SCA Malaysia is one of the companies that would help us to make sure our lives are saved. It’s not like they will save our lives with money. They will save our lives with their product. This SCA Malaysia has their products such as a fire alarm, heat detection and some others more. And today one of the products from SCA Malaysia has been chosen as our main character, which is Smoke Alarm.
Click Here For The Importance of Smoke Detectors
What is a Smoke Alarm?
A smoke alarm or smoke detector is designed to detect smoke, heat or fire and emit an alarm signal. The signal comes as a loud noise. Whether the smoke alarm is located in the hallway, bedroom or factory floor, Australian law requires commercial and residential rental properties to be fitted with smoke alarms.
Type of Smoke Alarm
Ionization Smoke Detector
Inside this smoke detector is an air-filled ionization chamber with two plates that have a voltage applied to them and an americium compound called americium oxide. In this form it is solid, which is safe to handle and use. Americium Oxide, AmO2, is encapsulated in a foil and ceramic to prevent alpha particles from escaping the detector and causing a radiation health hazard. Also, alpha particles can’t travel very far because they’re heavy.
Americium produces alpha particles, ionizing nitrogen atoms in the air. Ionization is when an electron is removed from the atom, creating a negatively charged free electron, leaving the positively charged atom. The free electron is attracted to one plate because of its positive charge, and the atom of the other plate is negatively charged because of the opposite attraction. This in turn creates a flow of ions and a small electric current.
When smoke from a fire enters the detector and disrupts the flow of ions by absorbing alpha particles and neutralizing them, the droplet current is discharged from a circuit board and then triggers the alarm inside. These smoke detectors are the most common and widely used in homes. They are cheaper to manufacture and detect very small smoke particles in the air. Unfortunately, this leaves them vulnerable to false alarms. However, they react faster to rapidly blazing fires.
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Photoelectric Smoke Detector
Instead of detecting smoke through ionization, a photoelectric smoke detector detects smoke optically. Invented in the early 1970’s, it is a reliable detector for your home. A photoelectric smoke detector houses a light source that is either ultraviolet, visible, or infrared. Either an incandescent bulb or a light emitting diode (LED).
There is also a lens and a photoelectric receiver in the form of a photodiode. These components are housed in a chamber that allows air to flow freely. Under normal conditions, light travels undisturbed from the source to the receiver, and the angle of travel does not affect the sensor. As smoke enters the chamber, its particles reflect light, scatter it, and hit the sensor.
This activates the alarm. For larger areas or auditoriums, projection beam optics are used, where a wall-mounted unit sends a beam of light to another receiver or reflects a detector. Other types detect air as it flows into the photo sensor, and when the light intensity of smoke or dust falls below a certain threshold, an alarm sounds. A photoelectric smoke detector is more sensitive to smoldering fires, but slower to detect fast growing ones.
