date of launch for the new fire alarm blocks template will be June 1st. at that date the price will go up to $450. For now the price is reduced to $375.

The plan is to create a new post on this site explaining how to use the fire alarm Autocad template and insert the blocks to optimize your fire alarm design to reduce design time, and increase accuracy of fire alarm design.

The fire Sprinkler template is for title block and legend attributes to simplify the initial set up of fire sprinkler design.
The access control template works much like the fire alarm template.

Fire Alarm Template To Make Design Easy

Posted on2014/05/022017/01/23AuthorTruXter16 Comments

If you want to just skip ahead to the pricing
fire alarm template pricing
For a few years now I have been working on a fire alarm template. Actually a couple templates. I recently added a fire sprinkler template and an access control template.
In the templates I have tons of tools that I have created. They make my job much easier. I am continuously adding more features to the templates. The end goal is some day to own my own fire alarm company and be able to hire people who are in need of a job, yet have no skills. I can then hand them a computer with autodesk/autocad on it and turn the person into a fire alarm designer and I won’t have to worry about much to teach them and the jobs go as flawlessly as I can make them go.

Here’s the first version of this template from 2009

and here is the fire alarm template version from 2013

and here is the fire alarm template version from 2015 (Videos showing function) <– NEW
Also please notice I added a fire sprinkler template and an access control template with symbols.

Features of the fire alarm template
If you look click this image of a section of the fire alarm title block, everything that says “select one” has a drop down menu to select through the options I regularly have. Such as AHJ, Sales Person, Job type (new construct,add to existing) and so on.

I have also created Attributes for the site title and the address.

If you look at the fire alarm legend your will see I have parts numbers listed along with part count for relocated devices, existing devices and new devices. Also I made sure to show the little menu so that you can see when you click of the parts numbers of say …. for a Fire alarm Horn/Strobe you will see the little globe pop up next to the pointer telling you that you can click on it and get taken to the manufacturer’s website to download the cutsheets for the device. This cutting out the time it normally takes you to look up the devices on the web and find the cut sheets for each fire alarm device. Every place you see the word “select” there is a menu of items I regularly use pertaining to that mart of the legend. No sense in typing that stuff with every fire alarm I design.

Cool feature I added in Autocad/autodesk for fire alarm design

The goal is to be able to click the legend and a menu will come up asking you what vendor or parts distributor like genesis,system sensor, or firelite etc. you select one and the legend changes to the correct parts numbers. Then click the numbers on the left (parts count) and a drop down comes up of 0-1000. So if you have 43 pull stations , you go to the 00 to the left of the pull station in the legend and click once for the menu, then scroll to the number 43 and you now have your count as accurate as you need. Also the devices are on separate layers, this way if I want to not show my smoke detectors in the drawing, I just turn that layer off. It removes the smoke detectors from the drawing and the legend, and the theory of operation and the parts count. Kind of cool.

Now, there is a function that uses excel that I have been working on and “Table” command that is in progress. The goal to so that when you select your notification devices such as strobes or horn/strobes your counts change for your battery calculations. Yes you still have to manually do a few things to make this work so right now, that isn’t much worth mentioning unless someone has a better option they would like to share with me

I currently have three custom fire alarm templates that I use regularly and in their current state, It is BLISS. So much stuff you have to memorize about fire alarm design is a non issue while using these templates. Depending on task, location, manufacture and a few other issues, I will decide which template I need most for the job.

Many of the blocks and data links and attributes I have added to the fire alarm templates, are to remove human error, some are for my own security. Such as print time, creation date designer “Field” entries. Say if someone comes to me and asks me questions, I can see what date the drawing was printed and who’s computer printed the drawings. This is for my security and prevents people from tampering with my designs, and getting away with it. Yes I have worked in a pretty cut-throat office with people who tampered with my designs. These are great features.

Another helpful feature is the option to insert devices anywhere in a drawing with just a simple insert command. Then just hit the enter button as many times as you need to drop the same device. Example:
I typically start my design with initiating devices. Pull stations first so I just simply type “insert” or “i” and hit enter. Then a window pops up asking what I want to insert I type in “pull” and hit enter. and boop, a pull station as at the end of my pointer. Now I just find a place that the pull station needs to go and click that spot.. There it is… pull station. I notice a few more spots, so I just hit the enter button (repeats last command) little window pops up again, this time “pull” is already in there, so I just hit enter again. From here out with the pull stations I repeat this ; enter-enter-click, enter-enter-click, enter-enter-click, enter-enter-click. By doing that I have just placed 4 more pullstations in the time it usually takes someone to place 1 pull station.
Like this:

The Template can be found for sale right now at my other site under fire alarm templates and blocks

