The Siren Board

Motor failure, chopper motor transformer failure, any of the contactors in the RCM failing, Rotator motor and blower motor failure, or the blower belt slipping on the actual blower pulley and smoking, because of friction, because it's seized (at least I think that can happen... on paper at least)

Greenfield1003 wrote: ↑

Mon May 15, 2017 5:08 pm

Sorry for the MASSIVE bump but what exactly was wrong with siren #19/what would cause a Thunderbolt or any other siren to start smoking?

The siren had not been serviced in at least 5 years, and quite possibly never serviced since it was bought by Cobb County in 1989. Cobb never was a huge fan of servicing their sirens and as a result many of them failed. The biggest issue seemed to be broken rotator belts and blower belts, causing the county to have a lot of rather quiet unidirectional sirens in the recent years. My best guess is that something went wrong with the rotator motor/the wiring going to the rotator motor (most likely a short circuit or frayed wires due to animals), since the smoke came out of the rotator box while the siren was sounding according to the sign shop. If the wires going to the motor overheated enough, it is possible that the insulation/paper filling in the wire caught on fire and produced all of the smoke.