You can buy Whirl-E-Bird from HiViz directly, or through dealers and Fire Apparatus Manufacturers who also offer HiViz products.  Many dealers offer installation and support services, and we encourage you to seek a qualified dealer who can provide service and support to your agency.

Yes.  Whirl-E-Bird comes in Chrome or Black.

The name of the game with Whirl-E-Bird is manufacturability and throughput.  In order to ensure our North Carolina assembly team can keep up with demand, every unit is built to the same core specification.  This means Fire Apparatus manufacturers can keep a single part in stock, and put a single part number in their quoting tool.  Red, Green, Blue, Amber, and White light modules are in-stock and available online in the Whirl-E-Bird e-commerce store.  Installation takes about five minutes per light, and only requires a Phillips screwdriver and a little bit of patience to install.

The Whirl-E-Bird can be ordered in a surface-mount version, or a recessed (long shaft) version.  A variety of mounting and adaptor brackets are available.  Custom bracket design is available upon request.

Yes.  The Whirl-E-Bird has an internal jumper on the motor driver PCB that allows you to choose slow, medium, or fast speed.  Changing this jumper requires disassembly of the Whirl-E-Bird housing, which includes careful attention to gaskets and mating surfaces.  It should be done in the shop, out of the elements, and with proper workspace and tools.  Damage caused by improper disassembly or reassembly is not covered by the warranty.

Yes.  The Whirl-E-Bird has five wires; two for the motor and three for the lights.  The motor wires can be hooked up to power or ground either way (reversing polarity) to change the direction the motor will spin.  Note: this does not simply “reverse” the polarity to the motor since it is a brushless DC servo motor.  There is internal circuitry to interpret the different polarity and tell the motor which way to spin when it boots up.  Changing polarity in the middle of a spin-up or spin-down will not immediately command a change in rotation.  The motor driver will spin it down to zero, then once stopped, spin up the new rotation in the event of a rapid polarity change.

The Whirl-E-Bird has totally independent power wires for the light heads and the motor.  You can gang them all together and power the motor and lights at the same time (traditional use case).  Or, you can power the red circuit separately from the white circuit.  Flashing the lights using an external positive flasher is acceptable and can create some cool patterns and effects.  NFPA rules mandate shutting off the white light on-scene, and we always recommend following the NFPA 1900 standard when used on a fire apparatus.  Ramping style flash patterns are not officially supported by HiViz, although they may technically work.  Definitely don’t PWM the light fixture’s ground wire or any part of the motor circuit; damage to the LED drivers and motor controller will occur.

No.  Never.  This can cause a serious safety hazard.  The Whirl-E-Bird motor circuit must always be interlocked to the park brake and installed in accordance with our user’s manual.  Serious injury or death can occur if the device is installed and wired improperly.

Short answer; yes.  Longer answer: The NFPA 1900 standard does not explicitly address products like Whirl-E-Bird.  While the photometry of the fixtures could be used in zone math in some applications, generally, the Whirl-E-Bird product is not included in those calculations.  While technically it may be possible, we recommend certifying your apparatus warning lighting package without inclusion of photometry related to the Whirl-E-Bird, and using Whirl-E-Bird as an auxiliary warning light attached to the emergency master as opposed to the primary warning function for the lower Zone A on a fire apparatus.

The Whirl-E-Bird has a 3-year warranty.  Defective units must be returned to HiViz for evaluation and repair.  Light fixtures have an advance-exchange 3-year warranty and must undergo troubleshooting prior to advance-exchange authorization (bench test and photo evaluation).

We get it; things happen and from time to time folks drive firetrucks into things that maybe they oughtn’t.  Our Whirl-E-Bird service team is happy to help with repairs of units that have sustained user damage or have experienced a failure outside of the factory warranty.  For support, please contact HiViz for an RA # and shipping instructions, and include a detailed description of the issue in the box.  We can either repair or remanufacture your Whirl-E-Bird.  Repaired parts will have a 3-year warranty, and remanufactured units will have all internals tested and replaced or rebuilt, and a full 3-year warranty on the complete assembly when returned.  Remanufacturing includes replacement of all bearings, gaskets, slip-rings, and any other wear items or damaged parts plus a full end-of-line inspection and burn-in.

Service parts (motors, bearings, lights, shells) are available from HiViz for self-repair.  Self-repaired Whirl-E-Bird units do not carry a renewed warranty, and replacement parts carry a 3-year warranty from the date of purchase.

No.  HiViz Lighting Inc. and the Whirl-E-Bird product are not affiliated with ROTO RAYS®.  We are an independent firefighter-owned business that designed and manufactured the Whirl-E-Bird entirely in-house.  There is no business connection or relationship between HiViz and ROTO RAYS Warning Lights.

Yes.  The bolt pattern of a Whirl-E-Bird matches the bolt pattern of a ROTO RAYS 4000.  Please download our 2D drawing to ensure fit before placing an order.  The Whirl-E-Bird was engineered to match a common industry bolt pattern so installers can integrate it easily on new apparatus and retrofit projects.

The LED Whirl-E-Bird light fixtures are the same PAR-46 size used in many traditional spinning warning products, although we cannot guarantee performance, reliability, or mechanical compatibility when Whirl-E-Bird components are installed inside a ROTO RAYS housing.  Any modification to a ROTO RAYS product is at the discretion of the user and may affect its function.

We performed a full intellectual-property review before developing the Whirl-E-Bird.  Historically, there have been multiple patents related to spinning warning lights, including patents held by the ROTO RAYS organization many decades ago.  All of the legacy ROTO RAYS patents that we reviewed are long expired and now part of the public domain, which is exactly how the patent system is designed to work.  Patents provide inventors with exclusive rights for a limited period of time, then eventually become open to the public so future companies can build new ideas on top of old ones.

The Whirl-E-Bird is not based on any active ROTO RAYS patents.  It was designed from the ground up by our engineering team using modern components, modern manufacturing methods, and a fresh mechanical and electrical architecture.  No active ROTO RAYS intellectual property was used in our design.