Task Force Tips

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This FAQ section contains some of the most frequently asked questions regarding our products and other related information. The FAQ's have been split into categories. Just click on the FAQ category to see the questions/answers. If you have a Question(s) you would like us to consider...SUBMIT IT HERE! Please Note, all questions are worded exactly as received by the person making the request.

Deicing	Foam	Industrial
Large Diameter Hose Hardware	Miscellaneous	Monitors
Nozzles	Remote Controlled Monitors	Repair
Suction Hose	Tactics	TFT Company Questions

1	How does the Safe-tak valve on the Crossfire work?
	Answer: The Saf-Tak valve (An exclusive feature of Task Force Tips) contains a trip mechanism much like a mouse trap. The "trigger" touches the ground and holds a butterfly valve open, when the monitor lifts the trigger trips and the butterfly valve moves to the closed postion. It is very important to note that the valve NEVER, EVER shuts off completely. Instead is reduces the WATERWAY by 90%. Because the flow area is reduced the amount of actual flow reduction will depend on what the monitor was flowing before the even that caused the trip. The lower the flow before tripping the less affect the valve closing will have.

2	I just saw a demonstration last week at a local refinery on the 'Protector' Industrial Station Monitor from TFT. Everyone thinks that most fixed protection monitors are pretty much the same... What's so different about the 'Protector'?
	Answer: Sorry, but this one just calls out for a 'David Letterman' type answer... So here goes.... Doug McMillan's Top-Ten List of... "Why any Industrial company will only consider the Protector Monitor...." #10) Full 3" Elliptical Water way with only 180 degrees of total curves, rather than the typical 360 degrees of other industrial monitors. Provides less loss and smoother flow path... #9) Full Electrostatic Powder-coating outside AND INSIDE. Better corrosion resistance and weather resistance. Normal paint is not used which is easily chipped or scratched which exposes the metal below to corrosion. Much higher resistance in corrosive or salt water atmospheres. #8) NO Ball race swivels which require mandatory greasing and maintenance. Eliminates a common area where corrosion starts... Having a little to no maintenance monitor (especially when there many to maintain) is a significant labor/cost savings. #7) FIVE year warranty. No one else provides the kind of warranty and product support on industrial monitors as TFT.. #6) Easily visible ON/OFF Valve control Handle. Easy visual check at a great distance, of the current valve position. #5) Availability of built-in Stainless Steel High-flow Ball Valve which is easily maintained and serviced. #4) Monitor can be completely disassembled or ball valve serviced with the availability of only ONE 1/2" socket wrench. The built in nozzle is serviced with only a single 1 1/8" Wrench or socket. #3) Built-in stream straightener throughout the last half of the monitor. Produces better flow characteristics and hence, better stream reach and quality. #2) built in nozzles can not be stolen or melted down for scrap. The built-in nozzle option makes the unit smaller and more compact. The Master Foam, and standard automatic and fixed gallonage Master Stream nozzles accept the FJ-LX-M Foam attachment, for superior fire fighting foam performance in petrochemical applications... And the # 1 reason why the PROTECTOR is the only monitor to consider .... ) PRICE!!! Don't compare just the monitor prices. Look at inclusion of the valve and/or the nozzle as well as the costs of maintaining the units. We designed this unit to be VERY Price competitive, and have set this production up from the beginning to be a high volume item, hence lower prices to the end user. send comments to dcmc@tft.com

3	How does the safety mechanisim in the Blitzfire differ from that of the Crossfire
	Answer: The Blitzfire is a second generation device. The safety valve in the Crossfire requires that the monitor lift to cause the safety valve to actuate. The Blitzfire uses a totally new method that senses the inertia of sliding or lifting and shuts off in response to either motion making it a safer device than even the Cross Fire which was itself a major advancement.

4	What is the difference between the Safety Valve in the Crossfire Versus the Safety Valve in the Blitzfire
	Answer: The difference is rather dramatic. The Crossfire has a paddle that feels the ground to detect the monitor lifting. As the manual for the Crossfire cautions it is still possible for the monitor to slide. On the Blitzfire a whole new approach was taken in that we now have an inertial mechanisim that detects the monitor sliding or moving and after sensing this motion it shuts the system down. The Blitzfire goes to full shutoff whereas the Crossfire shuts off 90% of the waterway.

