question about siren/light interface abilities.

[Notabombtech]

Hello all,

I have a question about what capabilities my setup will have. We are in the process of having new trucks up-fitted for work. pretty basic set up without any sexy smart controllers like carbide's or blueprints.

The build includes a Whelen 295SLSA6 siren/ light control, a Whelen InnerEdge, 14 Whelen Ion's throughout the body, and 8 Whelen M4's. These are large Ford F-350's with enclosed utility bodies and the lights are spaced out to provide adequate 360° coverage. half the lights are red/ half blue like you'd expect on Police vehicles in this area. additionally the InnerEdge is Red/Blue.

I've drawn out where we want the lights to be installed for coverage but my question is am i stuck with one pattern and only phasing to separate the red/blue on the body? i'm not an installer and only have limited knowledge what you folks are capable of doing as far as different flash patterns depending on slide switch position etc.

Ideally I would want slide position 1 to be just the rear lights, slide 2 all lights minus take downs/ wig wags in a slow (think CHP) flash pattern and slide 3 to be everything including takedowns in a faster flash pattern like a SignalAlert. Does this capability exist or am i limited to one flash pattern and Red being phase 1/ Blue phase 2 to sync the lights and prevent red/blue being activated at the same time.

I'm not doing the install/build, its being done professionally. I just want to know what to ask them for/ what they can do with this setup.

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[shues]

The Whelen ULF44 would provide you the two flash patterns you're looking for, at least for your directional lightheads. The ULF44 is a four-channel flasher, capable of supplying a maximum of 5 amps per channel. You will probably need four ULF44s to flash the 22 directional lightheads how you want to, depending on how many of which type lightheads are to the front and to the rear.

In order to ensure you do not have red and blue activated at the same time, your installer will need to do a few things:

• Wire all of the lightheads of one color to Outlet 1 and Outlet 2 of the appropriate ULF44.
• Wire all of the lightheads of the other color to Outlet 3 and Outlet 4 of the appropriate ULF44.
• Wire the sync terminals of all your ULF44s together so that all of the flash patterns remain synchronized.
• Set the primary flash pattern on each ULF44 to Pattern 21 from the pattern list for Single Flash 60, or another slow "Phase A" pattern of your choosing.
• Set the override flash pattern on each ULF44 to Pattern 1 from the pattern list for Signal Alert, or another fast "Phase A" pattern of your choosing.

You need to select your flash patterns carefully. Only Phase A patterns alternate Outlet 1 and Outlet 2 lightheads against Outlet 3 and Outlet 4 lightheads, thus keeping the red separate from the blue. Avoid Phase B, Phase C, and Phase D patterns, as they will have red flashing at the same time as blue at least some of the time.

Your slide switch should be connected to the ULF44s in this way:

• The power terminals of all of the ULF44s for the rear-facing directional lightheads would be wired to position 1 on your slide switch
• The power terminals of all of the ULF44s for the front-facing directional lightheads would be wired to position 2 on your slide switch.
• The pattern override terminals of all of the ULF44s would be wired to position 3 on your slide switch, thus activating your faster flash pattern.

 

[Notabombtech]

awesome! thank you so much for the detailed response.