A friend of mine actually owns two IRC-3s, & he’s made a few videos of at least one of them: his doesn’t have the large display assembly or the FCCA module that the one in that photo has however (& thus is non-voice evac capable). Here’s the link to his Youtube channel where the videos are: MonikxHX - YouTube
There’s also this topic where an apparent former technician posted links to their Youtube uploads of an old IRC-3 training video, if you’d like to know more about the ins & outs of it (due to the Forums update some years back the links are broken however meaning you’ll have to “reconstruct” them manually):
Vintage Edwards IRC-3 videos - General Fire Alarm Media - The Fire Panel Forums
How do you reconstruct them
I guess you could try using Audacity? I’m not aware of any videos with IRC-3 tones in them though.
Ok thats fine, by the way whats audacity
An audio editing & generation application:
Audacity ® | Free Audio editor, recorder, music making and more! (audacityteam.org)
It’s very good for making synths of life safety tones among other things.
Hey! I’m the one who owns the 2. The IRC-3/FCCA generated similar tones to the EST3 and I have the files to the raw audio files to the FCCA package. The MVM (the voice module for the irc-3) uses the same voice as the EST3.
What do you mean by “2”? Is there such a thing as an “IRC-2”?
Huh, okay, interesting.
Should I know you by the way? I know someone who has two IRC-3s, & you look like you have at least two as well going by your profile picture.
What do you mean by “2”? Is there such a thing as an “IRC-2”?
I think he means he has 2 IRC-3s
If that’s the case he’s likely the same person I know, as he’s the only one with two IRC-3s that I know of (if so though that’s odd as he already has two accounts here).
I am Meka, Just a different name on here.
I did indeed mean that I have 2 IRC-3’s. Fun little fact though there’s another IRC by the name of the IRC-1. the whole front display design only consists of 2 seven segment displays and 2 buttons. Acknowledge and alarm silence but pressing both at the same time initiates a reset. The panel out of the box supports 24 zones however I don’t know if it’s expandable.
But yes, the FCCA uses similar tones to the EST3 while the MVM uses the EST3 voice. There is another voice module by the name of the RAMM-A however I do not know what the RAMM-A would sound like but have seen that in place of an MVM in some older IRC-3’s pre 1996.
Ah okay. Why three different accounts though?
Interesting…
Is there such a thing as an “IRC-2”?
Neat! Are the FCCA & MVM put together to give the IRC-3 full tone & message capability?
Imma be honest I got lazy when I forgot my passwords…
I don’t think so but an IRC-2 might exist.
And that’s correct, they would be put together for full tone & voice.
Oh dear…sorry to hear that.
It would just make sense if there’s an IRC-1 & IRC-3: why not go in numerical order instead of leaping straight from one number to the other?
Ah okay. Funnily enough according to the “IRC-3 Operation & Service” video the FCCA by itself can do either “one of 15 tones, or a pre-recorded message”, but not both.
thank you so much, sir I’m very curious
Just a question, what exactly did the Irc 1 look like
Here’s a photo of an IRC-1’s display (it’s from an eBay listing that ended at some point in the past year). I’ve never seen a photo of the cabinet.
I don’t know whether these panels were ever sold under the EST brand. Given their rarity, I wonder if they were discontinued before General Signal’s acquisition of FAST.
Ah yes, I remember that listing: I was actually considering purchasing it for a friend of mine at some point.
Good theory: given the fact that it’s named “IRC-1” it’s likely older than the IRC-3 & thus may very well have been discontinued by the time the Edwards-FAST merger happened.
Are you ever going to upload the FCCA files?
I will upload those to this thread soon. They’re saved on my computer and I currently am on mobile.