Change 100W Siren to 200W

[Rofocowboy84]

I'm pretty sure there was a thread about this in one of the past reincarnations of this site, but I'm unable to find one here.....


Anyway, the problem is I'm coming up with different ideas for two-siren systems, ie a main siren with a slide switch and lighting controls (either SLSA6 or TMD), but every siren that I would want to use as the second siren is 100W (Carson Volunteer, Sho-Me 31.2515, etc). I'd rather not have one siren be louder than the other, so does anyone know how to make them 200W? I know some of the responses will probably be "well, it would take a lot of electrical know-how" and all, but I happen to know a few HAMs who have plenty of experience playing with circuitry, so I'm not worried about that. Is it just a matter of adding another resistor, or what?


And for anyone wondering why I want 400W, it not necessarily ever going to happen, but I'd like to know it's possible if the opportunity ever came up....

 

[Wailer]

I believe a 200 watt siren would use a bigger output transformer than a 100 watt unit.

 

[Rofocowboy84]

That's the word I was looking for, transformer, not resistor. So....just replacing a 100W transformer with a 200W one should do it?

 

[Jarred J.]

probably not going to be THAT easy, as you would need to updtae whatever resistors, diodes, capacitors etc that went along with the 100w that youd need to upgrade.

 

[EVModules]

If you don't mind having your secondary on one tone (wail) while you can change the tones on the fly with the first, try to find any 200w capable siren that you can be content with and things gets much easier to do.

 

[WS224]

A 200 watt speaker is only louder than a 100 watt siren when you hook it up to (2) speakers. If you only hook it up to one, it is a 100 Watt siren.


Use one speaker with it and you've taken care of your concern.

 

[Rofocowboy84]

A 200 watt speaker is only louder than a 100 watt siren when you hook it up to (2) speakers. If you only hook it up to one, it is a 100 Watt siren.

Use one speaker with it and you've taken care of your concern.

Pretty sure you meant a 200 watt siren there. But yes, I am aware of that...the problem is, I don't want a 200W siren on one speaker, or a 100W siren on one speaker, or even a 100W siren on two speakers, I want a 200W siren on two speakers, or more specifically to take a 100W siren and make it put out 200W into two speakers....

probably not going to be THAT easy, as you would need to updtae whatever resistors, diodes, capacitors etc that went along with the 100w that youd need to upgrade.

True....I shall have to talk this over with my HAM buddies....

 

[WS224]

Pretty sure you meant a 200 watt siren there. But yes, I am aware of that...the problem is, I don't want a 200W siren on one speaker, or a 100W siren on one speaker, or even a 100W siren on two speakers, I want a 200W siren on two speakers, or more specifically to take a 100W siren and make it put out 200W into two speakers......

Yes, I meant 200 watt siren. Oh......my bad.

 

[ark_firefighter]

This thread is going to be interesting ... keep us posted if you'r able to convert a 100 watt siren to 200 watts. That would be sweet to do to some Carson volunteer series sirens with the mechanical tone.

 

[Quentin]

Turn a 200 in to a 400,


Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

 

[ark_firefighter]

Turn a 200 in to a 400,

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

Great Idea ! Quentin ... your like my super smart evil twin LOL.

 

[Quentin]

Great Idea ! Quentin ... your like my super smart evil twin LOL.

If this works just think of the possibilities.


High ways kick on 400-600w and in town cut down to 200w with a flip of a switch


Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

 

[gman021]

wait.... so say all you need to change is the transformer but standard 100 watt carson still only has one speaker (+) output.


Are you saying you would take a 200 watt (2x 100 watt speakers) and change it into 400 watt (2x 200 watt speakers)?

 

[Quentin]

wait.... so say all you need to change is the transformer but standard 100 watt carson still only has one speaker (+) output.

Are you saying you would take a 200 watt (2x 100 watt speakers) and change it into 400 watt (2x 200 watt speakers)?

that be cool!


but the OP is wanting to change a 100w to a 200w

 

[gman021]

That's what I though but I read this


"or a 100W siren on one speaker, or even a 100W siren on two speakers, I want a 200W siren on two speakers, or more specifically to take a 100W siren and make it put out 200W into two speakers...."