5	Regarding the crossfire water pressure guage. Is it filled with mineral oil or another type of fluid? D. Green, Berkeley Fire Department. Thanks.
	Answer: It is filled with silicon

6	We are looking for Remote controlled monitor , prefably Monsoon RC 2000 GPM with master stream 2000. Is this units are certified to use in Zone 2 environment ?
	Answer: They are currently in the testing phase with TUV. They have passed all the tests but we are waiting on the paper work to come thru to make sure it is official.

7	We're looking for a portable master stream device (Crossfire) that can flow 1,000 gpm or greater. While we don't need to preconnect, we do have compartment space issues and would like to mount the base and monitor married together on the exterior of the rig, and in a vertical position. Does your bracket allow this? I'm also open to other suggestions.
	Answer: Absolutely, the bracket will work for the base alone or it will work for the entire unit assembled. We have dozens of Refineries that have done this where they carry four or five monitors per vehicle

8	How do I determine flowrates from Nozzles at difference pressures? For example, the Monsoon nozzle is rated at 300-2000GPM @ 100psi. How do I know the flowrates at 80 psi? Please advice.
	Answer: You will only have a pressure of 80 PSI IF the flow rate is below 300 GPM, above 300 GPM and all the way to 2000 GPM it will be 100 psi. In the TFT online library there is a technical bulletin that is entitled "Calculating flows on Pre Piped Monitors" This document should answer all your questions.

9	Couple quick questions. First once the extend-a-gun is raised and put under pressure can it be lowered without releaving the pressure and vice versa if it is under pressure in the lowered postion can it be raised if it is under pressure? On the 1250 automatic nozzle for the monitor what is the purpose of the deluge valve and components that one will see if they unscrew it and take it appart? Thanks AB
	Answer: Once pressure is applied to the extenda-gun it will stay where it is up or down. The pawls that are used to hold it up or down have "re-entrant" notches on them that physically interlock. No amount of force that could be applied by hand can unlock them. The "deluge" valve in the end is the automatic pressure contro. It is this device that senses the pressure at the base of the nozzle and with that information it adjusts the orifice (opening) of the nozzle so that the pressure is always 100 no matter what the flow is.

10	We have 3 SAFE TAK 1250 portable monitor bases. One has dual 2 1/2 inch intakes. One has a single 5 inch storz intake. On the side of this unit there is a plate. The mosr recent has a single 5 inch storz intake and what appears to be a pressure dump valve on the side with settings A. B. and C. We did not get any information with this unit concerning this dump valve. Can you enllighten us?
	Answer: Some people want pressure relief valves on the monitor and some don't so we make the provision for it. The Safe Tak valve does not shut all the way off and we did extensive testing on the water hammer characteristics and determined that the relief valve was absolutely not necessary and it only adds weight. Some people however say it is an ldh device and it has a "shutoff" therefore it must have a relief valve so under the category of "The customer is always right" we make them such that they can have the valve. The 2.5 inch size is not LDH and as such there has never been anyone request that it have a relief valve. You have one each of the three different configurations that we manufacture this product in.

11	Do you give special warranty for monitors going to the Philippines? Your website specifically provides warranty of 5 years, however the distributor in the Philippines provides warranty of 10 years, with a Warranty Certificate from TFT signed by Mr. Arthur Cuenca, dated September 24, 2004. Is this valid?
	Answer: Yes it is valid, Our standard warranty is 5 years. It used to be lifetime but the legal people said that was too vague. Here is what gets confused about warranty. Warranty is not for damge or wear that is incurred in the normal use of the product. What warranty is supposed to be is to correct manufacturing defects. When warranties first came into being it was to give the customer a time period in which to find that there was a defect with the product and then get that defect corrected at no cost. The reason that time limits got imposed was that some people would have damage or wear occur and then they would go back to the manufacturer and ask that it be fixed for free and conflicts occurred. The philosophy at TFT is that no matter when a problem surfaces if it was a problem that we should have known about at the time it was manufactured then we take care of it. We do not warranty a product that is simply worn out from use.

