Oak Ridge Texas Former Dallas Fire Station 10 Thunderbolt Siren

Here's a longer test of the Oak Ridge Texas Thunderbolt Siren. This siren was transferred to Oak Ridge from the City of Dallas. It was originally installed at Dallas Fire Station Number 10 and was removed when the station has renovated a couple of years ago. There were some wiring problems with this siren on monday (Aug 15 2011) and the chopper and rotator wouldn't work with the test switches. I went back up there today (August 19) to figure out what was wrong. The chopper and rotator wiring was mixed up. By mixed up I mean that one rotator RCM output was hooked up to the chopper and the other was hooked up to the rotator motor and one RCM chopper output was hooked up to the rotator and one to the chopper. Maybe both motors would run when both switches were thrown but it couldn't be good to run it like that. I didn't try throwing both switches to see if it would work. Well it's working right now!!!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• thunderbolt siren
• thunderbolt
• federal thunderbolt
• federal thunderbolt siren
• federal siren
• air raid siren
• civil defense
• civil defense siren
• tornado siren
• outdoor warning siren

[LouisvilleTorn8o]

Is this one single phase? That sounds like it could be a single phase C series blower.

[vanamonde2]

@LouisvilleTorn8o It's 3 phase.

[NicksGarageDoor]

Very nice! Just curious, did you go through this one and repaint it? I can't tell.

[vanamonde2]

@NicksGarageDoor I put bearings in the chopper motor, touched up the paint on the horn/rotator and serviced the oil in the rotator gear reducer and blower. Oh, and put a rotator belt in it. That's about it. The thing is a 1985 C series Thunderbolt so I guess it was one of the last ones sold.

[NicksGarageDoor]

@vanamonde2

If another town near you asks you to refurbish another siren, I think it would be cool for you to do a black and yellow striped cold war tribute siren, with black and yellow stripes on the control boxes and blower as well as the horn.

And I thought I saw something saying that the Thunderbolt was discontinued in 1992. Was that wrong? Before seeing that, I always thought it was like 1988 or something like that...

[timeslip325]

@vanamonde2 Ill keep my fingers crossed!

[vanamonde2]

@timeslip325 I went back up and got the AR timer hooked up but I forgot my camera. I might be able to get a video of it next month when they test. We'll see.

[timeslip325]

@vanamonde2 Well, either way, this siren sounds great, and just hearing it would be great - Alert or Attack. Thanks for uploading!

[vanamonde2]

@timeslip325 Don't know if I'll be able to do three minutes. When I install the timer it'll probably be on a Saturday so I probably won't run it that long full blast. I'll probably do a control test on it for a full timer cycle though.

[vanamonde2]

@Instucablanator 50 feet? I don't know. It's the pole it was mounted on at the fire station. The same type of pole all the "newer" Dallas Thunderbolts were installed on.