Favorite EST or Mircom panel

Favorite EST or Mircom Panel (1 vote for both brands, or 2 for either brand)

  • EST 1 or older conventional panels (please specify)
  • EST 2
  • EST 3
  • EST Quickstart
  • EST IO64/500
  • EST fireshield
  • EST 6500
  • EST ESA 2000
  • Mircom FA-1000
  • Mircom FX-2000
  • Mircom FA-100, 200
0 voters

What is your favorite EST or Mircom panel?

Only Mircom Panel that I have ever used is the FX-2000. I’ve used a Fire-Lite before (about 15 years ago and don’t remember model number); no other panels.

I am looking into purchasing either a mircom FA-1000 or FX-2000 as they are simple and great for a hobby system. Only problem is that they are hard to find fully assembled on eBay, mostly being parts on eBay

I can’t say I have ever seen any of their panels in person or have any knowledge about them, so I don’t think I can really vote in this poll.

Mircom is more common in Canada. A hockey arena I play at had an EST IRC 3 panel with genesis horn strobes and mircom 10" bells and 270-spo pulls. A few months ago, the arena was expanded with a community centre, and almost the entire system was upgraded. The expansion has potter bells on integrity strobe plates. The IRC3 was replaced with a mircom FX-2000 and the 270-spo pulls were replaced with mircom ms401 pulls. The genesis and bell devices still remain. Mircom seems to be replacing a lot of EST things lately, even though Mircom has no deal or partnership with EST

I’m sure there are places around here that do have Mircom or EST panels, but I just haven’t seen them yet.

The reason you don’t see them fully assembled is because if something goes wrong with the panel, say the motherboard or whatever, it’s cheaper to buy a new panel than to buy the part. We have 2 half assembled Mircom FA-1000s in our shop.

From a technicians standpoint, I like Mircom, but they don’t last long, you’re constantly repairing them. But I do like the Mircom FA-1000, easy to disable NACs and put into walktest, plus easy to program. For EST it would be the Fireshield Plus I like.

Mircom FA1000 is probably the most reliable conventional panel ever released. The Mircom FX2000 is a panel that took me a long time to warm up to. The latest version is reliable, easy to program, it looks nice on the wall and we can lock it to our technicians with a dongle.

I have 4 FX2000 panels. I used them to open the hood, explore the inner workings, study the board, micro controller, uarts and cpga chips. What country are you in ?

What about Edwards 8500 ? Simplex 2120 ? Edwards also had a 2280, 1526, 1527.

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Where did they install the Edwards 8500? There is one in my shop from a local hospital, but haven’t seen them anywhere else.

I personally prefer the Edwards 6500 since there pretty cool panels and I like old stuff.