Maybe it's late and im not reading things to well but it sounded to me he didn't want it to be any of the following...


1x 100


2x 100


1x 200


but he wanted a


2x 200


but how would you add a Speaker (+) to a 100 watt?

 

[Quentin]

but how would you add a Speaker (+) to a 100 watt?

are you asking how would he add another + speaker lead?


on 200w i just put both speaker wire ++ and -- together and one main speaker wires going to to the siren .


I think that's what your asking?

 

[gman021]

most 200 watters have 2 positive leads and one negative lead.


Atleast that's how all mine have been. I've only been able to combine negatives, hence the label "speaker common" whereas the positive leads are #1 and #2.


On a 100 watt siren, there's only one speaker lead. I've never heard of combining 2 positive speaker leads before,

 

[Quentin]

i've only work with federal and they have a high and low i've seen but low say 58w if i remember.


http://www.fedsig.com/docs/22-UTMD-00.pdf


Page 7 is what i was trying to type out

 

[gman021]

Correct, so how would you make that siren produce 2x 100 watt speakers if there's only input for one of them?

 

[Rofocowboy84]

most 200 watters have 2 positive leads and one negative lead.

Atleast that's how all mine have been. I've only been able to combine negatives, hence the label "speaker common" whereas the positive leads are #1 and #2.


On a 100 watt siren, there's only one speaker lead. I've never heard of combining 2 positive speaker leads before,

The last siren I installed was a UTMD, and I believe it only had one + lead for both speakers.


Sorry for the confusion, what I want to do is take a 100W siren, like the Carson Volunteer, and somehow up it to 200W so I can power two 100W speakers.

 

[NCFD43]

The last siren I installed was a UTMD, and I believe it only had one + lead for both speakers.

Sorry for the confusion, what I want to do is take a 100W siren, like the Carson Volunteer, and somehow up it to 200W so I can power two 100W speakers.

PA300 200 watt had 1 + and 1 - for 200 watts, as well as the Signal SS700. Several other sirens have these options, but the speakers must be wired in parallel for it to work properly.

 

[EVModules]

I think I got it figured out,...


You want one tone board to produce a total of 400 watts. If I'm right, you'd need 4 speakers regardless since there's no 200 watt speaker. 200 watt capable siren, yes, but not one 200 watt speaker.


If you want to use your siren that maxs out at 100w, you'll need 4 sirens. One will be providing the tone and you'd need to jump it to the other 3 slaves with the tone board disabled.

 

[NPS Ranger]

PA300 200 watt had 1 + and 1 - for 200 watts, as well as the Signal SS700.

I never realized how nice a siren the SS700 was until I bought one BNIB for $77 last month. 200 watts, all the tones you could want, PA and..... the instant-cutoff NYC sound.

 

[Rofocowboy84]

I think I got it figured out,...

You want one tone board to produce a total of 400 watts. If I'm right, you'd need 4 speakers regardless since there's no 200 watt speaker. 200 watt capable siren, yes, but not one 200 watt speaker.


If you want to use your siren that maxs out at 100w, you'll need 4 sirens. One will be providing the tone and you'd need to jump it to the other 3 slaves with the tone board disabled.

No, I want to take a 100W siren and make it 200W...


And actually there are 200W speakers, though they're not too practical, lol....(think BP200 and the limited mounting choices).


Are you able to expand more on the whole slaving the board thing? One option I was thinking of was just taking two amps and tying them together, but I know no sirens are synced when you tie them together, and will eventually split apart. But if the tone board is disabled and you're just tying into the transformer....hmmmm....

 

[SlickTop Solutions]

Just a stupid question, why can you parallel speaker on a stereo amp to get double power, but not on a siren amp? Is the final on a siren amp not built the same? If not, what needs to be added to the final output to do so?


I guess it's time for me to tear a used siren amp apart and compare it to a stereo amp for a car...