Fire Alarm Design Made Easier

Posted on2013/06/062017/03/04AuthorTruXter7 Comments

I have put together a collection of great homemade tools that I have been building for fire alarm design in Cad since 2007.
Over the years these tools have evolved and gotten better looking with deeper detail, yet increased design speed while keeping a nice uniform appearance to my fire alarm designs.|
The videos and pictures below are some of the earlier on functions. I have created so much more and still maintain a (better than) fair price for such a large collection of design tools.
Click the link below if you want to just skip right to the tools, or continue reading the article to get a better understanding. More recent videos are in the link to the fire alarm design tools website.
Fire Alarm drafting files for sale

Detail

This Fire Alarm Template, along with all of the addons mentioned, there are also a few items and hidden gems. Such noting in the printed fire alarm lay out, you will see original date that each specific job is started, and the date it was printed. This protects the fire alarm company and the fire alarm designer. Gives the designer proof of date of file creation and print out, if there is ever any wonder if someone else has messed with the fire alarm design. at the same time, you will also see the name of the person who printed the drawings. So if Dave grabs Bill’s file and edits fire alarm system and prints this fire alarm system out, Dave’s name will be on the printed file along with that date. If Bill goes back and prints that fire alarm layout, the drawings will now have bill’s name back on the drawings. Where this protects the company, is the date of file creation and date of printout. if you add that to the date your fire alarm drawings are submitted to plans review plus date of notification of acceptance, you have further support of your contract if the customer has any issues with your productivity time.

Titleblock

There is also a location with in the fire alarm template, with in a block that allows you to insert project numbers and permit numbers. The intention of this option is permitting purposes. County/City/State project numbers and building permit numbers to be specific. I did this for the occasional issue that would come up when our Plans and permitting department would have the random act of luck, and just not have everything with him. I make sure he has the permit number and project number in the exact same spot every time.
Also there is a spot to type in the AHJ. City/County/State information goes there. There is also a spot to note if the building is fully sprinkled (fire sprinkler existing) or not. Some jurisdictions this is needed. So when Permitting guy is at the plans review office, the answer to that question is readily available.

For organization efforts, there is a location to add the salesperson’s name. For the occasional moment when no one knows who sold a specific job, and no one wants to claim it. That person’s name is right there on the fire alarm drawings locked in a block. helps prevent many disputes, and possible conflicts of interest.

Candela

The candela tool is made for ceiling mount and wall mount visual notification devices. So a fire alarm designer can know exactly what candela setting the device should be. This helps with battery calculations and voltage drops.

Also allows you to not have a mess load of full on technicians at a location and allows the chance for a trainee/helper to get his hands on experience with less people standing over him while he works. This was to reduce failure at plan review in the city/county/state. This turned out to have many benefits for the company. This allowed us to work on a lower budget and kept us all free from common errors.

Legend
The legend has a space to show device count for new,existing and relocated devices. Helps with ordering. If there are certain devices in the legend that you are not installing with this design, you can just look for this symbol’s name in the layers menu and just click the light bulb to the left and turn that device off. This also helps if you have to make major edits( but the “already placed” fire alarm symbols will be fine where they are), you just turn them off for a moment, make your edit, then turn them back on.
If you made it this far here’s some free samples
Cad blocks

Gimp Brushes

——————————————————————————————

***THERE IS AN UPDATED VERSION OF THIS FIRE ALARM TEMPLATE
and here is the fire alarm template version from 2015 (Videos showing function) <– NEW***
Also please notice I added a fire sprinkler template and an access control template with symbols.
Please like and share this post.

2009 , I created this post about a fire alarm autocad file I was giving away. I was steadily making changes to the cad file. Adding blocks, different fire alarm symbols, legend, battery calculation spreadsheet, Candela measuring tool, smoke array tool and many functions that just made the job easier. Every time I would get a new idea, I would add it to my template. After much time, I decided that I have way too much work in the thing to just give it away. So if you were not here through the beginning phases, Sorry.
(Here is the 2015 version of the fire alarm template)
Along with a fire sprinkler template and an access control template.

The fire_alarm.dwt file is no longer on the server for free, but here is where you can purchase it. Fire Alarm drafting files for sale.

Battery Calculations and Voltage Drops For Fire Alarm Design

Posted on2010/08/052018/09/06AuthorTruXterLeave a comment

So far I have found a great Voltage drop table file for when I do fire alarm drawings in Cad.
Same site also has a battery calculations table and excel file.
Of course each fire alarm parts company offers some sort of tool. but not one person has pressed out a fire alarm battery calculations LSP file. and well that kind of frustrates the heck out of me.
I have tried a few times to build one but failed. Plus I work so much I really haven’t the time to build an LSP that does actual calculations.
but the excel file or table are just fine.
So if anyone knows of a battery calculation lsp file for autocad
Please respond to this thread.

