Reverse wired Thunderbolts?

[JeroenTheEnthusiast]

Hi People!

I have always had an interest in Thunderbolt sirens, But Came across a Thunderbolt 1003 that my Friend said was "Reverse wired". So i searched up what a Reverse wired thunderbolt is but no usefu results except people talking about Thunderbolt ports for their macintosh lol. (Not ports on a Thunderbolt but the type of Wire you plug into your Computer) Reverse wired Thunderbolts dont seem very different to me but the fact that they mean "Reverse wired" Is confusing. Please give me some info about Reverse wired Thunderbolts, Thanks!

[clarksburg_1000t]

"Reverse Wired" in this case means that the blower was wired wrong. Blowers are only supposed to spin one way and if wired in reverse, they use the horn as the air intake. The way you can very easily tell is that the siren sounds extremely high pitched and sometimes quiet. The wind up can also be very long as the chopper motor tries to spin against the air coming from the blower. You can find an example of a reverse wired Thunderbolt 1000t recorded by 4j25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdx7osmUR6M

[Greenrid]

The only thing that is reverse wired is the blower. The people who installed the Thunderbolt or the people who do maintenance somehow accidentally flip the polarity on the blower motor. One Thunderbolt in Hamilton Ohio, nicknamed "Tunnelbolt", probably holds the record for getting reverse wired the most times (I don't know how much exactly, but I do know that it has been flipped a lot somehow.)!

[Eclipse DDS]

This is a slight deviation from the original question, but what I’ve heard people saying that sirens such as the Cyclone have been reverse-wired too, so what do they mean by that?

[Greenrid]

This is a slight deviation from the original question, but what I’ve heard people saying that sirens such as the Cyclone have been reverse-wired too, so what do they mean by that?

I think it means that the chopper spins backwards instead of forwards. Doesn't that make them sound higher pitched as well?

[CincyTboltman]

Reverse wired means that the electrical leads on the blower have reversed polarity, causing the blower to suck instead of blow.This greatly reduces the original output.

When a Thunderbolt blower is reversed, the air will still go to the horn. But, the siren will be much higher pitched. The sound output is decreased a few decibels.

If you were to reverse the leads on an improperly wired blower, it would work like normal. The city of Hamilton reversed the leads in May and it sounded normal. They reversed the leads again for reasons unknown.

[JeroenTheEnthusiast]

Ok! I noticed a great difference in the Sirens comparing a footage of a Thunderbolt i recorded around a year ago and one i recorded around a couple months ago and noticed that the one i recorded a couple months ago could possibly be a Reverse wired Thunderbolt and it sounded like it was Sick compared to a Regular 1000BT i Recorded.

[Randomizer]

This is a slight deviation from the original question, but what I’ve heard people saying that sirens such as the Cyclone have been reverse-wired too, so what do they mean by that?

ACA sirens used curved veins in the rotor and those curves continued into the stator. This allowed them to more efficiently channel air and use the rotor and stator like built in horns. You can really see this when looking at a Cyclone.

If the motor is spinning the rotor in reverse you essentially have air being taken in through the stator rather than the proper intake, severely diminishing the output of the siren. It’s why ACA sirens have rotation direction indicators. You could check to make sure the rotor was spinning in the proper direction. Since ACA used one motor to drive the rotor and rotation mechanism, you could also tell if it was reverse wired if it were spinning opposite of how it should per the sticker.