I know, but detectors is probably gonna be main focus. All of the other stuff is equally important, but I’ve got my own goals y’know?
Out of those, I think Panels built before the 90s especially are super rare and hard to find. The reason is because when they get decommissioned, taken out of service, or died completely, they get removed immediately and scrapped most of the time and not to mention it is very difficult to remove and preserve such a bulky and heavy Panel.
Finding a Working Panel from anything before the 90s is very hard to come by unfortunately. But luckily it’s not impossible.
The problem with saving control panels is the cost of shipping. I have about thirty panels that if a local user doesn’t want them will get trashed by my coworker the day after I retire.
Sure, but just saying: why stop at just that? (especially since the way I see it every kind of life safety device is important to save)
Yeah.
I don’t get it: why would you let a coworker trash them when even after you retire you could simply hang onto them in case someone eventually wanted them? (wouldn’t surprise me if other techs have done exactly this too) Also, sure, shipping would be a lot for something as large as an entire FACP, but I’m sure some enthusiasts would be willing to pay that much for one!
That thought process could apply to trashing anything; why trash your vacuum dust if you could simply hang onto it until someone interested in collecting vacuum dust? Techs might not see old panels as any more valuable, and the company may have policies around that.
That may be the case, but in this instance FACPs are actually seen as valuable by many (& they are!), so if they could either be shipped or sold locally that’d of course be great & preferable (as it’d otherwise be a waste of something that many could do something with: heck if anything maybe this is what life safety service companies should do with their stocks of normally-useless removed devices as standard: better than letting them sit in a back room taking up space & collecting dust I’d say).
So far, @MASS2475ADA, and @FireAlarmGuy12 are now members of TAFATP. Along with simplexguy1999.
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I don’t have the room for them. I’m not necessarily a collector, and I have a lot of surplus equipment. I saved them at my place of work mostly for spare parts. They are interesting and some are probably rare, but I don’t have a use for them. An appreciative young collector on this site happens to live fairly close to me so he’s going to take some off my hands.
You know, TAFATP can also sell off and give away unneeded alarms as well.
Others might though!
I really hope that actually happens so that not all will go to waste (none hopefully will though if others chip in! (I probably would if I had money to burn right now, but sadly I don’t).
Yeah: I’m certainly for that if “let no life safety device go to waste” can be made into an actual & accurate “motto”.
Don’t worry. It will happen.