Electronic security and access control cabling falls under the requirements of the AS/CA S009:2020 Australian Standard. This standard covers the installation requirements for customer cabling and is otherwise known as the “Wiring Rules.”
Section 20.4 states: “the Cabling shall be protected from excessive currents or voltages that may cause damage or fire, by such means as fuses, circuit breakers, or voltage or voltage current limiting circuitry”
This means that for security installations, every cable supplying power to field equipment must be protected from fire or damage by a fuse or other current limiting circuitry.
This includes the power to card readers, locks, detectors, keypads, sirens and other field equipment. Security panels often have built in, fused protection for reader and detector power but other circuits such as lock power require an external in-line fuse.
Excessive current can be caused by a short circuit on the cable or damage to a field device and without proper protection can cause the cable and/or power supply to overheat. In a worst-case scenario, this could lead to a deadly fire however even slight damage to a cable can lead to expensive repair bills and compromised security. With this in mind, it makes sense to add relatively inexpensive fuse protection.
To provide effective protection against fire and other damage, the fuse rating must be higher than the field device current requirement but lower than the maximum current rating of the cable. The Jack Fuse Power Port range provides effective overcurrent protection in compact power distribution modules suitable for any security installation.
More information:
The standard can be found here at the Communications Alliance LTD website.