Ferderal should bring back the Thuderbolt

[coopertbolt1]

Okay I am really not a fan of any of the Federal 2001 sirens so I was wondering. Should Federal sirens bring back the Thunderbolt. I mean it is 2008 and I'm sure that the Thunderbolt can be built better and more efficiently than 20-30 years ago. What do you all think?

[uncommonsense]

No, it should not.

The Thunderbolt was a design fine for its time--make the most noise we can to alert in the event of an impending air raid within the realm of the civil defense agency's dual tone requirement.

But those times are no more. Technology has improved. Advances in acoustics allow for more efficient motor designs that can produce sound without the need for compressed air to help amplify it.

That there eliminated an entire motor. A motor full of belts (that can break) and needed to be oiled regularly, eliminating a MAJOR hassle for those maintaining larger systems.

The rotators in all the major new rotational sirens have no belts, either and are greased for life. Again, this eliminates major headaches in trying to keep the systems maintained.

Of course, the largest advancement since the debut of the Thunderbolt is within electrical technology that has allowed motors needed to run the sirens to be powered off of batteries (batteries themselves a rare, pricey, and primitive commodity as compared to today). In severe weather situations, large power outages are quite likely (especially in aging grids--look at what happened in St. Louis two summers ago after a round of nasty severe storms and last winter during a major ice storm...500,000 abouts were without power each time), and battery back up is a must if communities are to remain informed.

And yes, single tone sirens are more efficent than dual tone.

The Thunderbolt is an antiquated design, and the 2001 is a wonderful siren that gets the job done. The complaints about the sound being boring or whatnot are just fanboy love for the old sound of the Thunderbolt. If the siren is loud, and it tells me that I need to seek shelter, then its done its job and its just fine for use. And the 2001 does just that.

[Jim_Ferer]

It's come up before. The Tbolt will never come back. It's more complex than sirens with higher rated outputs. That should have meant it was more trouble prone, but many Thunderbolts were neglected on poles for decades and still ran.

I've said this before, but it's important to remember the people who buy sirens aren't siren enthusiasts. The things that make a Thunderbolt special to siren fans don't mean anything to EMA directors. They're duty bound to buy the least expensive siren that meets the specifications. The specifications have to be written the right way to make sure the sirens aren't garbage.

A "new Thunderbolt" would have direct drive (through a Rexnord coupling, maybe) for the blower motor and rotator and the most efficient blower possible, and somehow run on DC power. It would be a pretty straightforward design job. New controls would be a given. The sad truth, though, is that designing a new Thunderbolt would be like designing an iPod that uses tubes.

[JasonC]

Okay I am really not a fan of any of the Federal 2001 sirens so I was wondering. Should Federal sirens bring back the Thunderbolt. I mean it is 2008 and I'm sure that the Thunderbolt can be built better and more efficiently than 20-30 years ago. What do you all think?

I love the Thunderbolt, but it's a 1940's design and on of the most unreliable and complex sirens out there. Producing one today would also be extremely expensive as well as very prone to failure. From an engineering standpoint, it would be an extremely poor decision from multiple aspects to resurrect this siren just because it looks or sounds cool. This topic has bean beat dead in the past, the T-bolt isn't coming back.

[slant-40]

Couldn't the distinctive T-Bolt sounds be recreated and piped through the speakers of a Modulater or some other such device? Perhaps the mechanical aspects and designs of the Thunderbolt are long past their prime, but the sound commands attention, even today. We have T-Bolts in a nearby town (Copiague) and they are certainly attention-getters.

[ThunderboltFreak]

With all that said, the Thunderbolt was a very high maintenance siren which is part of why it was discontinued. As previously stated, technology has improved. Therefore phasing out the Thunderbolt along with its brothers. So I dont think the Thunderbolt will be re-releasing any time soon, and if it did it would have to be completely re-designed to fit the new 'gen' of sirens these days.

[EL1998P71]

It would be a "neat" thing if they combined new with old.
Meaning the mechanics of a 2001 with the shape of a Thunderbolt.
But it will never be. In the near future the todays newest 2001 will be in the same place as the Thunderbolt is today. An antique and obsolete.
But for Historical purposes it's still #1

[Shinkansen]

Ok guys, honestly....I'd say...NO KEEP IT IN THE PAST!!!!!!!!!!!! If they re-made the thunderbolt, it'd be NOTHING, and I PROMISE you NOTHING like the good old ones with all this chinese made components and what not, point is, they don't make em like they used to, and I'd hate to see thunderbolts made outta the same stuff the 2001 is.

[Daniel]

I would rather see more effort go into making more effective omnidirectional sirens than rebuild something as cumbersome as a Thunderbolt. Instead of three motors, why not design a single-motor siren using a multiple-stage rotary compressor and chopper combination; basically, a DC-operated vertical Chrysler with omnidirectional horns.

[CDV777-1]

For the millionth time....
The PRIMARY purpose of the Thunderbolt was to keep the siren volume LOUD all the time it was running, high as well as low pitch. That's why it was designed that way. The Thunderbolt is simply a Model 2 with a water treatment plant aerator pumping air through it. The Thunderbolt isn't any more "antiquated" than any other electromechanical siren. They are all still just spinning rotors with air moving through them no matter when they were built or what (insert over-used word here) "technology" they use.
And yes this has been beat to death.....