Bucking The Trend, Louisville Clings to CD-era Sirens

[championsiren]

I'm thrilled to see my city is still clinging onto their Thunderbolts in 2021 and even putting time and effort into maintaining them. I understand the concerns around no battery backup, and I do not discount that. I'd argue most folks on this forum would gladly have a Thunderbolt stand in for a 2001 just for audio properties alone, so I like to think Louisville understands this...or maybe we are just broke and can't afford new sirens! Either way, I am happy.

Nice to see members are coming back to the board!

The 2001 series is overall much better (when we're talking about effectiveness) than the thunderbolt. Just think about it. The 2001 series is louder than the thunderbolt and only has 2 moving parts... whereas the Thunderbolt is a bit quieter and has 3 moving parts. And as Luke Grauer said, if one part breaks the entire siren breaks.

Taking AUDIO into consideration, the 2001 sounds like a screaming child and the thunderbolt is just downright terrifying.

Just my 2 cents...

well, if we want to get way into the technicalities, the 2001 has one motor driving a chopper, and another motor that drives a large spur gear through a gearbox that rotates the siren. power is supplied by several large deep cycle batteries that are charged off the power grid and provide enough power to sound the siren for I believe a max of 30 minutes (might be misremembering that). The thunderbolt on the other hand... has a motor driving a chopper, a motor powering a gear reduction drive through a belt (except for B series) that then rotates the siren, and it depends on a large roots blower that contains 2 rotating lobes, and their corresponding gears that is driven by several belts connected to a third motor to make any reasonable sound output. And of course, it requires live 3 phase grid power to sound at all, which could be provided by a generator (system 7000) but rarely is.

add to this the 2001 can be charged off of a solar panel, meaning grid power is not necessary at all, and you've got a recipe for a much more reliable siren.

Yeah, what he said