I believe you did post something on there a while ago.
I could possibly help you with finding a 6500. We just threw out an MKII as well, I wanted to keep it but it had false alarm issues. I already have a full 6500, and I have many spare strips, and my workplace has some 6500 parts that my boss is going to scrap eventually. For me, I’ve been eyeing up government institutions in my area, as Edwards basically had that contract for a very long time, as well as they have their massive plant here about 2 hours away from me, opened since 1950 too in a small northern Ontario town. I’m very surprised they haven’t moved, as many of their other competitors are located in the GTA, like Mircom for example has a large factory in Vaughan.
That is also the best way to do so, but it is very hard to keep track of it all. Sometimes you have to be at the right place, at the right time. But thank you, I am really hoping to save as much as I can before it is too late. I wish the same for you too, your collection is amazing and very well preserved.
Work has kept me lacking with a lot of what I want to do, but I’m hoping to make time for them. I want to make more videos of my collection and the different devices, as well as continue along with my new channel, basically an OldSchoolFireAlarm channel for my area. I’ve been working with an organization to try and preserve items at an old hopsital that was near me, but unfortunately 2 of the buildings were scrapped by vandals. There is a third building not owned by them, and I’m trying to contact them next. The hospital had very old 50s Edwards Single Stroke Chimes, very rare to say the least.
You should try searching some places around Ottawa (cough cough: ex-twoplyboy territory), Thunder Bay, Sudbury, and North Bay (Garret Claridge territory) There could be some 6500s lurking around there.
I believe the model of those Edward single stroke chimes is 18. Zak Wolf Has a video on his YT channel of one sounding.
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I definitely would not mind that at some point later on down the road, thank you very much for the offer. Does Edwards still have their plant up there or has it all been outsourced like a lot of other manufacturers? That’s a shame those two buildings were scrapped, I’m assuming they got ahold of the fire alarm systems? Scrappers usually don’t go for them, but sometimes they do, or destroy/vandalize them in the process of scrapping other stuff unfortunately. I’d eventually like to make videos on things in my own collection as well, however, I am waiting until I move this year coming so I have more space. That way, I can actually set up functional demo systems mounted on a wall (something a bit more professional than just on the floor of my bedroom). At least that’s the hope.
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I made some more updates to the collection post, I had a few more things come in recently (including a 4048R, I finally found one after years of looking). I also have a few non-Simplex things in my collection if anyone is interested in seeing them. I have a Cerberus Pyrotronics MXL system (and some of the addressable devices that go with it), and some older Wheelock stuff. If anyone wants to see those, I can dig them out and post pics.
No worries. & Yes, as far as I’m concerned they still have it up there. & Yeah, scrappers here go for anything metal to sell to the metal scrapyards, so they see a bright metal bell or a metal appliance on the wall, they will take it. The place was bought by non profits, and they had no money for any security at the time before abatement started. There was even sirens on the rooftops that they stole as well.
Glad to see another enthusiast with a 3 bay 4100+ panel. The 80s and 90s simplex panels are my absolute favorite. I’ve got one of them as well that I have networked to a 4020. All it’s missing is a voice bay.
Though I will say, yours looks a lot cleaner than mine. I built mine from scratch and a bunch of parts got banged up in transit but it works I guess. Guess it’s a good thing you get your panels from local building demolitions rather than random people on eBay from all over the country. Have you ever gotten around to testing yours?
Also cool to see someone with one of those classic 4603s. They look super cool but are super fragile. I’ve gone through 3 of them at this point lol. Guess I have bad luck. I’m blown away at how clean those panels look. You take good care of those things.
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I’ve tested it a few times since I’ve had it, which has probably been for about a year now. It works well, however, it can be rather finicky if you aren’t careful. The last time I tested it I thought my audio controller board went out as the speaker circuits no longer worked and a few “CARD MISSING FAILED” troubles came in for the speaker card and VTG board. Turns out the ribbon cable going to the switch controller card was pushing against the speaker circuit card, causing a bad connection with the motherboard. I was able to fix it by moving the cable, but nonetheless, these panels are very touchy. I just wish I had a way to reprogram it for my own use or knew someone that could help me with that since it still has all of its old MapNet devices programmed into it, which are causing about 70 or so missing device troubles that I cannot clear. Nonetheless, I don’t power it up often as I don’t want to risk damaging components or placing extra stress on the power supply from power cycling it.
But it’s cool to see someone else with one of these panels, they are getting very hard to find. Most 4100+ systems I’ve seen in my area have all been replaced with a 4100es if the system being serviced by JCI, or a competitor’s system.
Your 4100 looks relatively clean from the photo, though. Mine is pretty mint, but trust me, it wasn’t like that when I got it. Both my 4100 and my 4020 came out of a hospital campus that sat vacant for nearly a decade before it was demoed last year. They were a part of (from what I can tell from the node list in both panels) a 15 node 4120 network that even had an NDU/NVCC and a Graphics Command Center. I wish I would have gotten those as well, but unfortunately wasn’t able to. But I always take all of my panels apart completely, vacuum out the cabinet, wipe it down with a rag and cleaner, clean all of the circuit boards with compressed air, along with a lot of other things to try to get them back to a “like-new” condition. Probably a little excessive, but it’s worth it in my opinion.
I’m curious as to how your 4100 is set up…does yours also have MapNet or is it conventional?
Yes I will agree these panels can be a bit fragile. I have one of the newest versions of the software that happens to be compatible with both my 4020 and 4100+. However after a few downloads, I believe I hit the limit on my 4020 as it refuses to download now. I believe I just have to swap the cfig chip and it should be good but nonetheless yes these 90s software based panels are pretty touchy.
So the guts to my 4100+ originally were all zone cards and an ES upgrade kit. I was able to put a 4100+ cpu and display back in it and I also managed to hunt down a mapnet card for a good price. They’re crazy expensive nowadays. I removed a bunch of the zone cards to make room for a future voice bay and put the mapnet card in so it is programmed to do both.
Awesome collection! When you mentioned that one of your speaker strobes is a 4903-9146, well since it is 110CD, it is actually a 9144 from that case.