The Siren Board

I hauled in all the steel parts to Johnson Sandblasting yesterday around 5:00 in the evening... About 11:00 this morning, my phone rang; the parts were already sandblasted and ready for pickup! Talk about fast service!

I ended up picking up some primer and paint at Menards and got to work this afternoon. Here's my progress so far. I'm hoping to have the siren completely primed, painted, clear-coated, and decals applied by the end of this week, as well as having it assembled on the test stand. I'm still waiting on new drivers and some parts to repair the rear cover, but hopefully I'll get that all taken care of and assembled onto the rest of the siren by the end of March.

The cabinets still need a few components ordered before they're ready to go. I will of course get them primed and painted sometime soon, likely in March, and have the whole thing ready for a test run by April.

Today I got the last few metal parts of the head primed and painted, and began the process of reassembling it on the test stand from the base and up.

I got the new bearings installed, as well as new hardware too. Same goes for the new relay sockets; new stainless steel screws hold them and the delay relays onto the frame. The tensioner and sprocket have also been installed, as well as the 24VDC gear motor.

I ended up also getting the chain on too, which was about an hour long ordeal... I didn't have a chain stretcher to get it together, but finally my common sense kicked in. Apparently if you loosen the screws holding the motor, you can get enough slack in the chain to clip it together, then you can tighten the motor back up.

Here's what I have so far on the control panel. I picked up a CD&F from a scrap yard and mounted it in the free space on the backboard; it'll house an FC and a UV5R will act as the radio receiver. Still awaiting parts to finish that up. I'm also still awaiting the controller bracket, which will hopefully be here soon.

So far I've got almost everything mounted to the board, such as the amplifiers. The amplifiers all received new Southco Nylock - Nylatch fasteners to fasten them to the panel. If anyone's curious, the part number for them is NY-5P-52-1-50 for the plungers and NY-5G-52-20 for the grommets. They work for the amps and I believe also for the controller too.

I still have some more work to do on the fiberglass I do have, and of course get them painted and put all new decals on too. I also have yet to prime and paint the cabinets, which might be a bit spendy to do... But I guess it is what it is. Hoping for the best!

You're chugging right along and it's looking great! You also have some good scrapyards!

flatlandsparky wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 19, 2024 2:55 am

You're chugging right along and it's looking great! You also have some good scrapyards!

Slowly but surely getting there! Still waiting on a few key components for the board to make it work, but that should all be here sometime soon. Just got drivers purchases today, hopefully those will come in early next month. Getting closer and closer, I'm pretty pleased so far with how it's turning out!

Got some more things done!

Recently got the parts needed to convert a CD&F to house a Federal Signal FC, as well as a Baofeng UV5R for a receiver unit, and a 120VAC to 5VDC power supply to run said UV5R. There was quite a bit of waiting involved in getting the parts needed for the whole conversion, but it all went together smoothly and tested good.

In addition to that, I ended up getting the new connector soldered to the wiring harness for the control panel... Talk about a pain in the-
Took about 3 hours to get it done... Still have another one to do

And of course, the siren itself. I finally got the horn cleaned up and painted, and got it installed along with the motor cover. The motor cover has all new decals, and the horn will soon have new decals as well.

Just got the control board all the way wired up and done last night. Still have yet to test it, which I'm hoping to do sometime soon.
In other news, I finally got all 16 drivers after encountering an issue with the supplier, who originally only sent me 11 of the drivers. I also applied the two Civil Defense decals to the horn.
Only thing I've got left on the siren itself is to patch up and paint the rear cover and then it's done! As for the control box, I still have quite a bit of corrective work to do on the painting and get all the decals applied, and of course get the board mounted as well as all the battery cables installed.