The chimes, the chimes...

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

No idea, but I did wonder if you ever sorted out your needles.

indicator: piezo bleeping disc, it will simply click at each switching. If not loud enough, add a tiny transformer plus series cap. Don't feed them over 100v or they wont last. Or you can just use a small speaker with series cap.

NT

That's what I already have for the reversing bleeper. Not a pleasant noise.

I'd like something more akin to a musical chord. Pleasant sound rather than just a warning. And three different ones.

We had a Renault van at work which had a very pleasant chime as one of the warnings.

No. Distinct lack of ideas from here. And elsewhere. ;-)

A Rover eh? Better to get another car. You'll just complete the work and it'll fail it's MOT

I like the aircraft one, "Ding! Doors to automatic".

My Saab chimes quite pleasantly as a seatbelt reminder and also bongs when a warning appears on the SID - perhaps you can extract the relevant bits at a breakers ... alternatively it might be time to get the soldering iron out and make something with a 555 timer!

Find a suitable sample and record it into one of these:

Some of them have 'record' and 'play' pins so you can just treat it like a (very small) tape deck.

Theo

How about the bong unit from an E46/E39? They've got several pins which just get dragged high or low for the different sounds.

If its anywhere near modern, it will all be done via a data bus. The data determines which noise to make, the sounder just makes the noise.

surely you've been here long enough to know that Dave's Rover is an SD1, and doesn't really count as modern in this context :-)

I find the indicator clicker on our 2009 Ford Galaxy annoyingly quiet - above about 40 you can't hear it, and so I can drive for ages before I notice the indicator light on the dash.

I suspect though that adding something to make a louder noise isn't straightforward on such a recent car.

That's the problem I have too. It has an early electronic flasher unit which is nowhere as loud as the old bi-metal strip type. But if I had an electronically generated noise via an amp and speaker, would be easy enough to make it as loud as I want. Even to make it louder as background noise goes up.

Surely though, if two warnings might sound at the same time a single device would not work. Brian

The old Rover has a couple of aftermarket things which buzz or bleep.

I had the same problem with the indicators in my home built LR/RR hybrid. I wired in a beeper from a Saab car in the breakers yard. Perhaps you could find one in a breakers with a tone you like.

Mike

Never thought of a door bell - the idea is good. Don't much like the sound of that one though - too much like a door bell. I'll have a look and see what else is available. I'd really like 3 discrete sounds which carry on for as long as required.

The ones as supplied with the reversing sensors was too quiet - by the time it was buried inside the instrument housing - so I did fit an external sounder to that. That is loud enough - perhaps too loud - but still just a beep.

I'd ideally like to be able to adjust the level of each one easily - and perhaps have an auto function so it adjusts the level according to background noise - especially for the indicators.

It's probably something a Raspberry Pi etc could do easily - but writing software simply isn't my thang. ;-)

It turns out they're cheap as chips on ebay. Search for 'ISD voice', prices start at GBP1.63 including delivery from Hong Kong.

Theo

Should have said, that price is for the chip on a board with all the bits you need. Here's a multi-recording one:

though you may find it simpler to take three single recording ones and wire them to switches or whatever:

They both seem to have onboard mics, but suspect it wouldn't be hard to bodge that into a line in instead.

Theo

Thanks Theo - I'll investigate.