Did some dumpster diving today...

While I was out and about today, I passed by the elementary school where a few of my former teachers now work. It was closed for April vacation, and I noticed New England Safety Systems and SimplexGrinnell vans parked in the back of the school. Sure enough, I figured out what that meant, and I managed to pull these out of the dumpster behind the school building!


They were upgrading/repairing their flre alarm system during the break. And as the saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” so I took these home with me! And then I washed them off among arriving home, as they were in a dumpster anyways; plus, I often clean old fire alarm devices I get from renovations/upgrades that are kind of dirty.
They are the “old” versions of the Simplex 4050-80s from the early 1970s, where the horn’s front is lined up with the edges of the light plate. Despite the horns being 4051s, the light plates are 125 volts and use small 75-watt bulbs.


My old school’s 4050-80s were like this too, but had the horn sticking out a bit as usual.

As for the school, the replacement alarms were a rather interesting setup:

They just took Wheelock MT4 horns and installed them on RSSP strobe plates! This is not a common setup, that’s for sure. At least it beats using SpectrAlert Advances, like my school did. The existing 4251-30 break-glass pulls are still intact, and they are also still using the Simplex 4010 panel, but I don’t think their old 4208 panel is being used anymore, and they also used a Fire-Lite booster panel with it as well.

I’ll soon share plans on selling any of the alarms and whatnot.

Nice catch. A bunch of institutional buildings in Western New York have the weird setup that separates the strobe as well. In the 4-5-6 building my siblings attend(ed), most of the building has Simplex 4901-9822 horns with RSS remote strobes mounted a foot below and where strobe coverage is needed. The new wing has TrueAlerts. Why they didn’t just use a -9236 or similar is beyond me, as the school was built in the mid-90s and I doubt it had another system.

They likely used the strobe plate to cover up the hole a smaller device would make on the 4050-80 backbox.

Cool find! Did Simplex install the MT4’s on RSSP plates?

I don’t know; I think it was New England Safety Systems that did that. If Simplex replaced the 4050-80s, they probably would’ve used TrueAlerts on adapter plates. Normally Brockton’s school system doesn’t deal with Simplex very much anymore, due to budget reasons. I just know they are keeping the Simplex 4010 panel, but they’re doing away with the 4208 (it’s too old, and isn’t that reliable anymore.)

And like I said, I do have to wonder how when the system was originally installed, they used the 24-VDC 4208 panel for powering both 24-VDC horns (the 4051s) and 125-VAC signal lights (the 4050-80s, though they could actually be 125-VDC; it isn’t made clear.) This would probably explain why the 4208 at my old school had two coding wheels; one for the horns, and another for the lights (though when it was initially set up, the horns were on Continuous while the lights would flash on and off.)

Is that Roger Rabbit in the background?

Anyway.

Good find sir! Hopefully you didn’t have to go too far into the dumpster to find them! :lol:

So… For putting those on sale, I’m excited to get that information! :wink:

NICE dumpster find! Awesome to see an enthusiast have the white lettered 4050-80.

I’m surprised they went with the MT4 horns on the RSSP plates, rather than simply putting Advances on some kind of mounting plate. I think it looks a bit better this way rather than mounting a single device on a plate. Not sure why, but I seem to like this better.

Or a Spectralert advance mounted on a back box on a 4050 light plate

I’m a bit shocked they used MT4s. Didn’t even realize Wheelock still made them, let alone companies installed them as part of retrofits.

Well I can’t be made if the system was failing. Though I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before my junior high school replaces their 4051 system.

My elementary school junked theirs for Advances also.

Bad news everyone; those six were all I could get. The rest are gone now. I guess this is why we almost never see 4050-80s or any other rare vintage fire alarms on eBay; they’re probably almost always thrown out when removed. :frowning: