I Installed an Ansul fire suppression system on one of my fathers combines last spring , and the machine burned this past wednesday, It was an engine fire, not sure what started it yet. The fire suppression system I installed was NOT automatic, you have to pull a pin and manually activate the system. The machine was un attended when it caught fire, and when we got to it , no one had activated the system ( I removed both hand actuators and the nitrogen bottle had NOT been punctured on either one) but the system still deployed. The large nitrogen tank that pressurizes the fire retardant tank has been punctured, and the retardant tank is empty.

What i don't know is why the system went off? did the heat from the fire warm the air inside one of the hand actuator lines enough that it pushed the needle down and punctured the large nitrogen bottle?

This is what the system looks like

Hand actuators, when actuated , these charge a line going to a larger nitrogen tank.



This is the dry chemical tank , with the large nitrogen tank mounted right on the back of it



another shot, in this one you can see the small line coming in to the slave cylinder ontop of the large N tank, the slave cylinder pushes the needle down to open the large tank , and charge the dry chem tank.



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Sorry about the size of the pictures

 

Did it burn to the ground? Sorry to hear it.


BTW, please post BIGGER pics. Thx.

 

Yeah, those pictures are way too tiny. I can hardly see anything.

 

have you thought about an automatic system, we run them on race cars, they have a low temp wax/plastic/polymer stop under the button, you can set it off manually by mashing it or if it gets to hot, the stop melts and sets it off.......im gonna guess from the color that is a Lexion????

 

Engine is toast for sure doc, both fuel tanks were full on the machine when she lit up. I pulled an injector out , and used my scope to look down in the cylinder , pistons are melted inside the engine , so it got plenty hot. The machine is rebuildable, but it looks right now like ins. will total it.

We used automatic systems on the machines i ran when i was on the harvest crew , and i did not care much for them , out of 7 machines , 3 systems deployed for no apparent reason , and the fourth one did NOT deploy , I had to cut the line with a knife to make it go off, the reason the fourth did not deploy , is the machine suffered a massive electrical failure ( series/parallel switch shorted to ground and two batteries exploded), and the system needed electricity to work.

The system you talk of would work if i relocated the hand actuators , I have one on each side of the machine at the rear, and one in the cab. this fire would have burned out of control for a long time before enough heat got to those locations.

I feel our next machine will have ground citcuit dis-connects on it, this one did not.

 

this can be activated from 2 or 3 different points, one by the driver, one from a heat source, one from another location......

 

Well , now I only need to remove what it left of the fire supression and get it ready for the new machine, Ins ran a proposed offer by us, it's a little low , but better than we expected, it comes in about 5 grand below replacement value, and they only want a couple grand to buy back whats left of the old one.

Anyone know where i can pick up an 8.3 cummins to swap in where the burned engine now sits?

 

you say the 2 N2 bottles didnt charge but the large one did and then the chemical storage was empty?

 

Yes Whit, that is exactly what happened. The small hand activated N tanks have not been punctured, the large one has , and the chemical tank is empty , it has been discharged.