Very unique and rare pull station. Honestly one of the ugliest pulls I’ve ever seen. Oddly enough, I thought the entire thing was metal until it arrived, the cover is plastic. Dated 9/15/75.
I’ve also seen so many rebrands (Spectronics, Potter, Unitec, E.E.I, ect.) of these pulls that I have no clue who the OEM is.
i have the same one (spectronics re-branded Potter FA-50). i was likewise surprised it’s plastic. I don’t mind how it looks as much, if only it were metal.
i always assumed potter fa-50 is the OEM, as that’s the only version i know that has the brand actually molded into the plastic, the rest generally have a sticker, but, i could certainly be wrong.
Faraday also re-branded these.
The Unitec ones I’ve seen also have the name molded into the plastic, so who knows. Glad to see that I wasn’t the only that thought it’d be metal.
That’s the first non-FA-50 FA-50-style station I’ve seen, never knew there were any variants of it.
Yeah (though not really unique in the way it works given all the other t-bar-type pull stations that exist).
Definitely not the best-designed but I suppose it could be worse.
Definitely unusual for a 70s-era pull station: most produced in that era are made of metal.
I have no idea who the original maker of the FA-50-series is either, other than it’s been
rebranded by a surprisingly large amount of companies & that all FA-50s are called such regardless of brand (which is usually not what happens with rebrands, though considering the FA-50-series is from the 70s maybe there was less thought put into changing device model numbers for each rebrander back then).
The one I have is the Unitec variant (dated September 15th, 1975).
I for one have never seen a Faraday-branded variant: do you have a photo of such a variant by any chance?
I’ve noticed that too: on other variants there’s just a sticker there instead.
I have one of those pulls! ( except mine is in nicer condition and is unbranded ) the back on mine is red
Unbranded & with a red backplate huh? Not sure I’ve ever seen a variant like that! (unless the label was removed or painted over & the backplate was painted)
Something I just realized: both mine & FireAlarmGuy12’s FA-50-series stations have “September 15th, 1975” printed on them: does that imply that that’s in fact not a manufacturing date but a date for something else instead? (like an introduction or patent date, the latter of which I believe is the case for Gamewell’s Century-series according to a friend of mine)
Never thought the date would be the introduction of the patent, but I could see that being true. Although depending on the volume they made these, it is completely possible that both of ours by chance where made on the same day, just probably very unlikely.
Yeah. jjinc24’s Potter FA-50 actually has the same date printed on its backplate (which is red like the one on Caleb’s too!), so it might be the date of introduction or when the patent for the FA-50 & FA-52 was either filed or granted (no idea why they would put a date like that on the station itself of all places but yeah).
Just found this topic which features a catalog page for the FA-50 & FA-52 pull stations, as well as another brand name for them: “Alpha-Larm”, which going by the label on the station was a divison of the Hochiki America Corporation at one time (which as I’ve seen is a brand name they also used for their smoke detectors). It also reveals that the only difference between the FA-50 & the FA-52 is the switch: the FA-50 has an SPST (Single Pole Single Throw) N/O (Normally Open) switch, while the FA-52 has a DPST (Double Pole Single Throw) N/O switch. On another note, the description for them really isn’t written that well grammar-wise (though that might be able to be excused since the Hochiki America Corporation is a divison of the Hochiki Corporation of Japan).
Okay, now that three units have the same date, it must be the patent date (which I agree is odd). We also now have even more brands these where made under (what is that, like 7 so far?)
Also reviewing my images, the inside of the station actually tells you what kind of switch it has, it’s just next to the model number. (DPST-NO in my case)
Might be. Now if only we could find the patent itself (there wouldn’t happen to be a patent number on yours somewhere would there?).
These are all the ones I know of:
Alpha-Larm
Bay Alarm (supposedly one of those local service companies that slaps their name onto devices)
E. E. I.
Fire Call
Harrington Signal
Honeywell
Potter
Spectronics
Spurling
Unitec
Ah, yeah.
Funny enough when you first proposed the idea of the date being for the patent, I actually tried to see if the patent was listed on it, but to no avail.
Also with all of these rebrands, it’s like the Silent Knight PS-SAKT. One company makes the generic pull for everyone to rebrand. I’ve seen those under the following:
Bosch
Silent Knight
Wheelock
Simplex
Firecom
Ademco
Faraday
Fenwal
DMP
Honeywell
Just searched one model on eBay and got this whole list.
Oh, huh. I guess we’ll just have to find it some other way then (maybe by searching patents by that exact date & hope that it shows up?).
Yeah quite a few devices are like that (convenience mainly I think: companies don’t have to make their own devices, they can just rebrand them from another manufacturer at an affordable price & hopefully good quality too). The original maker of the PS-SAKT is the Signal Communications Corporation, or “SigCom” for short, & the original name of the series is either the SG-32SK-series, the SG-33-series, or the current SG-42SK-series (the SG-33 is simply the NYC white stripe version of the other two: no idea what the exact difference(s) between the SG-32SK & the SG-42SK are or why one replaced the other though).
Here’s all the ones I’ve seen so far:
Ademco
Advanced
Bosch
Fenwal
Firecom
First Alert
Gamewell-FCI
Gamewell
Honeywell
Mircom
National Time & Signal
Nohmi
Potter
Protectowire
Resideo
Silent Knight
Simplex
Spectronics
Viking
Wheelock
The RMS-series by RSG, Inc. beats it in the way of brands though! (heck there are probably more than what’s listed here that I don’t know about! Them very clearly advertising “private labeling” on their website helps with that):
Advanced Alarm Systems
Edwards
ESL
EVAX
Faraday
Federal Signal
Fire-Lite
Global Fire Control, Inc.
Grinnell
Harrington Signal
High Rise Fire Protection Corp
Honeywell
Potter
Ravel
Safetech
Security Door Controls
Secutron
Siemens
Simplex
Sirena Fire Protection Corp.
Tomar Electronics
VES
WSA
Oh yeah, forgot about the RSG T-bar. I actually want to see the First Alert branded Sigcom pull, because it makes no sense to me that First Alert should be in the commercial fire business (although being a subdivision of BRK, it makes sense they could be).
Huh, would you look at that…thanks, now we know of that variant too.
That’s kinda how it went: BRK is the original company, with First Alert being a brand name/sub-brand of theirs. BRK initially started out in the commercial side of the industry themselves, but eventually created System Sensor for it instead. System Sensor was eventually acquired by the Pittway Corporation, who in turn were then acquired by Honeywell, which is why Honeywell owns System Sensor today. Don’t believe First Alert has really ever been in the commercial side of the business themselves, but they were once in the security industry, so that may be where that First Alert-rebranded SG-42SK came from.
Ah okay, thanks for sharing that: another one for the list.
