Someone has really nice handwriting.
Here’s an old Simplex 4208 panel I came across on Friday in an apartment complex. This was kind on an odd setup - there is the Simplex 4208, and the FCI FC-72 panel right next to it. The FCI panel has all the initiating devices wired to it - pulls, smokes, heats, and waterflow. No notification devices wired to it. The Simplex panel all the notification devices wired to it - a couple of bells. No initiating devices wired to it. Basically the FCI panel goes into alarm and trips the Simplex panel. It looks like the Simplex was original due to the Simplex pulls in the building and the way they fed the FCI panel from the Simplex. The only purpose of the FCI that I can figure is that they wanted to zone the devices at some point and add an annunciator. But why not just change out the panel all together and drive everything off the FCI?
Anyway, these won’t be around much longer. All three buildings are scheduled for demolition within the next year.
[attachment=2]Simplex FCI.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]Simplex Panel.jpg[/attachment]
Notice how the green power lamp burnt out and they made up an easy replacement.
[attachment=0]Simplex 4208.jpg[/attachment]
Can you see if you can salvage the FCI-72?
I doubt it. The guy owns a bunch of properties and he already salvaged a bunch of stuff (including the Simplex panel) from the building they already demolished. Think he’s aware these older systems have some salvage value.
Well, if he doesn’t take anything, I really like that Simplex panel.
The FC-72 parts are definitely becoming more rare especially the BMFC-6.
Would snag that cabinet and convert it to a E3 Series!!
Very interesting dual-panel setup. Sort of reminds me of my high school; they had an FCI FC-72 panel (That was actually kind of junky, probably installed in the early '90s) while the horns were loud flush-mount Simplex 4040s (that 4208 appears to be a 120VAC system.) Then there’s the K-8 school I went to for kindergarten that has a dual-panel setup as well, with a Simplex 4010 and a 24-VDC Simplex 4208; here the 4208 is used for the existing older pull stations and smoke/heat detectors, while the 4010 is apparently used for signals, duct detectors (installed in 1998), system monitoring and the modular building (which formerly had its own ESL panel.) With that one, I am surprised they didn’t just scrap the 4208 and wire everything into the 4010 with zone adapter modules?
Why fix what’s not broken? Regardless of how much sense it makes, it’s really all about money. Probably cheaper just to leave everything as-is and just add onto it with the 4010.
This week I’ve been laying out some interesting systems.
One is partial fit-up of a warehouse that manufactures health and bio material. It has wet-pipe protection at the roof deck, as well as in-rack protection for 3 tier rack storage. To further add to it, there is in-rack protection inside a cold room on a separate dry system. Had to make multiple copies of the floor plans in order to pencil in each area of protection without making the plans too crowded. Protecting in layers...never easy to demonstrate in 2-D :wink:
The other one is a new library…pretty typical, but the consultant engineer indicated a pre-action system for the attic. Why? No idea. A dry system would be about 5-8 grand cheaper and accomplish the same thing. On top of that, she showed zone controls on the dry system…BAD! :roll:
Here are a couple of pictures of some of the local schools I went around to this week to do their quarterly sprinkler inspections. We have NOTHING to do with the fire alarm panels at these schools, the school district themselves services and inspects their own fire alarm systems. And believe me, I really want nothing to do with these panels when I get into them and see some of the choppy work they have done. I’m sure it’s either their electricians or IT guys who end up doing most of the work. Nothing but t-taps, EOL resistors paralleled on the terminals on the panel, devices not installed properly or working, etc. Anyway, here is a collection of panels that have been replaced with new systems - and they took the easy way out, simply attaching the new panel right on top of the old one! Talk about laziness. Take a little pride in your work! I can justify a situation where they need to get a working system in place ASAP - but some of these have been like this for years, they could have easily cleaned these up over the summer break.
[attachment=2]Panel1.jpg[/attachment]
Dialer installed on top of the old dialer - the new dialer is much larger than the old one so really sticks out. Sad thing is even with limited conduit experience, this was an easy replacement. Both pieces of conduit have a coupling right below the photo and you could of easily just disassembled the conduit, cut it, re-bend it to fit, and reinstall everything! Notice they did the same thing with the burglar panel above!
[attachment=1]Panel2.jpg[/attachment]
New panel installed directly on top of a “new” EST panel.
[attachment=0]Panel3.jpg[/attachment]
Old Merlin FACP here - I can sort of see this is being ok because the old panel is built into the wall.
[attachment=2]Panel4.jpg[/attachment]
New panel installed on top of an old Simplex panel - nice oak plywood, must have decided to splurge on the higher end material here!
[attachment=1]Panel5.jpg[/attachment]
New panel installed on top of an old Pyrotroinics panel
[attachment=0]Panel6.jpg[/attachment]
Opening up the Pyrotronics panel reveals this nice rats nest of wire and modules! Close her up VERY carefully…
Oh, I have more pictures too, these are just some of the “best” hack jobs!
Only time I saw a panel install job sort of like that was at my college’s Field House building; the Faraday MPC-2000 panel they had since the mid-90s (originally a Simplex 4207) was damaged from rain leaking into the electrical room, so they installed a new Fire-Lite MS-9600UDLS panel in the main lobby connected to a junction box where the annunciator used to be, and they gutted the inside of the Faraday panel and installed a Fire-Lite power supply cabinet right onto the door.
Holy hack job, Batman!
I’ve worked on some rats nests before but have never seen anything like that! Some zip ties, Velcro, and terminal strips would go a long way on that panel. I’m truly surprised there isn’t some sort of wiring trouble showing up on that panel, as bad as that is.
Patrick
What is the model of that panel?
It’s most likely a Pyrotronics System 3.
But with that wiring job, it should be a Pyrotechnics System 3! 
It’s a System 3 cabinet, there’s no system 3 components left inside though.
Yeah, an old conventional System 3 that was original to the building. As far as I know it was working just fine last time I was out there so not sure why they replaced it. In fact, they ended up replacing three older conventional panels in different buildings within the last year (they did the same hack job replacement for all three) so I don’t know if maybe their insurance company wanted updated systems or just by chance all three took hits. They are not the poorest school district in the state but not the richest either, so just don’t see them replacing systems for the heck of it.
I am actually glad this panel is gone! It was a pain to disable the bells. The fuses on the bell modules were worn out and you couldn’t just pull the fuses to disable the bells. And where the terminals were located in the panel they had a lot of wires running through there so made it very difficult to get your fingers in there to pull wires. So we ended up having to power down the system - the breakers were all the way on the other side of the school - and pull the white interconnection harness to take the bell modules out of the system. Just seemed like a radical way of doing it but that how they wanted it done! That and a conventional panel with no way to track system events in a large building is just poor design.
Oh, what is wrong here…
[attachment=1]Napco6024.jpg[/attachment]
Here’s a hint for ONE of the problems:
[attachment=0]NapcoWiring.jpg[/attachment]
Is that CAT-5 cable?
Also, does the piezo have a sticker over it?
Looks like 120vac is ran with the low voltage wiring?
And obviously the cat5 cable being used for the sprinkler supervisory and zone 1, and what looks like random wire used for everything else. Run into that a lot when security people install FA.