You thought you would never see single-stroke bells again makes me hopeful that I will eventually see Simplex 4051s again.
[/quote]
Oh for sure, out of the hundreds of thousands of systems out there, there’s bound to be some old ones still kicking. Seems like most of the older systems are in Ohio.
Which is weird because I was out in Ohio 7 years ago and I didn’t see anything. 
Today I was doing a verification on an older downtown apartment building. The system recently got replaced with a Simplex 4007ES, previously a Simplex 4005 and before that an Edwards 1523. We had to run brand new horn circuits, as the old 4005 was still using the 120V bells from the old Edwards system. So basically, there was a relay inside the old panel, and the bells were all connected to that, problem being, if the power went out, the bells would not work. We replaced the bells with the Edwards Integrity Horns. The old bells were Edwards 6000 Durabel, and some 10" Adaptabels, and the 1 Potter bell in the basement. Also interesting to note this building is connected to another 4 story building, which has an Edwards 6616 panel. I was surprised the systems weren’t just merged together, like I’ve seen many other buildings.
I dunno why the other 2 pics didn’t post, but here they are:
[attachment=0]61928679_1759358704209314_6814037255158497280_n.jpg[/attachment]
The new Simplex 4007ES panel and the old Edwards 1523 panel.
[attachment=1]61920463_476134123142220_4284045202756206592_n.jpg[/attachment]
In the parking garage. The parking garage was under construction for a bit, and this bell unfortunately was right above a big hole to the outdoor world. Plus they didn’t bother covering it up when they poured new cement. This bell might end up being a permanent fixture lol.
The bell looks like it has been in a war. :lol:
Be a technician.
I’m not interested in being a technician as I don’t feel it is for me and I am no good at electronics. I’m happy with looking for work in the field I want to go into even if it is IMPOSSIBLE to find a job right now. <_<
Be a technician.
[/quote]
And install fire alarm systems.
As I said before, I’m not interested in that. And even if I was, I don’t really trust myself to do any job that involves either saving lives or keeping lives safe.
Be a technician.
[/quote]
And install fire alarm systems.
[/quote]
Fire alarm techs don’t actually install systems at all really. That’s all electricians, the only thing we ever do in new installs is verifying.
Working today in an old apartment building, and came across this gem in the electrical room:
[attachment=0]68376914_880868545628258_21968998237208576_n.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]67957062_689037971565218_6762031012294688768_n.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=2]67839885_451087232402699_1011852294452412416_n.jpg[/attachment]
This is an Edwards 1221 T. The original panel to the building, the drawings have a date of February 1963. Looks like it used to run 6V bells at some point. As of now, the only original parts left in use with the new system are some of the old Edwards pulls, which they remounted and rewired.
Never thought I’d ever come across single stroke bells again, but today I heard them once more.
I was at one of our older buildings downtown, which is a big theatre. We had to install a new booster panel, because the old one wasn’t working correctly. The current panel is a Mircom FA-1000, and it’s a two stage system actually. The Bells, to my surprise, were Edwards 333-Ds! When I first glanced at them I thought they were 343-Ds, but when we set the bell circuits off (to find the end of lines) that’s when I realized it was a single stroke system. Was pretty awesome to hear them again doing their 20BPM then march time, reminded me so much of my high school fire drills. The original panel was an Edwards 6500, and from what I heard, next year they are going to be renovating the entire place, and so the system will be no longer soon. I’m hoping I get to do the final inspection on that old system before it gets replaced.
[/quote]
I know that Chase Reinhardt owns a 333-D.
I have to wonder where that horn originally came from then because I’m sure there is a good story behind that.
Job I did today was a panel swap. There was two of us, and we only had one day to do it I only took a couple of pictures of some stuff I was doing but otherwise it’s a daycare and a wooden building. Mostly I just got pictures of the old wiring, and the new wiring we added to get a couple of strobes put in the bathrooms.
I guarantee you that an electrician ran that wire. I’ve seen enough screwed-up systems to know that electricians can’t do anything right when it comes to life safety systems (why we even allow them to do this kind of stuff in the first place I have no idea, especially as I’m sure they have no understanding of the codes at all).
A grand majority of companies couldn’t care less about the codes, 'specially in low voltage 'coz “the codes don’t say anything about low voltage”. That, my friend, is the most ignorant statement in the electrical trades.
