What alarm do you have at work/school

Fire Alarm General Discussion
181

Good choice of videos. Now, TrueAlert Speaker/Strobe (and whoever else wants to know)-
There is a good logical reason why the 4050 sounds a lot lower than the 4051.
The wall current we have here in America is of course 120VAC. The frequency of that AC waveform is 60Hz, or 60 waves per second.
The 4050 is an AC powered horn. American AC is 60Hz. What do you think it would sound like? (a 60Hz buzz.)

The reason it makes that 60Hz buzz is because it uses the AC waveform as its oscillator, not a mechanical bell-like mechanism.
Now, some people might say “Oh, but it makes a 120Hz buzz!”
120Hz is just 60Hz, but one octave higher. That is caused by the metal striker hitting an object on every movement, instead of every other movement. So, it sounds like it’s going twice as fast. Got it?

The 4051 is a DC horn. DC is just a straight line at 24 volts. How do you get oscillation on DC? You can’t and shouldn’t.
The 4051 has its own oscillator built in, functioning EXACTLY the same way as a mechanical bell. A solenoid (in this case, a big iron slab behind the horn) pulls with incredible force on the striker, which is very springy. Once the striker is pulled up all the way, a contact is broken. The striker is released, snapping back on the diaphragm, making one loud “pop”. Now, the circuit is connected once again, and the striker goes back up, SNAP, back down, up, SNAP, you get the idea.
This can happen at a much faster rate than 60Hz, giving it a higher pitch. Different mechanical horns use different diaphragms, different strikers, magnets, you name it. That has a LOT to do with its tone and pitch, since they all affect the speed.

Here’s a link to how a mechanical bell works (Just apply that same principle to a DC horn.)
http://www.britishtelephones.com/howbuzz.htm

182

Is the sounder plate what’s under the grille? I’m afraid I think it’s round. That means they’re 4040s, which are very loud.

183

I’m afraid so.

Then again, Ben’s high school here used to have Simplex 4040s, but they got replaced with SpectrAlerts when they renovated the school.

http://www.schuminweb.com/schumin-web/journal/permalink.php?id=263

BTW, does this high school do class-change with bells or a tone? Mine used a tone on the PA system for class-change.

184

That is something else I am trying to figure out. I think it’s a tone because they have a PA system. But I’m not sure. i hope it isn’t a bell. Those things are LOUD!

185

OK, as some of you may have heard that I was at my HS for orientation, I decided to give you an update to what the alarms are.

As I was in the doorway, I saw an EST Annunciator and I remember seeing a black map (graphic annunciator?) of some sort.

The main signals are 7002T’s and BG-10’s. Where I entered, there was a hex lock BG-10 (Made by Fire-Lite). The are a WHOLE LOT MORE BG-10L’s then just a regular BG-10 hex lock. Some of them have Stopper II covers over them.

I also saw some CP/Siemens/Faraday U-MMT horn/strobes (I’m pretty sure that’s what they are, I did look hard to see what was behind the grille) with a multi-candela strobe and with “FIRE” underneath the grille.

I also saw a Wheelock NS in one area.

There are some 278B (don’t know if it’s -1110 or -1120) pulls scattered around and they also have Edwards 270 pulls scattered around (I can clearly remember that they can be found in the cafeteria and the library as long as some of them being found in random places).

One section of the school has Edwards 692 mini-horn/strobes (It’s similar to the Gentex GX90 and Wheelock MIZ horn/strobes for those of you who don’t know). They have the 270 pulls there.

There was also either a Wheelock EH or an MT4 horn/strobe with a WH strobe.

There are 4 EST Genesis Horn/Strobes w/ FIRE lettering (one in a hallway mounted on a red backbox, three of them in the library, which 2 of them are mounted on the same backbox and one of them on a trim plate).

While I was waiting for my bus for my ride home, I saw a weatherproof Integrity horn/strobe with FIRE sanded off.

I think that’s pretty much it.

186

I’ve been in high school for about a week now, so it’s time for a fire alarm update.

