Since I got so carried away in the system in middle school, I will go to elementary school. In elementary school, we had these alarms. The main ones were on the Simplex 2903 strobe plate and sounded like the horn in this funny video.
If someone knows this type of horn, please tell me. My guess is it’s a 9806. The pull stations were Simplex breakglass T-Bars. The only difference about ones back then was the Simplex logo wasn’t on them. Only the word “Simplex”. There were no alarms in most (or all?) classrooms and bathrooms. The music room has a unique alarm. It looks like a Gentex SHG except the lense is darker and it’s an electronic horn not an electromagnetic one. Another interesting thing is unlike middle school, there are no guards on the alarms in the gym. This has caused a few false alarms a long time ago before I went to school there where a ball would hit the switch setting the alarm off. I don’t know what type of panel the alarm had.
So that’s it for Elementary school. In the future, I may tell you a bit about what I remeber for the school I went to Kindergarden in.
Simplex made this and the 4251-20 (similar but only single-action and more commonly-seen) from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. I often see these pulls in Simplex 4208 systems or any kind that has 4050/4051 horns on 4050-80 retrofit plates, like I mentioned in the Davis school a couple posts ago.
My college still has several 4251-20 T-bars intact, even though they no longer get their new fire alarm equipment from Simplex (they switched to Faraday). We also had a few of them at my high school (replacing broken Edwards 270-SPOs from of the original Simplex system).
The 2099-series T-bars, which probably came out in the late 1980s, use the same mechanism, but have plastic casings instead of metal, and have the modern Simplex logo on the bottom. They make both single-action and break-glass versions, and introduced the push-in/pull-down version, most likely to compete with Fire-Lite’s BG-10 (and later BG-12) pull stations. The 4099-series is identical, but with an addressable module in it. Most new Simplex fire alarm systems I see often have 4099-9003 pulls, which are addressable push-in/pull-down T-bars.
Sorry if I wasn’t specific, but my main question is this: By single action do you mean that the breaking of the glass causes the alarm to go off? And what is the silver peg like thing above the T-Bar used for? Does it feel the glass breaking?
Just a follow up to my previous posts, the panel at my middle school is a Simplex 4100. I was in the office (not for punishment) the other day and saw the panel. Second, if I said my elementary school had 2903 strobe plates, I ment to say light plates.
I was at the Purdential Center Mall in Boston today. They have a huge mix of Simplex Speaker/Strobe alarms. The two pull stations at the entrance to the Sheraton from the mall were both types of break glass T-Bars. The difference besides the fact that 4251-30 doesn’t have the Simplex logo is this:
The 4251-30 has a frame that the glass goes in. The 4099-9002 has the glass mounted directly to the pull station. The break hammer on the 4251-30 is on the frame. The 4099-9002 has the hammer directly mounted on the pull station. The glass on the 4251-30 is glued to a silver peg to keep it up and reads “Break Glass” and “Pull Handle Down”. The 4099-9002 doesn’t have “Pull Handle Down” written on the glass. It just says “Break Glass”. When you break the glass on the 4251-30, the frame is no longer held up by the peg. Therefore, the frame with the hammer on it flips down to make it easier to pull the handle. This video shows pretend glass being broken on the 4251-30:
The 4099-9002 works differently. When you break the glass, nothing flips down. You have to reach behind the hammer to pull the handle. When the 4099-9002 doesn’t have the glass re-installed like most buildings, the hammer is still on the switch so it looks like a 4099-9001 with a hammer but no glass. On the 4251-30, the glass is either re-installed or taken away. If it’s taken away, it looks like a 4251-20 with a silver peg above the handle and holes on the bottom parts of the pull station. There is also a way to put the frame back up. I’ve seen several of the pull stations at my elementary school with no glass, but the frame and hammer are up. Some of the pulls at the school have the glass completely removed and look wierd (in my opinion). Overall, the difference is the 4099-9002 has fewer moving parts and is probably easier to break. My question is: Why did Simplex get rid of the frame? It seems usefull to have the hammer out of the way when pulling the alarm.
