Whelen 8000 Strobe

tsquale

Lifetime VIP Donor
Oct 12, 2010
10,511
Minnesota, USA
Much to the dismay of others, I picked up this bar. Cleaned it up and it works (and looks) great! The one dome is being quite stubborn with the yellowing. The video was taken prior to getting it a little clearer and I plan on continuing other attempts. This thing has some neat features. Cruise lights and then a built in low power trigger on the exterior driver side. Pretty ingenious idea for its time. You can hear the difference in the power supply in the video once I hit the button.


Before cleanup:
img_20160319_220252767.jpg img_20160321_212423863.jpg img_20160321_212428060.jpg img_20160321_212431552.jpg img_20160321_212435132.jpg img_20160321_212439423.jpg
Low power trigger under driver side:
img_20160321_212505516.jpg

After cleanup:
img_20160321_215925229.jpg img_20160321_215933220.jpg img_20160322_145618004.jpg img_20160322_145921802.jpg img_20160322_145923122.jpg img_20160322_145923971.jpg img_20160322_145928021.jpg img_20160322_150035230.jpg img_20160322_150040836_top.jpg

The more stubborn dome: img_20160322_173835089.jpg img_20160322_173841515.jpg
 

894

Member
Jul 14, 2014
1,028
North Central US
I remember acquiring a bunch of those bars, in clear back in the day, from a municipal customer of mine. They traded them in for StrobeHawks (of all things)! I remember having to "rob peter to pay paul" in order to get half of them to work. In fact, I remember ripping the guts out of some of them and installing independent strobes on the ends in order to sell them because the original power supplies were shot. It took me FOREVER to move those old tanks and I should have kept at least one but... money was money back then.

What's with the PAR 46's being on the wrong side of the mirrors??? While you have that apart, I'd put them back where they belong. Then you could straighten the ends of those mirrors back the way they should be. Was this a fleabay acquisition that you paid too much for?

Either way, nice unit... Brings back memories! If you need any parts, I might have a PAR46 strobe sealed beam or two or even a lens for the PAR46's in a box somewhere... In fact, not too long ago I sold a pair of the red 360 filters on fleabay that was in that same box... without one of these bars, I don't think I'll ever use them again.
 

tsquale

Lifetime VIP Donor
Oct 12, 2010
10,511
Minnesota, USA
Not a ebay grab and I got it for a fair price. As for the PARs, they were sold in this setup and if anything it appears that it may have been robbed of the rear two. The wiring is all there and intact. I'd be interested in the PAR46s you have so I'll shoot you a PM.
 

894

Member
Jul 14, 2014
1,028
North Central US
I know they were sold with the sealed beams to the front and/or rear but I don't think the factory installed the step mirrors with the inner sealed beams pointing in the same direction. The sealed beams were always on the backside of the step mirrors or in the case of 4 sealed beams, there were NO step mirrors. My guess is yours was a field modification by a previous owner as evidenced by the ends of the step mirrors being bent inward to make room for the bulbs whose inside edge would interfere with the inside edge of the mirror. Also, one side mirror isn't bent inward as much as the other side adding to my speculative beliefs.

Depending on which matrix your bar has, you may be able to add two more sealed beams but the bar may not be able to run all 6 strobes. I don't know if Whelen built their internal harnesses that allowed for expansion in the field. You may only be able to run the fronts OR the rears but not both in addition to the 360's. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think they made one where you could run all 6...not enough room under the end bases for enough power supplies?

I did get your message and replied. Back in the day, the units I had, had 4 sealed beams and the 2 360's. I could run the front pair of PAR's OR the rear pair of PAR's but not both. One power supply, which was under each end strobe, could run 2 heads. One was for the 360's the other was for one pair of PAR's OR the other. At least in the matrix that the bars I had, were built with. The old Whelen guys can embellish deeper than I can... I do remember one or two bars being able to run all 4 sealed beams at once but then, not the 360's. Old farts???

And, if I remember correctly, that was due to a field modification I did to allow for a two-color bar for the towing industry here in WI where we have to run 2 colors for different situations. If memory serves, I think I swapped two of the end strobe connectors for two of the PAR's to make it happen and get all 4 inners to operate together but again, I would then lose the 360's which were a different color, achieving the matrix we needed to meet the color requirements. Cool bars for their day! Hell, I even took some of the cruise light bulbs out, added #1156 bulbs and installed a #537 flasher for an alternating flash in addition to the alternating strobes. We weren't allowed any steady-burning "warning lights" here anyway, might as well put those lights to use!

