wireless doorbells

[clare]

Years back a cop cruiser keying his mic out front could make many garage door openers operate.

[propman]

....real bummer if using said garage for growing a little personal stash. ;-)

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:22:09 -0500, [e-mail] (Dennis M) wrote: (...)

"Turning a Heath / Zenith Wireless Doorbell into a Remote Control Relay"

[Dennis M]

Good question, I may need to crosspost to alt.psychology.psychoanalysis. ;)

[JIMMIE]

No but you can get crud in the cheap switches. The way mine worked was that the battery was in series with the switch so until you press the button its just off. Battery should last similar to shelf life. The only way it could have sent a false signal is if the switch was shorted.

Disclaimer: There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Jimmie

[amdx]

I had to see if alt.psychology.psychoanalysis was real. It could be a lot fun, to bad it's not a busier newsgroup. Light on spam though!

[mm]

No. Smoke detectors have to have a special circuit to keep track of when the battery voltage goes down, because it's a matter of life and death.

OTOH if the doorbell doesn't work, people can knock. They can bang on the window, they can telephone, they can send a letter.

Carbon zinc, alkaline, nickel-cadmium, lithium ion, NiMH3?????

But I didn't post just to be sarcastic. As it happens, my wireless doorbell rang at 5 this morning, well before I had to get up. I was going to ignore it but I thought, Maybe my car is on fire. If it were, it would probably be too late to do anything about it, but I got up. I looked out the front window and saw no flames, and no one on the sidewalk who could have rung the bell.

I went back to bed, and 10 minutes later it rang again. bzzzzz-=-==bzzz=-=-=bzzzz. By this time I was awake. I'd forgotten and left the computer on so I went to the computer. It went off 10 or

15 times in the next hour. I've had this thing for about 10 years and this is the first trouble it gave me. A real cheap one too, maybe %2.50 from Sunset House, a mail order place.

But I didnt' use any batteries. I have a real doorbell with a transformer and a bell in the front hall and the basement, but couldn't hear it in my 2n'd floor office with the computer fan and radio. In the basement, I rectify the 18 volt transformer output and use a resistor to lower the voltage to what the button should take, and when someone pushes the front door button, the button is powered and the receiver in the upstairs hall makes noises.

Anyhow, I unplugged the receiver and the wall was very dirty behind it, even though I had had this thing there for maybe 10 years, and 2 months ago it was barely dirty at all. That's as far as I've gotten so far.

P&M After tomorrow at noon or so, I won't be around for several days.

[mm]

And btw, the main doorbell button is as good as new (It's only a year old) and I have to press it against spring pressure a full quarter inch to ring the bell. That's not the problem.

[Mark Allread]

Just a thought - I had a similar problem once, but my wireless doorbell had a set of movable jumpers in both the receiver and transmitter to set a code. I played with it a little (no manual!) until I got them talking to each other with a different setting - and the problem went away.

[Stepfann King]

Just place a sign at your door reading:

I don't have a doorbell. Please yell out Ding Dong.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, No bell? I have door gong, it plays Westminster chime LOUD. It is a motorized mechanism with 5 tunes pipes. 3 different tunes for front, side, back door.

[Nate Nagel]

speaking of which, can anyone recommend a commonly available doorbell that a) isn't cheezy looking b) is a real bell, not an electronic thing and c) is loud enough to be heard throughout an older house with plaster walls? If I'm not on the main floor of my house, I simply can't hear the doorbell. At some point in time someone put a lot of insulation in the ceiling of the basement, presumably for sound insulation, which probably doesn't help.

I've been keeping an eye out for an old long bell door chime from the

30's or 40's but they seem to command premium prices.

My house isn't that big, but the rather normal-looking doorbell that I have, with the two flat xylophone bars, just isn't loud enough to carry throughout it.

Ideas?

thanks

Nate

[Bernie Hunt]

Nate,

I solved that problem by putting a doorbell on each floor. But to do this you need access to run the wires.

Bernie

[Marilyn & Bob]

And you need to be sure that your transformer is heavy duty enough to operate several bells at once.

[Bernie Hunt]

hahaha, that was the easy part of the project. Snaking a wire to the second floor was the big challenge. I also dropped a wire down to my workshop in the basement. On that one I put a illuminated doorbell like deaf people use. That way I can see it if I'm wearing hearing protection and making a lot of noise in the shop. With adding two additional bells, I replaced the transformer with a new one. The existing was over 50 years old and rusted out.

Bernie

[Gordon Shumway]

After reading some of your recent posts I have come to the conclusion that you are one of the most worthless contributors this group has ever had.

Gordon Shumway

One positive thing about 'Cash for Clunkers' is that it took thousands of Obama bumper stickers off the road.

[Babu H.]

replying to Dennis M, Babu H. wrote: As the batteries start to lose its voltage it does strange things like statics. Since the Controller inside works on pulses the unit thinks its Data and may turn on and send a signal to the Receiver