Trojan WS-3000
Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 4:20 am
After months of planning, it finally happened! On the 29th of September, Evan Vander Stoep and I went and acquired a Whelen WS-3000, specifically the one from Longview, Washington. Once we were home, we went and bought 2 batteries to run the controller and surprisingly, despite its age it fired right up without any problems! Once it was verified the controller worked, we wired up a single driver and did a quick test which was super loud. The rotator also worked without any problems.
We transported the siren via pickup truck and had to remove all the wiring to the drivers and the rotor before removing the siren from the truck bed. We wouldn't have been able to lift it out of the truck bed without doing that. The siren will have to be wired up again before running it. There is the idea of mounting it to a trailer for easy transportation so it will probably won’t be rewired until then.
The controller is a pre-864 analog controller, model WS-3000 (no other ID aside from this) serial # 717. Oddly, it contains a silent test board which for reasons I’ll discuss in a moment doesn’t make much sense.
The Trojan nuclear power plant siren system, until the Whelens were installed, was 100% a mix of federal sirens. Installed between 1980 and 1982, the system contained thunderbolt 1000(t)s, STH and STL 10s, model 2s, model 5s, and model Ls. A full map of the system can be viewed here, Trojan & Ex-Trojan Nuclear Power Plant Sirens Map, big thanks to chefiBG for the map. We believe that the Whelens were installed some time after April 1984, due to inspection stickers located inside the control cabinet of the siren that were dated 4-1984. Because the system up until this point was entirely federal sirens, they all used the Siratrol radio. The typical blue box, analog 2 tone radio receiver designed to activate a max of 3 different signals, plus cancel. Instead of using a 2 tone radio from whelen, they instead wired the siratrol through a time delay relay directly into the tone generator of the whelen. The time delay relay was manually set to 3 minutes, and was then hot glued in place. The cabinet also contained an alert, attack, and cancel button. When either the alert or attack button is pressed, the corresponding signal relay is activated and held on for 3 minutes. The whelen cabinet has no inbuilt timer, and so relies on the time delay relay. Of course, you’re probably saying to yourself right now “but why does the siren cabinet have a silent test board if the radio doesn’t support two way” and my answer is we have no clue whatsoever. It doesn’t make much sense to us either. However, the silent test board does seem to function.
As for the rotator, its also interesting. A pamphlet that was posted on here a while back shows that whelens rotator uses a cam wheel setup to generate a 4 digit binary number to tell the controller where exactly the rotator is in 45 degree accuracy. However, when we opened the rotator we were surprised to see not microswitches and cam wheels, but a full blown optical encoder wheel. It appears that whelen was testing several designs for the rotator, and they settled on microswitches, but prior to that this was one of the designs they used. The rotator needs to be greased, and it is also slightly rusty inside. I plan on taking it apart, cleaning it out, greasing it, and making sure that the bearings are ok, though it sounds like I may have to replace one or more of them.
In the future, we plan to do a full restoration to the siren. The horn is covered in a mixture of lichen, bird poop, and moss, and some of the drivers are a bit rusty. We have yet to test all of the drivers, but aside from some surface rust they all seem to be in ok condition. The rotator needs TLC, and I’d like to make a small cart or trailer for the siren to go on to allow us to move it around easier.
Now, some questions. I can’t find documentation for this controller at all on the internet. If anyone has a manual or anything for the WS-3000 or similar controller, I would be endlessly grateful if you can send a copy to me. Additionally, is this controller capable of any signals other than attack, wail, alert, and airhorn? And finally, anyone else that owns a rotating whelen. Can you look inside your rotators? I’d be interested in comparing designs to see how they evolved over the 35 years that have passed since this siren was made.
Also, stay tuned for more information on this siren in the coming weeks! We’re definitely not done here, especially with the siren still in pieces. A video of everything we did so far will be released in a video on Evan’s YouTube channel sometime soon.
(bonus pictures of me with the siren)
We transported the siren via pickup truck and had to remove all the wiring to the drivers and the rotor before removing the siren from the truck bed. We wouldn't have been able to lift it out of the truck bed without doing that. The siren will have to be wired up again before running it. There is the idea of mounting it to a trailer for easy transportation so it will probably won’t be rewired until then.
The controller is a pre-864 analog controller, model WS-3000 (no other ID aside from this) serial # 717. Oddly, it contains a silent test board which for reasons I’ll discuss in a moment doesn’t make much sense.
The Trojan nuclear power plant siren system, until the Whelens were installed, was 100% a mix of federal sirens. Installed between 1980 and 1982, the system contained thunderbolt 1000(t)s, STH and STL 10s, model 2s, model 5s, and model Ls. A full map of the system can be viewed here, Trojan & Ex-Trojan Nuclear Power Plant Sirens Map, big thanks to chefiBG for the map. We believe that the Whelens were installed some time after April 1984, due to inspection stickers located inside the control cabinet of the siren that were dated 4-1984. Because the system up until this point was entirely federal sirens, they all used the Siratrol radio. The typical blue box, analog 2 tone radio receiver designed to activate a max of 3 different signals, plus cancel. Instead of using a 2 tone radio from whelen, they instead wired the siratrol through a time delay relay directly into the tone generator of the whelen. The time delay relay was manually set to 3 minutes, and was then hot glued in place. The cabinet also contained an alert, attack, and cancel button. When either the alert or attack button is pressed, the corresponding signal relay is activated and held on for 3 minutes. The whelen cabinet has no inbuilt timer, and so relies on the time delay relay. Of course, you’re probably saying to yourself right now “but why does the siren cabinet have a silent test board if the radio doesn’t support two way” and my answer is we have no clue whatsoever. It doesn’t make much sense to us either. However, the silent test board does seem to function.
As for the rotator, its also interesting. A pamphlet that was posted on here a while back shows that whelens rotator uses a cam wheel setup to generate a 4 digit binary number to tell the controller where exactly the rotator is in 45 degree accuracy. However, when we opened the rotator we were surprised to see not microswitches and cam wheels, but a full blown optical encoder wheel. It appears that whelen was testing several designs for the rotator, and they settled on microswitches, but prior to that this was one of the designs they used. The rotator needs to be greased, and it is also slightly rusty inside. I plan on taking it apart, cleaning it out, greasing it, and making sure that the bearings are ok, though it sounds like I may have to replace one or more of them.
In the future, we plan to do a full restoration to the siren. The horn is covered in a mixture of lichen, bird poop, and moss, and some of the drivers are a bit rusty. We have yet to test all of the drivers, but aside from some surface rust they all seem to be in ok condition. The rotator needs TLC, and I’d like to make a small cart or trailer for the siren to go on to allow us to move it around easier.
Now, some questions. I can’t find documentation for this controller at all on the internet. If anyone has a manual or anything for the WS-3000 or similar controller, I would be endlessly grateful if you can send a copy to me. Additionally, is this controller capable of any signals other than attack, wail, alert, and airhorn? And finally, anyone else that owns a rotating whelen. Can you look inside your rotators? I’d be interested in comparing designs to see how they evolved over the 35 years that have passed since this siren was made.
Also, stay tuned for more information on this siren in the coming weeks! We’re definitely not done here, especially with the siren still in pieces. A video of everything we did so far will be released in a video on Evan’s YouTube channel sometime soon.
(bonus pictures of me with the siren)