I saw this episode of hotel impossible on re-runs , this place had a non working fire alarm system for 25 years! The guy pulled it nothing happened. He went to the panel, There was a off switch on the panel! Turned it on a bam! “EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” I saw some kind of fire-lite wedge light. Can someone verify this?
You saw correctly.
Here’s the video clip of it: http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/hotel-impossible/video/anthony-s-top-5-at-the-gadsden
I know Andrew just recently got one of those wedge-light assemblies.
That’s interesting, anyone know the panel brand and/or model??
Looked like Fire-Lite maybe.
As a side note, anyone know the variant of the Vibratone/Fire-Lite horn that is? (B1,B4, whatever) I LOVE that sound.
Sounds like a 4051 actually. It is possible they had 4041s there or some other horn and had them replaced with a 4051. Also, he forgot to turn on the wedge itself.
I know Fire-Lite rebranded the 4051 (remember that Faraday actually made it), but it’s likely it could be the newer Vibratone. Sounds like it to me.
The wedge light probably had a burnt-out bulb or something.
If its the new Vibratone, then it would the Simplex equivalent) 9806. If you pause the clip at just the right moment, you can see the wedge has a switch on it.
I wonder if the fire department came? For the first time in 25 years (I shutter to think what would happen if there had been a fire.)
The system was so old that it probably was a local alarm setup that wasn’t monitored.
It wouldn’t have to be the 2901-9806. It could be an FCI HP horn, that’s what my school has an they sound exactly like that.
I’m not sure if all the Fire Lite wedges had the same horn, but mine has a Fire Lite 450 horn, which I think is the same as a Simplex 4041.
Fire-Lite rebranded the newer (9806-style) Vibratone as well, I have one in my collection.
If I were at home I’d take a picture of it for everyone. The horns in that hotel sound like Vibratones running on full wave rectified power.
The panel is a Fire-Lite “C Series” panel, I think it’s called a C-10.
My schools I’ve been to have a variety of alarms:
Elementary school: my first school had a Notifier afp 400 with voice evac. The pulls were Edwards 270 SPO’s with stoppers over them. The smokes were System Sensor 2400 smokes. The signals were similar to Those Edwards horn strobes with triangular strobes. But they were not horn strobes, they were speaker strobes.
Other elementary school: after 2nd grade, my first school closed down and we moved to another. This school also had a Notifier afp 400 with voice evac. The smokes were also system sensor 2400 s. But the pulls were notified bgx 101Ls with stoppers. And the signals were Wheelock et3 speaker strobes that looked like 7002ts.
Middle school: my middle school has a Gamewell FCI panel. I don’t know the model number. The pulls are Gamewell century’s. The smokes were Edwards and the signals were Wheelock MT4 WM horn strobes on continues horn.
High school (my current school) : this school has a simplex 4100 panel. The pulls are simplex 4251s with stoppers. The smokes are simplex 9211 smokes. And the signals are simplex strobe plates with simplex 2901 9838 horns. The new edition has a simplex 4010 with a simplex annunciator. The pulls are simplex 4099 9003s with stoppers. The smokes are simplex true alarms and the signals are simplex 4 wire Truealarts. Everything is on continues.
Update to the second elementary school: the whole system is being replaced but not the panel.
Then if they’re like the Edwards 892’s, the one you see are Edwards 896-001’s
Very interesting. The Wheelock 7002T-style speaker/strobe you mentioned might be a Wheelock ET-1010-WS24. South Station in Boston still has some (IDK how much longer they’ll last, as Simplex can be kind of a snob about older alarms.)
With your high school, the Simplex 4100 panel may be original. Are the strobe plates this kind?
If it is, then the 4100 system is probably from the early 1990s. I’ve seen a 4100 system from 1991 with these same horn/strobes, though it was set up as a conventional system, like the one at your high school probably was. The 4251-series T-bar pulls were still being used in the early 1990s, though they had been discontinued in 1991 in favor of the newer 2099 series (I guess Simplex was clearing out old stock.)
I was recently at the Great Lakes Crossing Mall in Auburn Hills, MI. I don’t know if anyone here has been there/lives near there, but does anyone know if there is some sort of FA system installed there? I was looking around for pulls, smokes, NAs, and couldn’t see/find anything.
The High School I would have went to had I not gotten into William M. Davies Career and Technical High School, Charles E. Shea high school had its fire alarm system replaced sometime in 2014. I was there to take my SATS. Anyway, the old system had Simplex 4051+4050-8Xs and I think dual action Simplex pull stations. I don’t know what is there now. I found out from a Pawtucket School Department document. http://www.pawtucketri.com/documents/purchasing/13-093.pdf
I told you that the old system at my elementary school, Nathanael Greene had its system replaced with SpectrAlert Advances though the cafeteria still has its old 9838s up.
And my actual high school did a somewhat upgrade where it removed the 2DCDs and replaced them with Exceeders (though there were only 2) a few years back and they re-did the freshman hallway by putting fire proof doors in the middle of it. There are two Gentex Commander 3’s next to the fire doors. The 9838’s in that wing remain untouched.
Makes me think that my middle school Samuel Slater’s fire alarm system must be REALLY well maintained (4051+4050-8Xs) since my cousins who went there say the system is still up. Either that, or they just don’t care. (I should mention that the principal there is somebody who was also at my elementary school and that nobody likes…)
Since I missed the boat to edit my post, I’ll have to double-post. Not a good picture but its something. This was my middle school. If you can squint, you can see the 4051+4050-8X in the background.
Yup, reminds me of Boyden Hall at B.S.U; not just the way the alarm is mounted, but the walls, doors and such. Typical of a building from earlier in the 20th century having a new Simplex fire alarm system installed in the late 70s.
So I am currently attending the Anthro New England convention in Cambridge, MA (see what being K-O the Kangaroo has done to me?) It’s at the Hyatt Regency hotel, and it’s pretty large. They have a mostly-typical modern (as in fairly recent) Simplex voice-evac system. The panel is probably something in the 4100 series; there is a 4603-9101 LCD annunciator at the receptionist desk.
The alarms I saw so far are multi-candela TrueAlert speaker/strobes; the first floor (where most of the convention is held) has the white wall-mount version (4906-9153), but some corridors on above floors have the ceiling-mount version, and the restaurant I saw has the red wall-mount version (4906-9151, just like mine.) There are also white wall-mount remote TrueAlert strobes in the restrooms and anywhere else where additional strobe coverage is needed. What’s worth of note is that many of the wall-mount speaker/strobes I saw are on red trim plates (even the white alarms), probably covering up where 2903-series speaker/visuals were (they most likely had a voice-capable 2001 or 2120 until the new system was put in).
Pulls are mostly Simplex dual-action 4099-9003 T-bars. They can even be found in the panel rooms, sometimes not next to an exit! I also saw one that was mounted rather high; probably wired right up to where an old pull station was. There is a single-action 4099-9001 T-bar pull behind the receptionist desk.
Naturally, the smoke detectors are addressable TrueAlarms (probably 4098-9714 photoelectric heads on 4098-9792 bases), found at the elevators, and in the corridors on above floors. There are also quite a few of those hidden cameras resembling some kind of generic smoke detector (like an older System Sensor model, but with a much larger and flatter “head.”) Of course, anyone who knows quite a bit about fire alarm equipment would know those aren’t real smoke detectors, especially on a modern addressable Simplex system like this 
I saw a rather odd ‘system’ (if you could call it that) at my friends 3 story walk up apartment. Basically, all there was for fire alarms was Edwards 270-SPOs, and they were connected to regular house smoke detectors. Never seen anything like that in a building before.