The majority of the building has Gamewell Century pulls and Gentex SHG’s, like the middle school. Almost all of the classrooms have a white ceiling-mount GX-90 horn. There is also a lone GX-90 red horn/strobe in the cafeteria. There are Gentex Commander 2’s in the bottom floor, but I don’t know what they’re set to since we haven’t had a fire drill yet. A few of the broken SHG’s have been replaced by Commander 2’s. There are also SpectrAlert Advance horn/strobes in the gym and in a few of the hallways. The strobes in the bathroom and a few other places are GXS series. One of the classrooms has a SpectrAlert Classic horn/strobe, AND a GX-90! It’s a pretty small classroom, so I’d hate to be in there during a fire drill. Over a few of the alarms, especially Spectras and Commanders, are plastic and wire covers. On the back of the building is an old Edwards single-projector Adaptahorn.

187

You’re telling me! The Davis K-8 school had a LOT of bells! 6-inch Simplex bells behind grilles installed practically EVERYWHERE in the school!

It was bad enough during fire drills with all those Simplex 4051+80s, but the school bells were just as loud! I don’t think any of them were even disconnected! And the bells rang quite frequently, like maybe every 20-30 minutes. I don’t know, I never had to know the schedule for elementary like I did for middle and high schools. And the bells would also occasionally do brief 1/3-second rings too. I don’t know what that meant. Maybe it was supposed to be a warning that the late bell is about to go off.
You think that’s bad? Wait, there’s more: these were the bells outside:

10-INCH Simplex bells, also behind grilles! There were originally four of these outside. Today, one of them was plated over, and two others are disconnected, to my knowledge. This is the only one that still works, I think. Not only that, the main gymnasium also had these 10-inch bells too. THREE of them! Why the heck would Simplex put three 10-inch bells in a gym?! They could’ve just put in one or two 6-inch bells in there, and you would still hear them loud and clear.
With the fire drill connection: at the end of a fire drill the all-clear signal would be one long ring on the outside bells.

The Joseph H. Downey elementary school also had metal grilles like this, with some type of 6-inch bells in them, but these bells never worked! The grilles also contained the fire alarm signals in them (Fire-Lite 450 horns; it was a Gamewell Flexalarm system). A few places had buzzers in the clocks, but that was about it for class-change. The outdoor bells didn’t work either. And no bells also meant no audible all-clear signal at the end of fire drills. I think we just went in after waiting 30 seconds to a minute when the alarms were shut off.

But East Junior High School was a different story. They had Edwards 6-inch Adaptabels in a majority of places (unlike the Davis school, these bells were NOT installed behind grilles), and on the second floor, as well as near the main office and in one classroom hallway on the first floor, we had single-stroke chimes instead of bells. A few of the Adaptabels were disconnected too, including one outside the auditorium, and one outside the cafetera, and one near the main office (it made sense to disconnect it since there was a chime not too far from it). Outside we had a 4-inch Adaptabel (the only outside bell that worked correctly each time it rang), and various 10-inch bells (probably IBM) and at least one 4-inch IBM bell. One 10-inch bell was a single stroke bell, and another only worked on the first day of school (I only remember hearing that bell on my first day of eighth grade), but all the other bells didn’t work. I remember when I was starting 7th grade, I was nervous that it’d be just like the Davis school in terms of loudness of the bells. But it didn’t turn out to be so bad (unless I was right near an Adaptabel!) And like the Davis school, the all-clear signal at the end of fire drills was one long ring on the outside bells. (BTW, the fire alarms there was an OLD Gamewell system with really loud explosion-proof Federal Signal horns)

Brockton High School was the first (and only) school I attended that had a tone on the PA system for class-change. It wasn’t a very loud tone; not even in the gym, or the cafeterias (which had 8-10 loudspeakers in each one!) It was generally as loud as the alarm tone on the Carnival Victory’s PA speaker in our stateroom during a muster drill before we left. But if someone would shout into the PA system (“SENIORS, YOU HAVE SIX DAYS LEFT!!!”) then it’d be no picnic. We also had PA speakers outside too; the all-clear signals at the end of fire drills would be an announcement from the main office saying that it is safe to reenter the building.

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188

Did the Davis school have a PA system?

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Yes, but they didn’t sound class-change over it (they used those bells for class-change signaling). The PA system was just for making announcements, contacting teachers in classrooms, etc. They were Simplex speakers, if I am not mistaken. The clocks were Simplex too (the square-shaped kind with black numbers and hands, same kind as at my high school), and I assume the master time system is Simplex as well.

190

Wile_e2005, in response to your earlier post, I don’t think 4040s and 4050s, etc. were as early as the '60s, that would be more like those projector horns or something. 4040s I would say are more from the mid 70s and 4050s and 4051s are from the early '80s.
My old elementary school was built around 1980 and the original alarms were the 4050-80s.