12	Our deck gun is a crossfire monitor with a master stream nozzle; in addition we have a set of stacked tips. With the stacked tips we also use your 10" extention stream straightener. Previously we have mounted the master stream nozzle directly to the crossfire monitor; we do notice that we seem to get much better performance with the master stream nozzle when the 10" stream straightener is mounted directly to crossfire monitor first (rather than just the master stream nozzle without the straightener) Can you suggest the preferred configuration with your master stream nozzle. Do we benefit by using the 10" stream straigtener in conjunction with the nozzle? Certainly seems like we do; however is this an acceptable working configuration. Is there a recommended configuration? Must the master stream nozzle be mounted directly to the monitor or do we benefit by first mounting a 10" stream straightener? Thomas Roy - Assistant Chief Fremont Fire Department (station-unmanned) 603-895-9634 (home) 603-895-4467 (cell) 603-770-8933 thomasroy@attbi.com
	Answer: There is no doubt that adding the straightener will make it better, the question is ho wmuch better and is it worth the cost. Not the cost of the actual device but the cost in terms of friction loss. The Master Stream fog nozzle has fins inside of it that have incremental friction loss as they do their job of cleaning up the water flow. When you add the extra straightner this takes even more loss. Most do not think that the small improvement in the stream is worth it but that is clearly the choice of the fire department

13	Why do portable monitors and deck guns have the goose-neck shaped piping before the nozzle tip? What purpose does it serve and why is it better than older devices with "rams horns"?
	Answer: The reason for the goose neck shape is to allow a rotation joint without getting the reaction forces off center. If the reaction was off center the monitor would spin like a rain bird sprinkler. The reason that it is better is that there is less loss having the water go around a bigger opening as a unit than there is splitting it and then recombining it. It is not so much that it is a lot better hydraulicly. More important it takes less metal to do it and so the monitor is lighter.

14	Which tip is better for defensive attack using deck gun, smooth bore nozzle or fog nozzle. We have the Extend a gun with the 10 inch smooth bore tips or fog nozzle. Please advise. Thanks O. Hoard Saginaw Fire Department
	Answer: I am afraid that the best place for this answer is one of the many forums on Firehouse.com. We have our opinion that we feel is substantiated by years of experiance and that is that an AUTOMATIC nozzle is by far the best choice. For some reason however there are a lot of people out there that think that a nozzle that is hundreds of years old is better, why we do not know. The physical fact is that at equal flow and pressure they are equal streams. The problem is that getting the flow to match the nozzle with a smooth bore is far more challenging. What most people do is leave the smallest nozzle they have on and they go to work with that nozzle. They are then limited to the small flow it delivers and as a result the nozzle pressure goes way up. The automatic will adjust constantly to give the maximum flow available at correct nozzle pressure.

15	why is it necessary for the multi directional piping prior to discharge on portable monitors, explain the physics?
	Answer: It all comes down to getting the reaction forces on the exact centerline of both the vertical and the horizontal axis of rotation. The forces on monitors are very large and if they are not on center they will try and make the unit spin about either the horizontal or the vertical axis. Great for a lawn sprinkler not good for fire fighting.

16	We recently specified TFT Crossfire w/18" extend-a-gun as the deck gun of choice for our recently delivered American LaFrance engine; along with all TFT handline 50-350 nozzles. On our cross fire deck mounted gun we are experience a problem - in that, when we extend the gun, the relief valve at the base at the crossfires - apparrently provides for relief of pressure allowing for an easier extension of the gun? - anyway this valve apparrently stays in the open position momentarily as we are opening the valve to the deck gun - this causes wate to exit from the this relief valve in the crossfire thus saturating the pump operator and totally saturating the all pump controls. What is wrong here? What are we doing incorrectly? How can this be remedied?
	Answer: That leak is coming from the automatic drain valve an important FEATURE if you operate in a cold climate. Monitors prior to the Crossfire did nto have this and water would collect in the elbow of the monitor much like water is trapped in a sink trap. When the truck responds to a fire it freezes and breaks the monitor. If your really annoyed by this there is a fix that we provided for. Get a copy of the manual off of our website and look at the section that tells how to disable this valve. It is a simple matter of unscrewing the cap and turning over the rubber seat. It will no longer drain a drop after that change it made and it only takes minutes to do.

17	For the Blitzfire Monitors, do you have a flow chart for 2.5" hose with 2.5" couplings?
	Answer: Yes, you can view this chart (and chart for 3" hose coupled w/2.5" couplings) in the instruction manual for the Max series nozzles. This can be found at our "On-Line Library" Maintenance and Operations Manuals, Max series nozzles, page 9. lim-025

18	When the 18" EXTEND-A-GUN is raised, can the pin be pulled on the deluge gun to lower the elevation below 35 degrees without damaging your unit. We have a 8297 Stinger Monitor intalled on the EXTEND-A-GUN & pre-piped from the pump. Thank you, Chief Jack Steinhoff Fermilab Fire Department
	Answer: Absolutely!!