I would be quite thankful.
Houston fire alarm guy

Fire Alarm Cad Template

Posted on2009/11/022017/01/23AuthorTruXter12 Comments

(Give me a like on a social site or share this with a friend, I don’t have a 2000 pr team, it’s just me here)
I have been working on a template in autodesk for a year or so, trying to eliminate all issues. I have not yet prevented everything that I may encounter, but I have reduced the amount of issues that can come. So no this is not a perfect download. It is how ever as close as I have come this far. Fire Alarm Legend and Title Block is now for sale only. There are tons of websites that help you get the Symbols for you legend and there are many sites that give you fire alarm sprinkler addons for autodesk autocad. There is very little for fire alarm. So it is a rough start.

Most of this is my own work, but much of this is what I have gathered around the internet doing searches In Google and Bing and Yahoo and Ask. There just was not enough out there for me to get the job done. What you see there in Layout view is nothing compared to what is going on in Model. Everything you see there is through view ports. All of my view ports are built to scale.

The trick is to drop all images into the square above the title-block and then scale it so that it prints out to scale. there is a second view port in layout view that opens to that location.

If you are in need of this whole Fire Alarm DWG file, let me know I will set it up for upload and message you when it is ready.

There is a huge original version of this, so what you are seeing in those two pdf files would be the light weight trimmed down most used items version. There is a huge one with everything I can possibly use, that would look like a train wreck though.

******update*****
I have the cad file listed for sale. I will be emailing the DWG DWT file to every person who pays for it.

All prices are marked and made easy. Major credit cards and paypal are welcome, If you require any other method of payment, use the contact form on that page.
Simply because I would prefer to sell the thing for at a lower price for the basic and limited tools.
There is a full version with full tools and all addons to make it easier to complete your fire alarm
design in cad. Oh and the one I had here on the site, Is about 10 versions old.
The new one has a few Candelas tools in it already and many block features that most people do not even know
exist.
This Template comes with a my personal created method to measure Candelas , Smoke coverage, a battery calculation addon that I created, Blocks for every device to me inserted, and instruction manual with short cut codes for calling the block.
This Fire Alarm Template has everything I use on a daily basis and will shorten your design time, reduce room for error and simplify fire alarm design so much that you can give someone a computer with this template and they will be designing fire alarm systems like a pro, as they read the “HowTo” file.
So Simple, even your boss can use this .DWT file.
If you want a copy just reply with a comment, all messages here are filtered so they will not post till I approve them.
All personal information will not be shown here.
******update*****

**update** This post is 4 years old. There have been many updates to the fire alarm template. It is no longer free. I have listed it for sale. The update to this is located here Fire Alarm Design Made easy

(Here is the 2014 version of the fire alarm template)
and here is the fire alarm template version from 2015 (Videos showing function) <– NEW
Also please notice I added a fire sprinkler template and an access control template with symbols.

New job!

Posted on2007/12/26AuthorTruXter1 Comment

Probably not the most techy news I have done here but I got a new job working for a company called “HiTech” Fire detection.

A fire alarm and sprinkler company from out in Houston area. The guys here are great and very relaxed. Kinda strange to me because I have never been this comfortable in a work environment.

Well forget all the intros let’s get to the bone. I seem to have been assigned a task of building a website. See this guy Eein that I am working with built a site straight from css and tables and stuff which of course i think is fine and runs circles around the current site . But the owner saw me messing around with some flash ap and just jacking around with my desktop and a web template . Now see, I didn’t really want the task of building the site, simply because if it looks lame to me I will rebuild it , and rebuild it and it will never be finished. I have scrapped it like five times now already.

Well if a site is what they want then a site is what they get. You see though, I like the site that Eein built. It just looks better and is more sound and can be easily updated when needed, and it can be crawled at any time by any search bot. The owners of the site want a flash intro and a flash ap on the page , a flash ap that I really do not want to get buried in. They want a room to navigate in with a fire extinguisher and a sprinkler and a horn strobe and a lighted exit sign above the door in the back. I am sure I can do it, but man I would hate to have to edit it. I can edit it but dang .

You guys tell me what looks better. I really like Eein’s site I have said that from the start and am really against a bloated flash site. The current site is done in mostly Iframes and I really cannot see a bot crawling that which really is not a helpfull thing, ya know? See I know that they are going to be expanding to Austin Dallas and San Antonio real soon, like before the end of 2008. They surely will be wanting an update to the site telling people in those areas that it would not take long for us to get our guys on the site. Now that is becoming bigger work. I am still learning the ropes of the job and if I spend all my time on the clock building a site, when my evaluation period ends and I don’t know anything……. dude I will be screwed.

Looking at hours of photoshop and adobe flash cs3 man,!!!!

The dell machine and adobe flash cs3 and if you could zoom way in, you would see photoshop somewhere in the taskbar. This sad little machine is a trooper though, it is doing all that with only 512 mb ram, minimum for flash install. The 3.2g pentium is the life saver there though.

looks like houston.com has them in the forefront