191

nah, I have a Simplex 4051 from the early 70s. It has that old cursive style Simplex logo.

192

Cool, really? I never knew that they went back to the early '70s, I thought maybe 1975 at the ealiest. I have a 4050 with that same logo and I’m almost possitive it’s from between 1978 and 1982.

193

The Simplex 4051s that were at my college had the cursive-style Simplex logo on them! They were originally installed in the buildings built in 1978, and were on 4050-80 light plates as part of Simplex 4208 systems (programmed on Continuous) with 4251-20 pulls.

My high school was built in 1970 and it had Simplex 4040 horns.

Not only that, but the Davis K-8 school was built in 1974, and they have Simplex 4051s, with the cursive Simplex logo on them too (the bells have the cursive logo too). How do I know they were 4051s? I’ve heard them go off during a fire drill in kindergarten, and when they tested them during one day at a summer program there in 2000. They sounded just like this:

Only difference was that they were in 20BPM March Time and not the regular 120BPM. The pulls were Simplex 4251-30s. I think the panel is a Simplex 2001 (replacing whatever the old Simplex panel was, probably a 4208). Here are pictures to prove it!


If you look closely you can see the cursive-style Simplex logo on the horn. I don’t think Simplex began using the modern logo until 1978 (even though the Simplex 4208 systems at my college had the older Simplex logo).


This 4051+80 was installed rather crappily. I can’t believe Simplex would do an install job like this! They could’ve just put the 4051+80 together on a larger backbox if they needed to use conduit.


Note the annunciator underneath the 4051 and 4050-80. Since it has the modern Simplex logo on it, I can tell this was obviously a later installation. They probably replaced the old panel too. Judging by the annunciator, it’s probably either a Simplex 2001 or Simplex 4002 panel. They also have those 2098-9806 test stations, which were probably not around until the early 1980s.

I know some Simplex 4051s in the early-to-mid 1980s had the modern Simplex logo on them. Even though they stopped making the 4050-80 light plates aroung the early 1980s (the latest I know they were installed was in 1980), they continued making the 4050s and 4051s (they were probably installed on 2903 light plates).

And Firefly, if your elementary school was built in 1980 and originally had 4050-80 light plates, I’m betting the panel used to be a Simplex 2001. Then after the renovation, the panel installed to replace the 2001 was a Simplex 4100 with built-in voice-evac.

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194

Actually, the 4050 was first introduced in 1967. I think the 4051 was introduced around the same time.

195

Right. The 4050-80 light plate didn’t come out until around 1970. And I don’t think the T-bar pulls were out until at least 1974, so Simplex was just using the Chevron pulls, the coded 4263-10 pulls and Edwards 270-SPOs around that time.

196

And that’s why there are no visual signals at my HS. The 4040s weren’t meant to be used with light plates since they weren’t out yet.

197

The 4050-80 light plates didn’t come out until they were probably finishing construction of my high school, and since they were probably already nearly done installing the fire alarm systems. Also, Simplex 4040s CAN be used with 4050-80 light plates, like in this video:

The 4050-80 light plates aren’t just for 4050s and 4051s. At the David E. Crosby Administraton building/City Hall Annex, I’ve seen a Simplex 2901-9806 horn (or relabeled counterpart) on a 4050-80 plate (with “FIRE” on the lens). All the other horns in this building are 4051s; the system is a Simplex 4208. And at the Fine Arts building at my college, there used to be a Simplex 2901-9833 horn on a 4050-80…


Unfortunately that’s gone, it got replaced…

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198

I got some pictures of the fire alarms in my new high school.

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Gentex SHG. Most of the NA’s in the school are these. They were installed when the school got renovated in 1997.

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SpectrAlert Classic

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Gamewell Century pulls. All of the pulls in the school are these.

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Another SHG


Gentex Commander


A Commander under a protective cover


SpectrAlert Advance


Another Commander

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Gentex SHG and Gamewell pull


Gentex GX-90


These are the smokes. I’m not sure what model these are.

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199

Those smokes are marketed under SO many different companies… I don’t even know who actually makes them. I believe it’s Hochiki…
Gamewell also markets them, so I’m betting it’s a Gamewell 60 series- more specifically the Gamewell 71033: the photo head model. The base is probably a 71086- the standard 6" base.

200

You are correct. Hochiki does make those.