Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft

[DJ2226]

http://www.texomashomepage.com/story/d/ ... je27OYl5sg
This is an odd one. Apparently the guy was going after the batteries for the lead inside. The one in the video seems pretty new. My eye started twitching when they flashed pictures of a Thunderbolt and 2810 and dubbed the sound of a 9/12 port siren.

[Stormsetter4]

Them saying that the batteries are on back order is wrong. Those whelens use normal deep-cycle marine batteries that you can get at wal-mart or any place that sells batteries. When I was working on a whelen a few towns over from here, the company charged them 1500 bucks for batteries and a service call, when they only would have spent about $300 doing themselves.

[birds1337]

Yeah, apparently now there's kids throwing rocks at the boxes and breaking off the communication antennas.

[TboltTX1]

It seems to me like they should have mounted the boxes higher up to begin with. All the new units I've seen in person had the controls mounted right off the ground.

From a maintenance standpoint, the current installations are definitely convenient, but it sure doesn't do much to deter vandalism.

[Stormsetter4]

It seems to me like they should have mounted the boxes higher up to begin with. All the new units I've seen in person had the controls mounted right off the ground.

From a maintenance standpoint, the current installations are definitely convenient, but it sure doesn't do much to deter vandalism.

Yeah, from a maintaince standpoint it's a great idea, but then you get these idiots that think, oh that's easy to steal batteries from. I will say one thing though, with the 4 sirens I have worked on personally, 2 of them are on the side of a hill, which makes it really hard to put a ladder up, and extremely wobbly, and, the other siren, which was a whelen had a pretty tall box. I was working in the thunderbolt here in town last summer, and we fired it up for a test, and it almost knocked the ladder off the pole from the torque of it starting up.

[siren fan]

I thought the siren's use the batteries for back up power and not for general power?

[Stormsetter4]

I thought the siren's use the batteries for back up power and not for general power?

No they can be used for both

[uncommonsense]

I thought the siren's use the batteries for back up power and not for general power?

Depends on how its set-up. If its set up in an AC/DC fashion, yes, the batteries can function as a UPS system and the siren primarily runs off AC. If its set-up DC only, then AC power is only used to charge the batteries and the siren runs off the batteries. And if its AC only, there's no batteries involved what-so-ever.

Whelens are set up to run off their batteries. No batteries, no juice, no siren.

[siren fan]

Interesting I did not know that. Thanks.