In other news, this has just been released:
See: https://mircom.com/component/k2/item/185-mircom-introduces-400-series-led-notification-appliances
This seems considerably more exciting than anything from System Sensor lately. Especially the current draw tables. And apparently it meets 2016 NFPA strobe requirements.
In my opinion they aren’t all that fascinating. I mean sure it was cool when Wheelock first introduced their LED strobes, but I kind of miss typical xenon strobes. Nothing says fire alarm like hearing a strobe click. Also system sensors new line is disappointing too. As devices are developing I keep seeing them getting slightly bigger and uglier such as SS’s L-series and these ones. I’m sure this is good for mircom because they need to grow in the industry more outside of Canada. I think it was great for System Sensor to keep a xenon strobe rather than convert to led. They will lower the current draws even more plus they should be cheaper than newer LED devices. I think System sensors idea was to make lower current strobes to sell more than current newer alarms without the expensive cost if LED technology.
Just my opinion though.
They look really nice but they don’t jump out at me.
I’m sure not everything will be LED, for example Simplex, Edwards, Wheelock, and Honeywell all still manufacture products with xenon strobes, and if they do eventually replace everything with LED, I’d imagine that there would be lots of backlash because of prices. And if one day everything goes to LED, it would be a long time because xenon strobes still meet current draw and environmental low current draw requirements.
My excitement comes from the fact that you could put 50 of these on a circuit. They are on par with the current draw of the Simplex ES 5900 LED devices, but these are not limited to one make of panel.
LEDs are here to stay. There will always be a few stragglers, but I predict pretty soon LEDs will be the dominant technology. You just can’t come close to this efficiency with old-style Xenon flashtubes.
That’s pretty true. LED warning lights started being used by emergency vehicles years ago and replaced the old xenon strobes in a flash…haha. But that’s just a comparison with another type of LED warning lights.
those look fantastic, almost no current draw, especially on the high end.
it’s yet another NA that suffers from being ugly though.
Building lighting is going the way of LEDs too. Several of the buildings that the company I work for have had LED lighting installed for general area lighting. Several building we have worked on this past year have had nothing but LED lighting installed both inside and outside the building. I think in 10 years all you will see is LED for lighting in general.
Patrick
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the new high school that will begin construction next year in my city will have LED building lights. I like the household LED bulbs too; pretty bright and last longer than CFLs. They also don’t have to take a few minutes to ‘warm up’ like fluorescent bulbs do.
Agreed, also LED bulbs can be turned on and off quickly without damaging internal components. For CFL’s, the more you switch them on or off, the more you shorten their lifespan. LED light bulbs can also be dimmed and now are available in incandescent models when the location of the filament is replaced with a thin yellow LED strip. LEDs are also made rectified nowadays so they almost never flicker now. Banning incandescents a few years back sounded like a bad idea because all we had ver CFL’s but now we have a better alternative. I remember when LED bulbs first came out and they were about $18-25 each! now you can get a pack of 4 for $6 at lowes.
From a service stance it doesn’t sound THAT exciting to me, lol…
What I find most surprising is that they can self-code to 120 BPM and 20 BPM March Time. Nearly all current horns only have Code 3 and Continuous settings, since that’s pretty much everything you’d ever need.
Mircom is mostly based in Canada and some South American countries where code - (temporal) is not required. Which could be a reason they added these two tones.