The Siren Board

I've decided to start documenting the history and evolution of ACA and ASC siren controllers, in order to hopefully clear up confusion and present this information in an easily digestible format. Feel free to contribute any information or corrections if my information is incorrect.

First up, the ASC Compulert U-RTU:


Internals:

The Universal Remote Terminal Unit is basically just a Compulert controller and decoder with relays/relay outputs and/or tone generator depending on configuration. This is pretty much ASC's version of the Federal Signal FC controller.

Second up, here's the ACA-ASC RDT/TTS controller/decoder:


This predates Compulert by about a decade (or two?), but continued to be manufactured years after Compulert was first introduced. I believe this used two-tone activation and was the cheaper alternative to Compulert, but don't quote me on that.

Please correct me if I have the dates wrong.

This is the ACA-ASC Compulert 2 controller/decoder, released sometime in the early 1980s (1982 perhaps?) and used up until the late 90s.


This is basically the Compulert version of the RDT/TTS controller....it does all the same siren-controlling functions but is able to function with the Compulert siren monitoring software. Enclosure not 100% representative of inside components.

You can not judge what is inside based on the style of enclosure. We have seen CompuLert 3 boards inside the "Version 1" style box. The "Version 1" style box is actually CompuLert 2.

FSThunderboltfan1000 wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:20 am

You can not judge what is inside based on the style of enclosure. We have seen CompuLert 3 boards inside the "Version 1" style box. The "Version 1" style box is actually CompuLert 2.

Noted. Did that style of enclosure come with CompuLert 3 factory-installed, or were they upgraded after the fact?

I've seen CompuLert 3 mentioned in several ASC manuals, but never CompuLert 2 or CompuLert 1. Would you be able to shine some light on the various CompuLert revisions? Have I at least got the RDT/TTS controller information accurate?

Much appreciated.

Did ACA ever make mechanical controllers?

Non-Zero wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 06, 2023 4:22 pm

Did ACA ever make mechanical controllers?

I guess at some point they probably did, but I personally haven't seen one yet.

If you want to see what an alertronic controller looks like,
ASC:
ACA: (couldn't tell you what was in the open box)
I can't find any inside pictures of either sorry.