Equinox
| Equinox | |
[[File: | |
| Company | Federal Signal Corporation |
|---|---|
| Produced | 2011-2013 (special order), 2014-present (Under the 2001 series line) |
| Type | Electromechanical |
| Sound output | 126 |
| Succeeded by | 508 |
The Equinox is a rotating electromechanical siren produced by Federal Signal Corporation. It was initially a special order in 2011, essentially being a 2001-130 with an Eclipse-8 rotor. The intake and projector design of the 2001 proved to hamper it's full potential in testing, bottlenecking it's ability to move air and sound effectively. This led to a new development to fix said issues known today as the 508, with an improved overall intake/projector design to increase efficiency. The Equinox can be difficult to visibly differentiate from the 2001-130 as they look nearly identical, besides the "EQUINOX" sticker replacing "2001-130" on the rotator box. However, if you look closely, the stators are noticeably different on the 2 models. The 2001-130 has 12 individual projectors on the stator with narrow gaps between them, where the Equinox only has 8 with rather large gaps between them. In 2014, the Equinox was publicly introduced as a low tone option to the 2001 series and is still available today.
The Equinox was initially designed exclusively for the Nuclear Power Plant market for plants that had contracts for Federal Signal sirens, due to the guidelines set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that required sirens within the 10-mile EPZ (Emergency Planning Zone) to have a 500 Hz tone. At that time, Federal Signal did not yet offer a rotating uni-directional siren with this tone. While designed initially as a prototype for the 508, these sirens were rolled out on special order to be installed at nuclear power plants. The first systems of Equinoxes were installed and ordered by the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) in 2011 and 2012 at Perry Nuclear Generating Station in Perry, Ohio, and at Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport, Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
