Very old panel acquired

I would be wary about keeping ANYTHING around that has any type of asbestos on it but that is just me though.

The horns were series duty and likely 4 VAC or 6 VAC. As the panel was 120 VAC, the big wire wound resistors were used to set the voltage as needed.

Fore example, if you had 10 6V horns, the circuit would need a minimum of 60 volts to work properly. ( I always set 10% higher so bells sounded nice, so 66 volts). Or you could adjust the current to match the bell as labelled. But be cautious, cannot mix bells as all must be identical.

Some suppliers used adjustable resistors that had a slider on it so you could move it back and forth to attain the setting suited.
Any time you added or deleted bells or horns the resistor was supposed to be changed to suit. Sadly few did it due to ignorance or laziness. So panels too far out of whack could look like this one did, with burn marks.

These panels go back to the olden days when suppliers were often clock suppliers playing in fire alarm. Names like Simplex. Cincinnati Time, IBM and others. Names that have been out of the business many years.

So many of these panels had the wrong hands playing in them and so almost every one after a few years was not set up correctly. Some really monkeyed around to make things work and made the situation worse.

But I am glad they are long obsolete.

[quote=Alexis_T post_id=85225 time=1571680767 user_id=3602]

Typical coil-wound resistors, these can get scorching hot, and I really mean hot.

Careful if you break one of these by accident, I think the “core” that the resistive wire is wound on is asbestos, unless it’s bog standard ceramic. By the way it kinda sucks that the panels’ schematic got burned off, and even that I wonder how hot it got for the panel’s exterior to even start having burn marks…

As for the horn, these must be early Adaptahorns (I don’t remember the model no# but they definitely ran on AC)

[/quote]

It probably would be better if he got himself checked out soon just to be safe.

Covered up! I applied tape, then I sprayed clear coat over it. No more asbestos exposure problems for now. Next time I see my doctor, I’m going to ask if I could get Tested for any exposure.

Is there anyway you can get the asbestos removed from the panel? It would be a shame if you had to junk the panel outright.

We had a number of safety meeting lectures at SimplexGrinnell covering asbestos. As long as the fibers are not floating in the air it is not dangerous. if an asbestos containing material is disturbed or damaged it can release the fibers. Then it is a hazard.

Here is a link to an article telling more about asbestos.
https://ehs.oregonstate.edu/asb-when

[quote="Retired STR-SG" post_id=86031 time=1580162397 user_id=3047]

We had a number of safety meeting lectures at SimplexGrinnell covering asbestos. As long as the fibers are not floating in the air it is not dangerous. if an asbestos containing material is disturbed or damaged it can release the fibers. Then it is a hazard.

Here is a link to an article telling more about asbestos.
https://ehs.oregonstate.edu/asb-when

[/quote]

Thanks, coincidentally I also live in Oregon.

[quote="Simplex 4051" post_id=86030 time=1580157231 user_id=18]

Is there anyway you can get the asbestos removed from the panel? It would be a shame if you had to junk the panel outright.

[/quote]

The whole board is made out of asbestos and ebony. The asbestos is normally sealed with a black coating called Bakelite plastic. The black plastic Coating burnt off When the resistor got hot, exposing that part of the board.

So does that mean you have to junk the whole thing? :frowning:

[quote="Simplex 4051" post_id=86037 time=1580180828 user_id=18]

So does that mean you have to junk the whole thing? :frowning:

[/quote]

I covered up the exposed part, so no I’m not junking it. It’s too rare to be junked.

Well as long as you are able to prevent yourself or anybody else from getting deathly sick from the asbestos in that panel, it really is OK. I hope you can get a lot of use out of it!

The resistors might also be asbestos, so that’s another thing to be careful with. But from the pictures it’s hard to tell if they’re ceramic cores or asbestos cores.

Would there be anyway to test it?

I don’t know, but from the pictures they look shiny, which could be a hint that they’re wound on a ceramic core.