Then came the Edges... WHOA, what a concept! But what was with the pink and baby blue? :) (sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread)
 
Last edited:

7d9_z28

New Member
Mar 15, 2012
3,048
West Michigan
John has diagrams and schematics for these bars, and I believe 894 is correct in that you couldn't run everything at once, and that you couldnt have all four PAR46 positions filled and still use the 360s. Sort of strange to think of now but back in the day thats what technology allowed I suppose. My 8000 has cruise lights and the low power but only one supply and no PAR46. Best sounding light bar ever!
 

JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
I have a complete electrical schematic for these, they are quite complex using one supply to run multiple items (not together). These were not easy to troubleshoot. I considered a big victory when I got a 8038 working.

85218_f4091220d5fe132cb9033d68e176c0df.jpg
 

JohnMarcson

Administrator
May 7, 2010
10,971
Northwest Ohio
Here are the other two generations of colored internal filters. The type OP has in this thread is the latest or last style.

8000filters.jpg
 

NoVAFed

Member
Dec 28, 2011
71
Earth, USA, Northern VA
Much to the dismay of others, I picked up this bar. Cleaned it up and it works (and looks) great! The one dome is being quite stubborn with the yellowing. The video was taken prior to getting it a little clearer and I plan on continuing other attempts. This thing has some neat features. Cruise lights and then a built in low power trigger on the exterior driver side. Pretty ingenious idea for its time. You can hear the difference in the power supply in the video once I hit the button.


Before cleanup:
View attachment 154113 View attachment 154114 View attachment 154115 View attachment 154116 View attachment 154117 View attachment 154118
Low power trigger under driver side:
View attachment 154119

After cleanup:
View attachment 154120 View attachment 154121 View attachment 154122 View attachment 154123 View attachment 154124 View attachment 154125 View attachment 154126 View attachment 154127 View attachment 154129

The more stubborn dome: View attachment 154131 View attachment 154132
My PD had these bars when I first started. They were very advanced for their time. Ours had the mirrors to the front and the sealed beam strobes to the rear. The best features of these bars IMO were the low power button and the cruise lights. Haunting the shopping areas at closing time with the cruise lights lit made for a much higher profile. Ours were also equipped with very good built in alley lights with a spot beam.
The downside of these bars were that the 360's were completely overwhelmed by the Florida sun, at least in our all blue configuration. The domes tended to yellow fairly fast too. The worst aspect of these bars was,on ours at least, the bases tended to bow or sag. Whether this was due to improper mounting or just the way they were I don't know. I remember some Whelen literature of the time referring to the bases as being made of "structural foam" if my memory serves correctly.
Our Whelen's were way better than our, can't remember which, Signal-Stats or Yankees of the era.
 

stansdds

Member
May 25, 2010
3,533
U.S.A., Virginia
My PD had these bars when I first started. They were very advanced for their time. Ours had the mirrors to the front and the sealed beam strobes to the rear. The best features of these bars IMO were the low power button and the cruise lights. Haunting the shopping areas at closing time with the cruise lights lit made for a much higher profile. Ours were also equipped with very good built in alley lights with a spot beam.
The downside of these bars were that the 360's were completely overwhelmed by the Florida sun, at least in our all blue configuration. The domes tended to yellow fairly fast too. The worst aspect of these bars was,on ours at least, the bases tended to bow or sag. Whether this was due to improper mounting or just the way they were I don't know. I remember some Whelen literature of the time referring to the bases as being made of "structural foam" if my memory serves correctly.
Our Whelen's were way better than our, can't remember which, Signal-Stats or Yankees of the era.
Whelen was the leader in strobe technology. Their strobes tended to be brighter and more effective than their competitors. As for being able to see blue in the day, that is always problematic. In my experience, red is more visible in the day, but blue can absolutely pierce the night.
 

Mustang302

Member
Nov 26, 2011
164
Waterbury, CT
Here is a Military dodge Enfield Ct used 8000 on everything this is whelen country

Here is an 86 fury Enfield Ct pd

East Hartford Fury

Memphis PD had tons
 

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