The Fire Panel Forums

I've been watching more of Disney's "Recess" on Disney+, and with the new school year here and Halloween approaching the "Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade" direct-to-video movie that served as a finale for the series. So I've decided to come up with this... Third Street School was built in 1951 as a K...

Well, there are now no more Space Age VA4 horn/strobes left at my college campus! Hard to believe ten years ago nearly all the buildings had them, and now there are none left! The Liberal Arts and Humanities buildings finally replaced their VA4s with System Sensor L-series horn/strobes on adapter pl...

One lesser-known company that's kind of local to my area is Protectowire, the makers of the BG-50 pull station . They're based in Pembroke, MA, and the only Protectowire fire alarm system I've seen in the field so far was the Knights of Columbus building in Pembroke; they have a Protectowire SRP4x4 ...

A surprise at my high school! BHSunusualalarm.jpg This is found at the receiving entrance to the main building. A Simplex 2901-9553 horn on a 4050-80 light plate with the lens missing! The horn is obviously replacing a Simplex 4040 that failed, but what's unusual is how all the other 4040s I've seen...

And we get ANOTHER "Family Guy" episode with that stupid fire sprinkler pull station cliche! "Family Guy Lite" from the previous season. The overweight Peter Griffin and handicapped Joe Swanson are unable to climb a set of stairs in the Pawtucket Brewery, so Peter notices a fire alarm pull stations ...

A local restaurant that was built in the '70s still has its original Simplex system with two 4050/4051's on 4050-80 light plates (w/o "fire" lettering). There are also three 4251-30 break glass pull stations and several System Sensor heat detectors. Like I said, it seems I've seen 4251-30 break-gla...

The 2903 light and strobe plates came out in the late-70’s to replace the 4050-80’s that have been around since around 1970 when the 4208 came out. the 2903 had a nice, long run for a decade, until the 4903 light and strobe plates took over. The 4903 light and strobe plates replaced the 2903s I bel...

Another system with Wheelock 7002Ts gone! The former Toys R' Us location here in Brockton MA (near the Westgate Mall) was built some time in the mid-1980s with some kind of Fire-Lite system (probably a Sensiscan-series system), with 7002T horn/strobes and BG-6 pull stations. Some time in the 1990s o...

So it would have been impossible to just replace the part on the system that was breaking down and you would have to replace the whole system right? In certain cases I mean. On such an old fire alarm panel like the Simplex 4208, yes, it would have been impossible, or at least extremely difficult, a...

Exactly. I never understood it before, but as a fire alarm tech, I fully understand why these replace these systems entirely. A lot of them don't have backup power, or upgrades to buildings, or a faulty panel. I've replaced a lot mainly due to elevator upgrades. Yep, at my first elementary school i...

An updated version of a system I made up nearly nine years ago... Ocean Shores Elementary School was built in 1978-1979 as a campus-style elementary school. The school initially had four separate fire alarm systems: one to control the main building, one in the field house/auditorium building, and on...

Hey, for anyone out there who has an early version of the Simplex 4050-80 light plate designed to run off 125-VAC (typically the kind that had the horn fully recessed into the plate), a friend of mine (CoolSimasGuy on YouTube) showed me a way to make that sort of 4050-80 run off 24-VDC without havin...

I would say to tell someone from the maintenance staff that they do that as a suggestion but in my experience the maintenance staff tend to blow you off. :x Well, after that intentional false fire alarm on Halloween, the facilities department did tell me they put fire alarm pull Stopper covers in t...

Surprise upgrade at my college's Student Union! The non-renovated areas had their remaining electromechanical horn/strobes (Standard Electric Time 450 horns with 90s-style Faraday strobes on the old Standard light plates and Faraday U-HN-MCS horn/strobes) replaced with System Sensor L-series horn/st...

Just a question for you. Were the mystery light plates that look like 4050-80s these light plates? https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pI9PJXjJvYc/maxresdefault.jpg Or maybe the old Bliss/Gamewell light plate that I've only seen have SpectrAlert Classics slapped onto? spectralertgamewelllight.jpg But anyways, l...