The Siren Board

The reason why they would want to bring it back is because of the sound it produced... or to shut us up kicking and screaming going "WE WANT THE TBOLT BACK NOW!!!" You can get close to the same sound on an UltraVoice, but it's not the same. I agree with Mark N. Two reasons why they wanted to get away from pneumatic sirens back in the late 80s is because of the fact that a normal one, 500ATs are literally as loud but they'd sway to the 2001, is capable of producing the same amount of sound without the blower to lug around making for a pita install (Federal and ACA made them more compact as time went on for that reason). In addition to that by using proper acoustic friendly designs they could have a siren that could easily be driven on a 6.5 HP DC motor and be able to utilize the sound being created more effectively as opposed to sticking a chopper in a can... looking at you Sentry Defender. You are able to pull one motor from the equation. Keep in mind that the blowers also have oil to maintain for the gears; doesn't seem like much but Federal would likely want to keep that away from a siren. This is how the 2001 was able to hit 127 dB, now 130 with the current model, with a 14 inch Model 3 chopper, ditto to ACA with the PN20 by using a DC motor driving a S-5 chopper to make 130 dB. You see this with the Equinox and 508. As far as we know both use the same rotor and should move the same amount of air, but the 508 is more productive with the sound it makes. I'd still rather take an Equinox over a 2001-130.

Again, assuming this is legit it's probably nothing more than a couple of enthused engineers and long-time staff getting together outside work hours and putting together a really cool one-off either with some money devoted from their own paycheques or with a bit of cash donated by the company out of good will. I firmly believe we might have something on our hands here, but to hold out for anything more than a shiny functional display piece is false hope. You guys seem to be debating sound output, batteries, direct drive and all sorts of techy issues. I'm sure an older design could easily be given new triumph with the resources available today. Putting any new line of product out there, however, does pose a risk, and usually the best measure you can take to soften the blow at all should something flop would be to have as much of your product lineup share as many mutual parts and manufacture/assembly lines as design allows. Okay, making sirens isn't as big a gamble as releasing a new car or phone as far as behind-the-scenes logistics go, but the 2001 and 508 are here to stay, and odds are they will not be replaced by or even supplanted with a radical new model of siren any time soon beyond the obvious reasons of coverage, power draw, articulation and maintenance: many of the components found in, let's say, a 2001-130 have already been sold in different iterations of the siren for years, and their colossal sales volume throughout time has more than paid off their cost in research and development already. Unless the guys can find a way to scrounge up a Thunderbolt from whatever existing parts they have in the bin, they'll only end up shooting themselves in the foot much harder, regardless of the fact that the new 'Bolt proves to upstage the '130 by one decibel. Okay, so now you have three similar sirens, each trying to grab its own slice of a homogenized market, and one of them is fresh off the drawing board with its own unique manufacturing and sourcing of parts. Whoops, looks like the Thunderbolt 2.0 was a dud, better go explain that to corporate and assure our suppliers we'll pay 'em off eventually.

Whoa Whoa Whoa! Why are you spiting out things like that before the siren comes out. You don't know what they are trying to accomplish, you don't know what this siren is going to be like. Seriously calm down.

stormsetter4 wrote:You can literally put a thunderbolt chopper tube/collector ring/horn/chopper on a 2001-130 rotator. All you have to do is remove the 2001 chopper and horn and put the thunderbolt on. If they are going to remake it, that is what they are going to use.

And the way you explained that is literally what they are doing. I just found out that they are shooting for a 125dBc rating which If not mistaken is the dBc rating for the original Thunderbolt.

I'm gonna cry if this is all a hoax.

He's being realistic. We don't have any solid proof that they are even working on it. You have to be realistic. As much as a lot of us dislike the 2001-130 it still outsells the 508 and Equinox despite the Equinox having, ideally, more penetrating power allowing it to carry as far as a 130 and the 508 being overall better in range. They jump to the 130 because it is cheap and happens to be the loudest siren they produce. The Thunderbolt, if it actually comes out, could be more expensive and sell worse pushing 125 dB, 1 less than the Cheaper Equinox, 3 less than the moderate priced 508, and 5 less than the cheapest being the 130. People will jump to high dB count and low $$$ without doing proper research into the sirens they are about to invest in, ergo a lot of them don't care how the darn thing sounds. I don't have any good numbers, but from the looks of the shear number of 2001s sold and installed over the lifetime of the series they may have sold more than ASC, Whelen, and Sentry have of sirens capable of outrunning it even without some of the arrays being as loud on paper.

Aside from the sound it produces what advantage would a Thunderbolt give you over any of their current sirens? Compared to the 508, which is the Thunderbolt replacement via Federal Signal, it has an extra motor connected to a blower that has oil and needs to be plumed to the head. We know Thunderbolts can outrun the 2001 Series sirens and run right there with the 508, but the EMAs or whoever that's buying sirens won't flinch at it since it's quieter unless they are somewhat enthusiasts themselves and would want that sound.

I personally would love to see a battery powered Thunderbolt, but without proof I'm not believing this.

I do agree with you there but let's see what happens.

What kind of solid proof do you want? Everything I've posted has pretty much been the solid truth if you want I can post pictures of the messages and Facebook posts and what not.

Here's proof of the messages: Here's proof of the original Facebook post:

That same pic is the one on a Wikipedia article from a while ago.

I didn't want to say this because it is getting annoying but I am going to now. Let's put the thunderbolts db rating in the bin and say we don't know. After many months of obsessive research ("nooo coastal. You? Obsessive? Not even possible.") I have come to find out that 1 the decibel ratings are only approximate and 2 not all types were tested on all settings with all configurations. According to what I have heard from FS and I seem to recall mister Dennis Clark the whelen man mentioning it... The sirens in the chamber are tested at a certain distance and use a rate of diminishment formula to get the figures. Because the single tone is so potent that formula was probably not accurate. It may have been but personally I don't think it was considering how far away they can be heard (9 miles in one video. The Yakima one here has said to be heard from close to the same distance.) and how much of a kick they had up close. The dual tone thunderbolts diminish at a faster rate because of the cancelation. The 2 dual tone choppers also affect performance/the bass if you get the bass reference. Also it has the adjustable frequency which also affects the rate of diminishment. (There was a topic on that earlier.) if they tested it at a distance outside the facility they may have only done it with 1 setting with one chopper at one distance (further away than 100 feet. Thunderbolts hurt at 100 feet as quoted by FS.) then used the formula to get an approximate rating. Maybe somebody who knows more about that can clear that up a bit but I tend to agree with uncommonsense in a reply he got me with a while back mentioning "we don't have enough information to have an accurate reading on this particular siren. The literature federal signal wrote had a few misinformation spots on there..." Or something of that nature... The new thunderbolt is probably having a new port design tested or something... Anyways correct me if I am wrong...

You may be right costal, from what we can see the 1000t was mentioned the most as the model to produce. I think it will be the same 5/6 port ratio but may have some slight modifications from the original. Now with this new model it will more than likely sport the FC controller with an extra motor starter for the blower but with that I doubt that there will be different chopper terminals like the previous RCM panel, but who knows... it might.

Keep in mind 125dBc is the least that Federal will except on this model, but they may try to make it even more effective because 125 is pretty weak compared to other sirens.