 

[Wailer]

The subject matter of this thread is precisely the reason why I was harping on the idea of having the siren oscillator circuits inside the control head instead of the amplifier of a remote siren system.


If the siren oscillators were in the control head and the amplifier was just a PA amplifier with no siren circuit, you could hook multiple control heads up to a single 200 watt amp. One control head could provide the first siren tone (e.g. electronic wail or simulated mechanical wail) while the other control head would provide the second tone (e.g. yelp or Power-Call warble). All the amplifier would do is amplify the electronic tones coming from the control heads, and both siren sounds would be heard at the same volume.


It would be like plugging multiple microphones and instruments into a music PA system.

 

[shues]

most 200 watters have 2 positive leads and one negative lead.

Atleast that's how all mine have been. I've only been able to combine negatives, hence the label "speaker common" whereas the positive leads are #1 and #2.


On a 100 watt siren, there's only one speaker lead. I've never heard of combining 2 positive speaker leads before,

Not so fast! Each of the Omega 90 amplifiers in your avatar have just one speaker-positive terminal and just one speaker-negative terminal, but support two 100-watt speakers.

 

[EVModules]

Slicktop,


I believe it's the capacity of the output. Stereos do have sound quality degradation when you don't utilize the full capacity of the speaker. Theoretically, you CAN put 4 speakers and still balance out your ohm requirements but the power gets decreased to each speaker since the amp is only capable of producing 100 or 200.


Hook up two 4 ohm speakers in series and you'll get 8 ohms. With two 8 ohm speaker(s) connected in parallel, it's CUT in half, back to 4 ohms!


Wailer,


I think it's economics. Who wants a single tone on 400 watts when 2 tones on 200 watts gets more attention?


Shues,


You beat me to it.

 

[gman021]

Not so fast! Each of the Omega 90 amplifiers in your avatar have just one speaker-positive terminal and just one speaker-negative terminal, but support two 100-watt speakers.

You got me! I realized that after I wrote it, but that's the only one I know of. Or maybe, most fed sigs are like that, and all whelens are not


Just imagine if those unitrols put out 800 watts!

 

[Henry455]

Most if not all vehicular siren amps output approx. 32-34 volts RMS (usually can be found on spec sheet, disregard any that list PEAK voltage, google "RMS voltage" for explanation). Using ohms law, the output voltage squared divided by the resistance (11 ohms) gives you approx 100 watts. Again using ohms law, say we us 33 volts rms divided by the resistance (11 ohms) gives you approx 3.3 amps. A 100 watt siren's amp has to deliver 33 volts @ 3.3 amps into a 11 ohm load.


If we try to add another 11 ohm speaker in parallel, the resistance drops to 5.5 ohms, the amp is still trying to put out the 33 volts but the current from the amp rises to approx. 6.5 amps. A 200 watt amp is designed with components that can provide the additional amperage without over heating or damaging the amp.


I imagine most of the forum members know this already but maybe this will help the ones that do not.

 

[Rofocowboy84]

Most if not all vehicular siren amps output approx. 32-34 volts RMS (usually can be found on spec sheet, disregard any that list PEAK voltage, google "RMS voltage" for explanation). Using ohms law, the output voltage squared divided by the resistance (11 ohms) gives you approx 100 watts. Again using ohms law, say we us 33 volts rms divided by the resistance (11 ohms) gives you approx 3.3 amps. A 100 watt siren's amp has to deliver 33 volts @ 3.3 amps into a 11 ohm load.
If we try to add another 11 ohm speaker in parallel, the resistance drops to 5.5 ohms, the amp is still trying to put out the 33 volts but the current from the amp rises to approx. 6.5 amps. A 200 watt amp is designed with components that can provide the additional amperage without over heating or damaging the amp.


I imagine most of the forum members know this already but maybe this will help the ones that do not.

Right, so the trick is to figure out which components have to be switched/added if we want to change the amp to a 200W one. If we do that, we should be good, correct?

