The Siren Board

holler wrote:No that's not what he meant. He was talking about the fact that trying to get a different brands 2 way system to jive is a major PITA.

Has nothing to do with tbolts with whelen panels. Sirens are dumb, all they need is something to close a set of contacts.

^This^ (as always, thanks, sir).

I think that T-Bolt that is identified as broken in the Franklin County video is perfectly fine. Its testing twice in Whelen's 5 second wail/noon test.

FS-Thunderbolt-Man wrote:Well, of course! Remember all of the issues that were created when Franklin County was switching to Whelen from the T-Bolt system? They retrofitted all the Thunderbolts with Whelen DTMF panels, and half the Thunderbolts since broke, malfunctioned, or plain wouldn't work.

A radio can't break a siren. That's just not possible, especially in something as complex as a 'Bolt. A radio just tells the siren's controls to activate it. Its a relay closing a contact to start up the equipment that's already there. A radio would just be wired to the contacts on the AR. St. Louis, when it got its original Whelens in '82, stuck Whelen radios on the remaining Federals. A great many worked just fine to the day the system was scrapped in favor of the complete 2900 overhaul. 30 years of reliable service on Whelen radios. Don't be so quick to generalize. Franklin County is modernizing (even their old Whelens have been upgraded to the most recent technology).

So, i was driving around yesterday and happened to pass 3 other 2001s. ALL OF THEM HAVE ASC PANELS! i guess they must have all been replaced within the past week...

I can see the ASC panels running the chopper perfectly fine. What about the rotator? The reason I ask this is because of the way the rotation speed is controlled on the 2001-SRN and the way the rotation speed is controlled on the T-128 and T-135AC/DC. The rotation speed on the 2001-SRN is controlled by where the rotator belt is placed on the pullies (like the Thunderbolt) while the rotation speed on the T-128 and T-135AC/DC is controlled by a potentiometer in the panel. How would they get the rotation speed accurate?

i can see fried motors in the future...

Model L wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 16, 2017 7:58 pm

i can see fried motors in the future...

I doubt it. From what I know, both FS and ASC controls output 24v DC. EDIT: 48v DC.

for the rotator though, if It's controlled by a potentiometer on asc controls, and a belt in fs, if the potentiometer was set low, would the rotator motor burn out?

Most likely, since the potentiometer does adjust the voltage to the motor.

The rotators on modern Federal Signal mechanical sirens operate at 48VDC and generally do about 3 RPM for the direct drive or selectable with 2, 4, and 8 RPM with the belt drive. The T-128 takes in 48VDC and can do around 6-8 RPM, which indicates that the gear ratio for the ASC sirens are lower. In other words if you drive the rotator at the full 48V it would fly off at 6 RPM. They probably drive the rotators at a lower voltage to slow the rotation down. If this is the case all that would happen is the rotation on the 2001 would be slowed down to a snail's pace. Running the motor at reduced voltage wouldn't burn it up. In fact, ASC probably either omits the pot or sets it to it's max setting while running the panels on 2001's.

Sounds like that would work.