Does the L-Series have its own remote strobe like the Classics and Advances did?
I recall the Target I went to having a varying mix between white ceiling L-series horn-strobes and remote strobes, so I’m confussled.
Did the store just recently upgrade their system?
Yeah they do. They come in a wall mount single and double gang configuration. The single gang and double gang ones are separate models and cannot be interchangeable, however, which is different from the previous series. They also make a single gang variant of the horn strobes as well.
Ceiling mount is double gang only or interchangeable if I recall correctly. Interestingly enough because of the different strobe reflector designed to cover the specific surface (ceiling or wall) they can’t be interchanged (for example wall mount on ceiling and ceiling mount on wall because it wouldn’t meet code requirements due to the design change).
Yesterday I visited at Stonehill College in Easton MA, and there have been some more fire alarm upgrades on the campus. Prior to the start of this decade, there was a lot of neat pre-1990s fire alarm systems still in use throughout the college, but since 2010, they’ve started replacing them, mostly with more boring and mundane Siemens, Notifier and Fire-Lite systems. I only saw a few buildings though…
The Aimes Sports Complex was built in 1988 with a Simplex fire alarm system, probably a 4002. There was a small Space Age annunciator branded by Simplex in the main vestibule. The alarms were 2901-9838 horns on 2903 plates (couldn’t tell if they were light or strobe), and the pulls were single-action 4251-20s. No smoke detectors were visible; but the whole building was sprinklerized. Outside there was a 6" Simplex 2901-9332 bell that served as an outdoor fire alarm signal.
The building had a complete fire alarm upgrade a couple years back, and the Simplex system was dumped (as the college doesn’t like Simplex anymore and is bent on replacing the small amount of Simplex systems on the campus with Honeywell or Siemens or whatever.) The new system is a Notifier voice-evac, probably an NFS2-640 (the panel is located in an electrical room or something.) In the main vestibule, there is an LCD2-80 annunciator with a remote emergency mic next to it. The alarms are System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance speaker/strobes, including a couple on the outside. On the inside of the building, some are ceiling-mount, while others are wall-mount. The pulls are NBG-12LXs and the smoke detectors are FSP-851s. It’s pretty much like the new full fire alarm system upgrades they’ve been doing for some of Brockton’s public schools, except for the annunciator (here they typically either use an FDU-80 annunciator or just install the main panel itself in the main lobby.)
The Merkert College Center/Gymnasium was originally built in 1973 and added onto in the 80s, with an old Autocall fire alarm system that had old-style Federal Vibratone 450 horns on Space Age AV32 light plates (no “FIRE” lettering of any kind), old Autocall 4015 pull stations and Pyrotector smoke detectors. The 80s additions (such as the gymnasium) had Space Age 2DCD+AV32 horn/lights (with the usual 80s-style “FIRE” lettering) and Gamewell “LOCAL ALARM” Century pulls. Over time, some Autocall pulls were replaced with Edwards/AIP 270-SPOs, and one of the old Space Age alarms got replaced with a Wheelock 7002T horn/strobe. Outside near the main entrance is a Wheelock 7002T horn/strobe that is very weathered.
The building now has a Fire-Lite system of some sort, with an ANN-80 annunciator in the main entrance. All of the interior alarms got replaced with SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes, but the Wheelock 7002T outside is still intact. The old detectors were replaced with System Sensor i3s, but the existing pull stations were left intact.
The Chapel of Mary used to have Wheelock 7002T horn/strobes, along with a classic SpectrAlert, but they’ve all been replaced with SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes (again…) They kept the old Fire-Lite BG-6 pulls.
A few more updates from Bridgewater State University!
The Art Center had a fire alarm “upgrade” recently. Last I had seen, they had a Simplex 4002 system (beige single-bay version, installed next to a gutted 4208 cabinet), with 4051+4050-80 horn/lights (some were the earlier recessed version, all had blank red lens), 4251-30 break-glass pulls, and a few 2098-9201 photoelectric smoke detector heads on the 2-wire bases.
But now the alarms are Simplex 4906-9127 TrueAlert horn/strobes, slapped right onto the 4050-80s! It looks pretty awkward. They kept the existing pulls and smokes, but I’m pretty sure the 4002 panel got replaced, probably with a Simplex 4007ES or something.
The campus also has its’ own power plant. I saw through a window that the power plant has a Simplex voice-evac system with TrueAlert speaker/strobes (while I’m not surprised it’s a Simplex system, I am surprised they went with voice-evac in a place like that, which is bound to be rather noisy.)
