My name is Jonathan. I guess you can say i’m an indirect horn enthusiest. I’m the Truck Captain of my local fire department.
So of course on the ladder truck. We have grovers. Adding to the fun of running a 105’ ladder truck up the street is also running a Federal Q siren along with the air horns. Yes, it’s as fun as it looks.
A few of us have gotten together and found (by personal opinion only), that the grovers just don’t seem to cut it. As we are looking for something that has a little more attention getting power.
So after a little bit of research. It didn’t take me very long to determine that the Nathan’s Archime K5LA is the ticket. So after a little more research. I’m finding that this little project is going to be a little bigger than anticipated. You can visit our site www.ncfd10.com and take a look at the ladder truck.
So aside from mounting the horns itself on my 3/4 million dollar ladder truck. What other things do I need to reasearch? I understand that it requires air, but exactly how much? I’m not really looking for 5 sec of time. Looking for more like 30 seconds. Cause sometimes getting to where we need to go takes a little bit of time and many intersections.
welcome! and its a fabulous idea! you might be able to use the existing air on the truck, tap right into its supply! if thats not possible its nothing an oasis and 20 gallon tank cant handle!
Most larger trucks with air brakes don’t have alot of air to begin with, and will generally run between 110 and 140 psi. The air horns and brake system don’t require alot of air, but the brakes will lock up around 80 psi if the pressure gets too low.
In regards to the air already onboard for the brakes. That would be a no. Depending on who is in the officer seat when I’m going down the road determines on how much I pay attention to how much air I have left. Because they tend to get excited with the air horns. As MarineOne states, I have limited supply before the wheels lock up which gets rather interesting. Now a days there are safety’s installed so the truck won’t lock up as your pushing a 80,000lb vehicle down the street. 1st enganged safety is the air horns not working. 2nd is the visiual and audible alarms 3rd the truck will go into neutral 4th THEN if you didn’t get the hint the truck will lock up. The grovers suck the air out of the twin tanks rather fast. Since they are designed for some air horn usage and mainly the brakes. The tanks are small and the refill isn’t much to brag about.
Budget is going to be based off of how many yard birds we can sell. Plus whatever we can scrounge up from what’s left over in the operation budget.
None the less, this is a project in its infant stages. So this weekend I’ll be posting some pics of the truck up here for some ideas on placement.
I’m going to start researching this Oasis 20gallon tank.
Once completed, will definately have some good video, as we like to have video of us splitting traffic as much as you guys like the scare videos.
My buddy in downtown MN got a set of train horn trumpets for free to install on his Peterbuilt dumptruck. He’s tired of people cutting him off so he’s going to rig it up to his air lines directly to his current horn set up.
I’'l get some pics and some video after he puts them on. He says “someday he will install them”. Someday may never come so I might have to make an offer to take them of his hands.
I checked out those Oasis compressors, WOW Big cash, It must be the Ferrari of electric air compressors. The military uses them , and they seem to have a lot of commercial applications as well. I don’t know if you would even need an air tank with those compressors. I’ll have to save up before I am able to get one of those on my ride.
