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Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:29 am
by 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.
Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:54 am
by 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.
Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 5:40 pm
by birds1337
Yeah, apparently now there's kids throwing rocks at the boxes and breaking off the communication antennas.
Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2014 6:10 am
by 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.
Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2014 6:36 am
by Stormsetter4
TboltTX1 wrote: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.

Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:45 am
by siren fan
I thought the siren's use the batteries for back up power and not for general power?
Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:48 am
by Stormsetter4
siren fan wrote:I thought the siren's use the batteries for back up power and not for general power?
No they can be used for both
Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 1:00 am
by uncommonsense
siren fan wrote: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.
Re: Wichita Falls Whelen Battery Theft
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 1:02 am
by siren fan
Interesting I did not know that. Thanks.