One of SimplexTech’s clips shows a school that had a Simplex 2001-8001 system from maybe 1979 or 1980 that had 4051 horns on 4050-80 light plates set on 120BPM March Time. The pulls were 4251-30 T-bars, but the break-glass features were completely removed, so you’d see the holes above the lever. I assume the break-glass parts were removed in maybe the 1990s from that system. But unfortunately it is no longer there, he said that a newer Simplex fire alarm system (with a 4005 panel) completely replaced all the components.
Oh BTW, what were the original horn models? I’m guessing 4040s or 4050s or 4051s. Were the pull stations also replaced? I’m betting the new ones are BG-12s or generic metal T-bars, most likely replacing Simplex 4251-20 T-bars.
At my elementary school:
-Gentex GMS and strobe
-1 red spectr alert
-Pull stations:
Edward’s single action “pull for fire” till 1st grade
Faraday Chevrons till 3rd grade
Silent Knight double action t-bars till present
-don’t know about the panels, but with each pull station change, the panels did change
Middle School for 6th grade
-Gentex Commander 1’s and strobes in the hallways
-Gentex SPK4 in the gym
-Silent Knight single-action t-bars
-Middle School for 7th and 8th Grade
-Old system was edwards classic pull, and the old, horizontal edwards alarm with the red triangluar strobe, and the grille. (ps. please post a pic if anyone knows what I’m talking about)
-New system red spectr alerts and Silent-Knight t-bars
High school
-White spectr alerts in halls
-White spectr alert speaker strobes in the auditorium and gym
-Double action Silent Knight “BG-8’s”
They came in three versions: one had an electromechanical horn (which was basically a DC-voltage 874 with a different grille), another had an electronic horn, and another had a speaker. Edwards made these from the 1980s up until the mid-1990s.
Quite a few people that have seen pics of the SAE horn/strobes at my college say that they remind them of the 892s.
That picture you have helps, but is not the alarm I was thinking of. To be more specific, the strobe was red and, triangular/wedge shaped, and did not say fire on it, and the grille was red. The best way to describe the grille, was a square, and looked like rectangles folding in on themselves, with the largest rectangles the farthest out, folding in to a single square in the middle of the grille, not more than 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch.
Also, no I do not remember what voice evacuation was in the gym.
The edwards picture you did find was the alarm at my pre school… However, there were no visible pull stations (possibly one in the principals office, but I was never there).
Small Wheelock Bells founded everywhere (Single Stroke)
Newer Wheelock Strobes (They were vertical)
Cannot remember the pull stations.
Elementary School (1st-1/3 of 4th Grade)
Simplex 2901-9838s, founded near the exits of classrooms, hallways, and lunch room (They pulsed a light)
Simplex Dual Action T-Bar Pull Stations, founded everywhere.
Simplex 4904-9105 Remote Strobes, founded inside bathrooms and the library. (Pulsed a light also)
Elementary School (4th and 5th Grade)
System Sensor Spectalerts only. I think a few were remote strobes.
Older Fire Lite pull stations.
Middle School
Edwards EG1 Genesis White founded everywhere.
Edwards newer pull stations founded everywhere.
High School (9th-11th Grade)
Wheelock NS founded everywhere.
Wheelock RSS strobes founded in small rooms, restrooms, offices, and band practice rooms.
Notifier pull stations founded in hallways with stopper that makes sounds.
Re Simplex 4050’s Post: I only know of one alarm that has a red strobe, and it wasn’t a strobe, it was a lamp. Did it look like this?
-Okay, that is much closer. That alarm is not what I was thinking of, but it looks about that age per se, and now that you mention it, the it was probably a light, not a strobe. If you turned that alarm on its side, with the light at the right end and the grille at the left end, that would be the general set up. Again, the whole alarm was red, and there was no fire lettering on it.
-Also, at the grocery store where I work, there is a radionics panel, Fire-Lite BG-10’s, and ceiling mount spectr alerts, and spectr alerts in the back