 

[Rofocowboy84]

Being that most if not all 200-Watt Sirens are actually a single tone generation circuit with Two 100-Watt Amplifiers I would not hold out much hope for being able to get a 100-Watt Siren to output 200-Watts.

-Jared

Jared, no offense or anything man, but re-read that. You're basically saying that since a 200W siren is one tone generating circuit with 2 100W amps, that means that a 100W siren, with one tone generating circuit and one 100W amp, can't be turned into a 200W siren? By your own logic, the only difference is the absence of 1 100W amp, right? Therefore, all we would need to do is add another 100W amp to the siren, and it would be a 200W siren...

 

[A-TAD]

Why have 400watts when you can have a cheaply made 600watt siren.


I like how in the description it says, "Two hooter tone to choose" I guess that means airhorn?

 

[Rofocowboy84]

I guess you could add a second 100W Amp, but you aren't going to be able to squeeze it into the existing siren box. A majority of the physical space inside a siren is the amp. So I guess yes you could do that. I was thinking more within the confines of the siren box.

-Jared

Ooooh, okay. It's all good, lol. But yeah, I'm not too worried about that, because it's mainly the remote ones that I have an issue with, so the box would be hidden somewhere, so I could just add it to the outside, or just have a bigger box made.


I was talking with a coworker last night, who was a radio tech in the Army Signal Corps and he said all you should really have to do is add a second 100W amplifier, or take the one out and replace it with a 200W one. He said most resistors and all are meant for 100-500W, so not much else should have to be replaced. I'm hoping to have him look at my Carson Volunteer and see what he says....

 

[NPS Ranger]

1) Be sure to lube the door latches and seatbelt release in your vehicle, so you can jump out quickly when the thing catches fire. Seriously, wouldn't it be cheaper and safer to just buy a new 200 watt siren and get a full warranty? Or buy one on here for even less. Sell your old one to get back some of the cost.


2) Anyone who lived through the era of driving a vehicle with a roof mounted siren speaker or God forbid, a roof mounted mechanical siren, is probably in the market for a hearing aid by now. Ever try to hear the radio with the siren on? That's why OSHA came up with sound protection requirements for workers. And you want 400 watts? Just wow. :weird:

 

[Rofocowboy84]

1) Be sure to lube the door latches and seatbelt release in your vehicle, so you can jump out quickly when the thing catches fire. Seriously, wouldn't it be cheaper and safer to just buy a new 200 watt siren and get a full warranty? Or buy one on here for even less. Sell your old one to get back some of the cost.

2) Anyone who lived through the era of driving a vehicle with a roof mounted siren speaker or God forbid, a roof mounted mechanical siren, is probably in the market for a hearing aid by now. Ever try to hear the radio with the siren on? That's why OSHA came up with sound protection requirements for workers. And you want 400 watts? Just wow. :weird:

1. You must have read the original post wrong. There are specific sirens that I like that only come in 100W. It's not that I just want any 200W siren, but only have 100W ones.....also, how would it be a fire hazard if done the right way? That's the whole point of this post, to figure out the right way to do it....


2. There are many, many EV's out there with 2 200W sirens. And with the effective sound proofing of modern vehicles and a more educated speaker placement, even with 400W, it won't be a threat to your hearing. And the reason I want 400W? Because I like the sound of dual sirens, but I don't want to sacrifice having 200W of sound coming out of one siren. Also for the reason that drivers in this area seem to tone out anything 200W or below....

 

[NPS Ranger]

haha OK, YEEEHAAAAA!!!!!!

 

[NCFD43]

if you figure out how to do it, let me know, i'd be interested in changing my 1022 to 200 watts. 200 watts of friggin Q power!!

 

[ark_firefighter]

if you figure out how to do it, let me know, i'd be interested in changing my 1022 to 200 watts. 200 watts of friggin Q power!!

Carson SA-500M (200 watt with Mechanical Tone)


Strobes N' More

 

[Rofocowboy84]

haha OK, YEEEHAAAAA!!!!!!

Do you have something else to add?