Are there any 'all mains' doorbells at reasonable prices?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

My computer is spying on me. I just got this recommendation in Ebay, I guess you could make a doorbell out of it:

[Scott]

A friend of mine disconnected the bellpush when his wife had a baby. Didn't appreciate it at all when I used my initiative to touch the two ends together!

[Clive Arthur]

Certainly mine fails without warning, but never because of the bell push battery which has been there for many years. It's always the bell sounder unit batteries, as they are draining in receive mode all the time.

Cheers

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I pressed an old rusty bellpush once, and the damn thing wouldn't stop ringing. I was still trying to pull the button back out when she answered the door.

Next time I went there, I had a can of WD40 in my hand.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Other thing that some may not care about is an ordinary bell push can be found in a variety of designs including say flush polished brass or chrome. Rather than those horrible plastic surface mount things I see everywhere. I find it strange to see a front door with expensive door furniture but a cheap and nasty plastic wireless push just plonked on the architrave.

[Martin Brown]

Why the fear of battery powered components? They work well enough and run for almost as long as the shelf life.

Moreover the modern piezo sounders are highly efficient and loud unlike the old prehistoric 2A solenoid soft iron ding-dong things from way back. The other advantage is that you can go wireless and/or have a choice of tunes for different bell pushes.

Unless you need a continuously lit bell push then mains bell setups are no longer really worth it (and even then current drain can be kept low enough that a set of D batteries will last ~5000hr = 200 days).

[jrwalliker]

The trouble is that some of those have really poor quality switches. I bought one with a nice oval stainless steel surround to match the door handle. It worked fine for me, but some visitors complained that the bell never rang and ended up thumping the door.

It turned out that the switch contacts were a pair of gold plated screws going through the back plate to the main terminals in conjunction with a larger screw at the end of the button. The screw heads all touched when the switch was pushed straight in. However, if the pressure was slightly sideways then the three screw heads never met.

I replaced it with a decent switch from Farnell fitted into the original housing.

John

[Brian Gaff]

You won't find a mains powered button except on the wired variety of course. think about it for amount. If you need to run a wire to a wireless button to power it, what is the point in a wireless bell? Most bells I've come across have either a space for batteries or a socket for t a dc supply and even if they do not, its not very hard to add such a supply to most bells be they the old chime type or the electronic type. Besides, batteries in a wireless bell push are the least of your worries. The bell push seems to be the weakest link in many designs, they use rubbish membrane switches, suffer from water ingress and tend to fall to bits quite often in my experience. I don't think they test them enough with the thunper, half hearted presser and many hours in the English weather Brian

[Halmyre]

Good idea, but what about the bellpush?

[Chris Green]

Well that would leave it permanently gummed up and sticky then! I can think of several much better concotions to spray on a sticky switch.

[Chris Green]

A great deal of point, it only needs a wire from the nearest mains power, not right across the house to the bell.

We have plug-in WiFi repeaters which do almost the same job for WiFi so why not for bell pushes?

[Bod]

That has been my experience with wireless doorbell pushes. That and my preference for a lit doorbell made me choose a mains one.

[spuorgelgoog]

You can get mains voltage bells, and mains rated bell push switches, but that means all the wiring has to be mains standard.

A conventional wired bell system with a transformer should run several bells in parallel, or if you use electronic sounders rather more.

If you want a completely power-free system put a magneto generator at the front door and some telephone bells around the place.

Owain

[tabbypurr]

Piezos are very power efficient but they just don't have the required volume. Old mechanicals do.

NT

[John Rumm]

Don't know... Perhaps people never replace the batteries.

I installed one about 8 years ago. Still going strong on its first battery.

[spuorgelgoog]

Piezos and other electronic sounders have just about replaced conventional bells in fire alarm systems due to low current requirement enabling more sounders to be used, for uniform volume coverage.

Owain

[tabbypurr]

like everything it's because they're cheaper. They're used differently in doorbells and can't produce similar volume levels.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A standard bell transformer - the largest commonly available - is only 1 amp. That should run two standard underdome bells - but they may work better in series. It certainly won't run several.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Piezo sounders tend to be tuned to a particular highish frequency for best efficiency. Perhaps ideal for an alarm, but not sure I'd like that nasty noise as a door bell.

Other thing is of course they're much cheaper to make than a decent bell.

[Andy Burns]

The beat frequency you get when multiple sounders are e.g. on each floor of a staircase, seem to be set to the resonant frequency of a skull, for maximum annoyance while you're trooping down to the fire-exit