Overview
This article covers the use of the Door Interlock feature on Challenger Door Controllers. The article is written primarily from the perspective of using this feature on NAC (Network Access Controller) Door Controllers, however the concepts do also relate to the V8 Four Door Controllers as well, with some minor differences that will be mentioned.
This is also written for using CTPlus, however again the same concepts apply to other management software, the locations for the settings may just be slightly different.
What is Door Interlock operation?
Door interlock operation allows blocking of access being granted to a door when any of the other doors that it is interlocked with have been accessed / unsecured. Once all other doors that it is interlocked with are then secured again, access will then once again be granted at the door.
How to configure Door Interlock operation
To configure door interlocking, in CTPlus (or other management software):
- Open the Doors/Lifts window for the first door you wish to configure interlocking for.
- Go to the Hardware tab for this door
- Under "Interlock options", tick the "Interlock doors" tick boxes for any doors that you want this door to be interlocked with. There is no need to tick the door you are working on.
- Then go to all other doors you want included in this interlocking, and repeat the same procedure for each of them, ticking the doors that you want each door to be interlocked with.
Example:
As an example, lets say you have a TS1066 NAC in 8 Door mode, configured as DGP 2. This will have doors 21 to 28. And lets say that you want the 4th, 5th and 6th doors (doors 24, 25, 26) of this Door Controller to be interlocked with each other, so that only one door can ever be opened at a time.
You would follow the procedure above, and configure the door's interlocking as follows:
Door 24 (4th door) is configured to be interlocked with the 5th and 6th doors (doors 25 and 26):
Door 25 (5th door) is configured to be interlocked with the 4th and 6th doors (doors 24 and 26):
Door 26 (6th door) is configured to be interlocked with the 4th and 5th doors (doors 24 and 25):
These doors will now operate interlocked with each other. So now when any one of these doors are accessed / unsecured, attempting to access any of the other doors will result in an "Access denied - interlock active at door " message with the door number and name.
One way interlocking:
Note also, that if you wanted to configure one way interlocking, where for example, Door 1 cannot be opened if Door 2 is open, but Door 2 can be opened if Door 1 is open, you would simply only configure the interlocking for Door 1 itself - by just going to Door 1's settings, and ticking Door 2, so that Door 1 is interlocked with Door 2, but not ticking anything on Door 2's settings.
Using the DGP 2 example again, lets say we're using the 1st door, which would be Door 21, so this would be configured with ONLY the settings shown below on Door 21, and nothing on the 2nd door, Door 22. Door 21 will look as follows:
Time until other doors can be accessed
NOTE that after a door is accessed, the interlocking is not cleared until the shunt time for the door has ended, and the door is secured. Until this shunt time has ended (and door is secured), users will not be able to access other doors in an interlock group. You can set this time shorter if required, on the door's Shunt/Egress/Passback tab, to achieve the desired time before other doors that are interlocked with a door can be accessed.
Interlocking is on the same Door Controller only:
Note that both examples above could be configured on the same Door Controller at the same time, to operate separately, so you can have multiple interlocked sets of doors on the one Door Controller, but you cannot have doors that interlock across Door Controllers on a NAC.
The older V8 TS0866 and TS0867 Door Controllers could achieve limited interlocking across Door Controllers by connecting a door input in to a spare or unused input on the Door Controller we are programming, and then ticking to interlock with that input (see below).
V8 TS0866 and TS0867 Door Controllers interlocking:
These older Door Controllers can have interlocking programmed in the same way, EXCEPT that instead of ticking which doors to interlock with, you are ticking which door input to interlock with.
This means, for the example directly above, for the 1st door to interlock with the 2nd door, you would need to tick to interlock with the door input of the 2nd door, which is input 4.
For example, if we were on a TS0867 as DGP 1, using the 1st door, Door 17, and we wanted to interlock with the second door, Door 18, we would tick "Interlock inputs" as 4, as shown here:
NOTE that for V8 TS0866 and TS0867 interlocking, if the inputs are on the same Door Controller, the input doesn't have to physically be unsealed for interlocking to work. If the door is accessed / unsecured, then interlocking will work even if the input was not unsealed. However if the doors are on another Door Controller, and connected in to inputs on this controller, the inputs will have to be physically unsealed for this to work.
How to disable and re-enable Door Interlocking using Macros
Interlocking can be controlled using Macros. Note that for doors that you wish to control interlocking with a Macro, you must first have also configured interlocking to tick and enable interlocking on the doors required, otherwise the Macros will not have any effect.
Interlocking control via Macros uses the DGP Macros features described here:
- "Door interlock override" - this action disables interlocking on the specified door when the Macro is active (interlocking must first be configured on the door).
- "Door interlock" - this action restores interlocking that may have been previously disabled with a "Door interlock override" action mentioned above (interlocking must first be configured on the door)
These two actions will always be used in conjunction with each other, with two macros, one to override interlocking, and one to restore interlocking. They will not work on a door if interlocking has not been previously configured for that door, as described in the section above.
Example:
Let's say that we have a TS1066 NAC in 8 door mode configured as DGP 2, and we wish to control interlocking on the 6th door (Door 26) based on two areas being accessed.
We want the behaviour to be such that when both Area 5, and Area 16 (used as a Fire Override in this example) are armed, the Door interlocking is enabled, so that Door 26 cannot be accessed if any doors that it is interlocked with are already accessed / unsecured.
We then want it to override this interlocking so the door can be accessed normally whenever Area 5 or Area 16 are disarmed.
This would be configured using the Macro pair as follows:
Door 26 Interlocking override when either area is disarmed (using an "OR" condition):
Door 26 Interlocking re-instating macro when both areas are armed (ticking the "Not" boxes, and using an "AND" condition):
The above programming will achieve the required operation, as long as Door 26 has also been previously configured, as described in the earlier section, to be interlocked with at least one other door.
At times it may require some experimentation of macros to achieve the exact operation you are after, however this article is intended as a guide for what is required to achieve correct interlocking operation.