I found an Edwards 78 pull station at a flea market for $2 the other day. At first I thought it was a toy because of how plastic and lightweight it was. In my opinion this is the worst pull station ever manufactured. Here’s a photo:
There’s supposed to be a glass sheet at the bottom, but I broke the glass when I got it. I used a popsicle stick as a replacement for now.
There’s no switch in this unit. There’s a spring-loaded metal contact at the bottom, which is attached to the lever. When the glass is in place, it holds the lever back, thus breaking the connection. When the pull station is activated, the glass breaks and the contacts close. While this does work as intended, I’m sure that over time the contact might become less springy, or that something could get stuck between the two parts, rendering the pull station useless. It just seems dangerous to me.
The front part of the pull station can be removed to install the glass. One cool feature is that the bezel can be rotated to read “Emergency” instead of “Fire.”
Recap as to why I think this pull station is the worst ever (possibly even worse than the BG-10):
– cheap construction
– shoddy, potentially unreliable contacts
– no way to reset the pull station if replacement glass is not available