Oak Creek WI P 50

[TboltTX1]

Jeb, how do those P-50 rotators operate? Do they use a worm gear assembly?

[holler]

Seperate motor with a gear reducer is all I know. I've never seen the inside of one. Could be one of those motors with a right angle gear reducer bolted to the end of it.

[SirenTech]

Motor with 90 degree gear reducer with clutch and gear. Chain drives main gear on shaft. Clutch will allow siren to slip during heavy winds so the massive horn doesn't catch too much wind. Clutch and chain needs adjustment every so often or else they break then free-wheel in the air like a weather vane!

[holler]

Wow John I haven't heard from you in forever. Did you by chance take down these sirens?

[SirenMadness]

Although these sirens are labeled as "T-135s" they only put out 132 Db @100 ft. That is why there really is no suitable replacement for P-50s and why I personally see no reason to replace working ones. I would trade battery backup for a siren that has the effective range of four smaller ones.

That's the old-school way of looking at it. Common logic may tell you that more units would increase not only the overall cost, but number of failure points as well; however, having less points of failure raises the stakes if you're counting on a small handful of independent units, taking out a proportionally bigger chunk out of the equation during a mishap. If lightning were to knock one siren out of service, the shadow left under its dead zone would be much smaller if it did not serve too big of a radius in the first place. Louder sirens do have their purpose in certain environments, but the smaller the part each siren plays in the system without tallying up too much costs to the project, generally the better.

You would have to throw the Sentry 40V2T under the bus as well since it has a 40 horse motor and can also run off of 480V. If towns are still interested in the 40V2T then I don't understand why the P-50s are getting canned. The Colony knows there isn't a siren that can replace their P-50 so they slapped a new FC on it for use with their 2001 system.

IMO if your going to replace a siren such as the P-50 there better be a darn good reason (like it being fried by lightning). My $0.02.

If it ain't broke, don't replace it! I'm guessing they somehow associated the failure of one siren with the general life expectancy of other identical units and perhaps decided to take preventative action. I'd have just kept the remaining P-50s until further notice, but I guess it's a double-edged sword: on one hand, you want to go easy on the spending and not go deep into new investments until you're absolutely sure it's necessary.. on the other, if the failure of one unit already caused you grief, then taking risks probably wouldn't be a viable choice, as you could potentially have a ticking time bomb on your hands.


That P-50 stator sure is a beast! How wide is the chopper?

[SirenTech]

Wow John I haven't heard from you in forever. Did you by chance take down these sirens?

Jeb, been super busy as usual...had to post on this thread since it brings back memories.. I didn't remove these but did put one of those up for the factory back in the early 90's. I'll never forget it....we were racing to get it installed before a huge storm and as soon as we finished and were packing up the trucks the storm hit. The pole bent so hard in the wind, over 40 degrees at least, I thought it was gonna snap in half right in front of me for sure. I think the factory had the clutch set too tight and wasn't slipping, scary! Those things are monsters!