I have lots of alarms in my collection, and I was wondering when a few came out. They are…
Simplex 2901-9833
Simplex 2904-9101
IBM 4031-2
Wheelock CH
FIKE commander 3 strobe
Wheelock RSS
And finally- the Fire-Lite MS9200UDLS
False information deleted by moderator.
I predict destin will post…
And your prediction was made just as I was typing! Sorry, but most of these aren’t correct. 
2901-9833: Early 80’s, but no one’s been able to find out the exact year.
2904-9101: Came out in 1979/80 and was discontinued around 1989.
IBM 4030-series: These horns were originally made by Benjamin Electric and go back to the 1940’s. After Simplex bought out IBM’s fire alarm division in 1958, Simplex used them until the early 1960’s.
Wheelock CH-series: 1985, though the most current model with the horizontal strobe came out around 2001.
Gentex Commander 3: 2002
Wheelock RSS: 1998
MS9200UDLS: 2006
Some of them came off of Kcin556’s website :S
He probably listed the years that his exact devices were manufactured, not the year that each model came out.
That is correct.
That’s something I was wondering about. I have a few alarms with date codes on them. Here is a pictures of one of my Simplex ceiling strobes. It says “4702 W” in the date code. Does that mean it was made in 2002? Also, on other alarms I have, there will just be date codes with letters. Is there a way to crack those codes online?
47th week of 2002 most likely.
From what I’ve seen, those Simplex date codes don’t have any rhyme or reason to them. Some appear to make sense like the above picture, but others have varying lengths and random letters thrown in at the end. I used to know how to date the Faraday-manufactured ones based on the two letters often found on the label or engraved in the housing, but I would have to dig through 100+ service bulletins to find it again. Usually, letter date codes have a month or number value assigned to each letter.
Wheelock date codes are the easiest. The first two digits are the week of manufacture, and the last two are the year.
While we’re talking about date codes…
All the Pittway/Honeywell equipment does their date codes the same way Wheelock does.
First 2 digits = week, second 2 digits = year.
The week/year thing is an extremely common way to do it. I think it falls in line with accounting common accounting practices.
Thanks, Destin. Yeah, I don’t think all that searching is really worth it. And that’s good to know, NewAgeServer. I have a few Wheelock devices. I’ve never heard of Pittway, I’ll have to look them up.
Pittway was the conglomerate corporation that owned Fire-Lite, Notifier, System Sensor, Ademco, etc before Honeywell acquired it in the early 2000’s to form Honeywell Life Safety Group.
Pitway I do believe owned FBII as well
FBII was absorbed into Ademco when Pittway bought them out in the 1990s.
wtf… I have my FBII manual, with a Honeywell keypad, was installed with Ademco devices…
It’s the same reason some older Simplex systems have Wheelock NA’s. It’s just what the installer had at hand at the time.
Just like National Time & Signal has Gentex NA’s.
Good to know, thanks.