Fire and arc-fault prevention
Catch a hot spot in the panel weeks before any smoke forms.
Most electrical panel fires do not begin as a sudden event. Loosening terminals, rising contact resistance and insulation breakdown build up over weeks, producing a measurable outgassing signature and thermal gradient along the way. The particulate a smoke detector responds to is the last link in that chain.
Contact
Where the problem starts
A loosened terminal in a low-voltage switchboard gives no sign at all on day one. Over time contact resistance rises, the connection point begins to heat, and the insulation material around it comes under thermal stress. At that stage the material begins to outgas measurably — there is still no smoke and nothing visible, but the composition of the air has changed.
Periodic thermal camera surveys can only catch this event if someone happens to be looking at that panel during a survey and the temperature differential has already grown large enough. In the weeks in between, nobody is watching.
Where Cortex breaks the chain
ArcFire Sense is mounted inside the panel and continuously measures volatile organic compound (VOC), total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), equivalent carbon dioxide (eCO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H₂) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) channels, along with ambient and surface temperature, relative humidity and pressure. The IQ Panel evaluates those channels together with load current data in a single risk function.
The critical point is this: the system does not look at an absolute threshold, but at that panel’s own reference signature. The signature learned during commissioning captures the panel’s load profile, thermal behaviour and environmental conditions. A panel running under heavy load therefore does not raise an alarm merely for being hot — it raises one when it starts behaving unexpectedly.
What it delivers
Early warning gives the maintenance team a planned intervention window. Tightening a loosened terminal is a job measured in minutes; a panel fire caused by that same terminal means equipment loss, production downtime and a risk to life.
Recommended product combination
- ARF-005ArcFire SenseA multi-channel gas, thermal and electrical signature probe for electrical panels.
- CTX-IQ-100IQ PanelThe edge controller that hosts the Cortex platform's embedded AI inference engine.
- AQS-010AirQuality SenseA multi-channel air quality and gas measurement probe for industrial interiors.
Frequently asked questions
Does this replace our existing fire detection system?
No, it complements it. Fire detection systems respond to particulate and heat once a fire has started; ArcFire Sense targets the outgassing and thermal signature stage that comes before. The two systems operate in different time windows.
Do we have to shut the facility down to install it?
No. Probes are installed without cutting power and with no mechanical modification to the panel enclosure; the magnetic and screw mounting options are suitable for live installation.
Will false alarms overwhelm us?
Risk scoring is based on a physics-informed model: thermal rise is evaluated together with load current, so an expected temperature rise under increasing load is not classified as a fault. Every channel also passes through a Kalman filter on the probe, so switching transients, door-opening events and ventilation cycles never reach the risk function.
Can the system intervene directly when an alarm is raised?
The IQ Panel's dry-contact relay outputs can drive contactors, warning sirens and line-disconnect circuits directly. The system is not limited to a reporting role.