Fri Jan 09, 2015 5:11 am
I'd say that it's complicated in the way it has to be installed vs the electrical side of things. I haven't built an RCM before, but I can look at one and understand how they work. From what I understand it is harder to erect one than something like a 2001 because of dealing with the installation the blower. Federal, and ACA come to think of it, shrunk their blower sizes down in an attempt to make it more compact. The B and C series blower is smaller than the three versions of the A series blower setups. I don't know about ACA, but Federal downsized the blower from the 6M pig to the 4M without hurting performance too much. It makes me question why they didn't push sales of the 10/12 500 as much, since, from what I've heard, they are on the same level of the Thunderbolt and used only one motor to drive it. Pneumatic sirens from Germany followed the same trend. The first version of the Pintsch Bamag housed its components in a bunker underground, while the second one had it's components in a built-in vessel and used its mast as an air tank. The Rickmers Werft housed its tank under the installation. Hörmann changed their head design of the HLS line of sirens to slim it down. What makes them different from federal in regards to their mechanical sirens is that they took it a step further and started make electronic sirens as replacements, because they are WAY easier to deal with as compared to what they used to have as high powered sirens, especially when it came to the engines, are more compact, and can be installed just about anywhere.
If you drive a Thunderbolt off a FC like a 2001 using a relay for the chopper and another for the blower an rotator, it would be able to do somewhat a silent test running the blower and rotator with no chopper. Not so silent, but the blower isn't too loud either. You can also monitor a Thunderbolt with a two way FC. If I'm not mistaken Jefferson County, AL uses Two way FCs to drive their sirens. Lee County runs their 3T22A in Auburn on a two way controller of sorts, and I'd be willing to bet that their other 3T22's used to run on the same controller before being phased out with 2001's.