The Edwards also known as EST 2500 series panels where marketed to the Electrical Contractor market and ended up in the D.I.Y. market as a result. in the 80's to 90's so installs go from excellent to extremely poorly designed. An economical panel it could be ordered as a complete system with smokes, heats, bells ,horns and pull stations. The brand has been sold and resold several times GE had it at one time and now it is owned by United Technologies.
While they initially served the purpose the design was not user friendly and frequently results in panels not being restored properly and constant trouble lights due to the fact it must be powered up and restored in a proper order do not follow it and nothing but headaches. Not a good situation for a life safety system. I am not the only tech who does not like these panels you can find plenty of complaints about them. Another major problem I have had with them is there stopping work all together and never giving any kind of trouble indication there not working
which I have seen a couple of times.
But the bigger problem is when they age as you can see in the middle photo the calcium like corrosion deposits around the terminals which then causes the panels to go off all by them selves.I have replaced more than 20 of these panels with the exact problem.
This panel was in a personnel care home a place it never should have been used. Knowing the history of problems these panels cause.
When I find one of these panels I always recommend pulling it out of service and replacing it before problems develop as there now in many cases getting well over the15- 20 year service life. But there are thousands of them out there.
Some panels just seem to have trouble written all over them and this is one of them. When a manufacturer no longer makes a certain panel and no longer supports it. Then its time to buy a new panel as the one you have is now obsolete.
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