I also found at the Rondileau Campus Center, while their Simplex 4903-9219 horn/strobes are still prevalent on the unrenovated parts of the first and second floors, the ground floor only has them in the restrooms (yikes!); one part of the ground floor replaced the 9219s with 4906-9151 TrueAlert speaker/strobes, but another hallway had their 9219s replaced with 4906-9151 TrueAlert horn/strobes, installed right onto the backboxes the 9219s were on (at least one of them was on a white wooden plank, just like the TrueAlerts in Hart/Burnell Hall.
I was right about Boyden Hall having the new Simplex 4099-9006 addressable dual-action pulls with the LED indicator, but they are only in the areas that used to have 4251-20 single-action pulls. (The auditorium, remodeled in 2008, has 4099-9003 dual-action pulls.) One of the 4099-9006s is installed right on the old backbox one of the 4251-20s was on. The auditorium lobby area and the main entrance have wall-mount 4906-9151 TrueAlert speaker/strobes, but the hallways have ceiling-mount 4906-9154 ceiling-mount speaker/strobes (I’m not surprised to see those; many modern Simplex voice-evac systems I’ve seen since the last ten years have at least one of them.)
On my way out of the campus, I spotted one of the dorms apparently having a fire drill! It was probably the Miles Jr./DiNardo Hall, but it was hard to tell since it was dark out. I could hear the EST voice-evac Code-3 tone (sounding like a truck backup beeper) and what sounded like Genesis horn/strobes in Continuous, but they were probably smoke alarms with sounders installed in the dorm rooms. (Since when do Genesis horn/strobes sound on Continuous anyway?) As I mentioned, many dorms on the campus use EST fire alarm systems, while practically all the other buildings (including a few other dorms) use Simplex systems.
Funny story, I was mounting my Genesis Horn/Strobe one day and I dropped it. After that is sounded in continuous NOT code-3. I was soooo confused but then I figured out it was because I busted part of the circuit board and it tore through the coding jumper. I just put a blob of solder and it sounds in code-3 again!
Configuring to Continuous on a genesis is very easy actually. As well as “temporaling” the Strobe.
I thought continuous on all fire alarm notification devices was STANDARD?
Not on the Genesis series. It’s always been done internally, because the way their sync protocol works it’s gotta have continuous power from the NAC Circuit.
Nope. Most modern fire alarms come from the factory with a jumper that can either set the alarm to code 3 or continuous.
That’s what I meant. That continuous was ALWAYS an option on ALL horns.
There HAS to be a setting for continuous for non-fire emergencies. Code 3 should ONLY be used for fire evacuation.
Or maybe, don’t use a fire alarm horn for non-fire emergencies…
But it’s for instances when there is a NON-fire horn such as a blank SpectrAlert horn, the manufacturer isnt going to make a special circuit board for a continuous output, they’re just going to use the same board with the code-3 tone imputed. Pretty much every alarm made by the same company in the same series has the same circuit board because it is more practical. I hope that makes sense.
Yeah, you can have the same board, on the non fire horns just cut the connections to the part coding it.
I went to Chicago. I’m not going to tell all the buildings and what alarms they had, because most of them had the same NAs, but I’ll just list off all the alarms I saw in all the buildings.
System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance SPSR (speaker strobe)
System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance SPRV (remote speaker)
Wheelock E70 (speaker strobe)
Wheelock E70-R (remote speaker)
Wheelock RSS (remote strobe)
Wheelock E50 (speaker strobe)
Wheelock E50 (remote speaker)
Wheelock ET-1070 (speaker strobe) (also black one and two that match the walls for some reason)
Wheelock ET-1080 (white ceiling remote speaker)
Wheelock RS (remote strobe)
Weird Wheelock RS/RSS mix
Faraday 6227 (horn strobe)
System Sensor MultiAlert MASS (horn strobe, actually started sounding)
Wheelock ZNS (remote strobe)
Wheelock Exceeder STR (remote strobe)
EST Genesis EG4 (speaker strobe)
EST Genesis EGC (speaker strobe)
How do you tell the difference between an SPR and an SPRV without yanking the thing off the wall?
Probably just a guess.
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Or he actually did yank it off the wall. 
This is why signals can be coded at all. The most common setup in modern buildings seems to be the horn jumpers set to code 3 with the panel doing a continuous sync over a 2-wire circuit. Except for speaker/strobe setups, 4-wire signals have largely fallen by the wayside unless the installation job requires very specific types of notification. Older installations typically relied on panel-generated code 3 (switching the 24V on and off in the right pattern) to code the horns and put the strobes on a separate circuit set to free run.
In general it is a bad idea to code a 2-wire horn/strobe via the FACP. Strobes operate best on a continuous supply of power using a sync pulse to flash them all at once because a sync pulse doesn’t totally remove the voltage and restart the strobe, it signals the circuit board to fire the strobe (and I’ve heard of certain strobes being damaged over time when they’re fed the constant on/off of panel-generated code 3).