Oh terribly sorry about that I misunderstood what you talking about bent metal. That's actually what I was going to say but I wasn't about to write that much on my XBOX One.connerdstines wrote:It is bent metal. It's four sheets of steel bent on a brake, cut and welded together at the sides to form the horn, 7 total pieces if you count the four triangular small strips of steel welded behind the flare of the horn, and the mounting plate. My Thunderbolt has eight pieces, there are two sheets welded together on the top side instead of one for some reason. Once you strip the paint it's quite apparent how they're made. The welded edges are ground down smooth as you said. And just because one can go for years without maintenance, doesn't make them maintenance-free. All mechanical devices fail eventually, and the more components you add, the greater the likelihood of a failure in one of those components, and thus greater upkeep is needed. It has to be worked on and taken care of at some point or it's gonna break, and every siren is going to experience different levels of wear.Thunderbolt10031 wrote:Oh believe me...Thunderbolts can go decades without service. You can ask Jeb and others about this and they will second me.connerdstines wrote:I still highly doubt this is actually going to happen. Federal will be taking a loss from these, unless they can keep the manufacturing cost low enough to keep the price lower than the current offerings. They still have to convince EMO's to buy it, which will be difficult without the battery back-up, and Thunderbolts are not maintenance-free sirens. Unless they can actually manage to retrofit the entire apparatus with DC motors, and make it efficient enough to last on batteries. And on the materials: if this were to actually happen, i bet you the horn will be a fiberglass casting. It would be far less tedious to build than the bent and welded steel one, and cheaper. The rotator housing will be stamped aluminium, just like every other current Federal siren. The chopper housing would be an aluminium casting just like it was on later Thunderbolts. The chopper tube and actual rotator assembly are the only pieces of steel i could see happening on the new Thunderbolt. And they are using copper collector rings for both the 2001/Equinox and 508 already, that wouldn't add that much to the bill, especially since it would be a limited production run.
Btw, the projecters on Thunderbolts aren't bent metal. They are multiple pieces of sheet metal welded together thats grinded down for a smooth finish.
Well I know that they need maintenance eventually, but they still will last a while without any service. This was one of the factors that made the Thunderbolt one of the most reliable sirens to get......then battery backup came into the picture