Alarm technicians do crappy work too. Electricians, it depends. Electricians in other parts of the world never seem to have an issue putting in a code compliant system that looks professional, but in America it seems you have some great electricians, some okay electricians that I’m glad are running jobs as opposed to the far too many horrible electricians who shouldn’t be doing electrical work. You have a select elite tier low voltage guys that have a wiring fetish, like me… not that I’m elite tier yet but I do have a neat wiring fetish, and a grand majority that couldn’t seem to care less that run their camera wires on the ceiling tiles and through the same penetrations as the lighting circuits.
See NFPA 72 says follow NFPA 70, NFPA 70, Art 760 (Fire Alarms) Says follow the 100s wiring methods, 300s different cable types and conduits, 500s hazardous locations, and 800s computer cabling. All of that virtually says, in short, cables supported by framing members, and secured, when possible, every 4.5feet, but never supported less often than 10ft. The power in this attic was ran fine and is stapled every so often, so it’s fine. The fire alarm, I don’t know who put it in, if it was ADT, who has the burglar alarm for this place, or an electrician, or some poor sap from a residential security company making $12/hr. You can run wiring on the ceiling trusses, but only so long as it’s not resting atop a power cable and it’s as far from a power cable as physically possible. It’s better to run them along the roofing trusses because it keeps the low voltage away from the high voltage, and it keeps the low voltage from tripping and tangling people working around it.
Electricians & the electrical companies they work for should not blow off not following the codes that easily, since in any case it doesn’t really matter: they’re codes concerning life safety systems, & you must follow them or people will die.
Yeah security technicians should also never be allowed to touch fire alarm systems either, as the two are quite different.
Additionally, sometimes we forget that the customer’s paying thousands of dollars to have professionals come and fix these things. Don’t make it look like “eww, I could’ve done better than that”. If power and lighting systems aren’t built to code, then whole building’s will get caught on fire. The NFPA wrote the electrical code. The electrical code was written with fire prevention as the primary goal. Most every building trade has a chapter of the NFPA they study to get their licenses and certifications. The electrical codes pretty say that all wires shall be ran in a standard way. These codes are amended every time some awful thing happens. 300.11, wiring cannot be laid on ceiling grid. That was added because of a NYC high rise fire where 11 firefighters got tangled up in wires from every system you could imagine that was in that building. Still though, not many technicians consciously think of that and they’d rather run their wires on the ceiling tile, which turns into all technicians running them because “this place isn’t worth the time”.
Copper connections are copper connections in my mind. Security systems are normally closed, while fire alarms are normally open. Funny thing my grandpa taught me when I first started out was that I wanted to be a fire alarm technician, not because I knew how to work on fire alarms, but because I started out doing computer cabling for a temp agency. “Yeah! Fire Alarm Technicians do that! Fire alarm technicians work on everything!” Programming a smaller Notifier or Fire-Lite is pretty much the same as programming a DSC or Honeywell Vista system. It’s not that fire and security systems that are quite different, it’s the salary and the attitude. I’m stubborn enough to do better than crappy work just because I was making less and was treated worse at a residential security company. That’s how I became a lead tech at a commercial fire company, by doing the right thing even when my “mentors” told me “oh my god, flippin’ helper, no body cares! Stop wasting your time on crap that’s not getting inspected!”
There you go.
Security systems are still quite different from fire alarm systems though, in many ways, & more than likely a security technician who knows every in & out of every security panel ever made won’t have a clue about the average FACP.
I guarantee: doing things the right way is the only way to do them.
Smaller buildings/smaller systems are very similar, it’s when there are bigger buildings/bigger systems… high security and mercantile and banking security systems. I see what you mean though, very few guys whose bread and butter has been smaller security systems can wrap their heads around the functions and wiring of a big fire alarm system with fiber optics tying every building into each other and monitoring another brand with another because dumb fire company doesn’t know how to work on one brand and not the other… lol… I suppose this is that conversation about how the jazz musician can learn how to rock and roll, but rock musician will never get good at jazz?
It’s all about reading the product manuals and studying them. Personally, I don’t know any highly experienced low voltage guys that haven’t done at least one fire system or one burg. system, as usually we’re the same company the client calls. There are some excellent technicians out there, but your run of the mill burg. guy usually suck compared to your run of the mill fire guy. Fire alarm guys, usually, are pretty well versed in the gamut of low voltage systems and can fix much of anything. If by security, we mean a two doors and a motion that ties into a cellular communicator, then many of them aren’t good to figure out much more than perhaps cameras.
