Fun with Halloween Sounds

So, this was kinda fun... I used Halloween as my motivator to finally get around to hooking up the Elk124 so I could do a custom doorbell sound and custom door-opening/closing sounds...

It worked pretty well... Seems I'm the only fool who bought the computer interface - everyone else is using the onboard mic and are happy with it. The computer interface is overpriced, and unless I turn the volume on my PC down to where I'd normally barely hear it, it's totally over-driven. Plus, I wasn't in the mood to deal with the software - and in fact, was sending the sounds from my Mac, so I did the manual recording method (using the recording module, but holding the record button manually rather than using the software) - so much less convoluted.

Anyway - pretty straight-forward - I followed BSR's suggestion of just disabling the current doorbell's ability to make noise but let it still fire so it'll trigger the Elk930 doorbell detector... Set the zone to fast loop and set it to trigger the appropriate output for 1 second. All simple stuff.

While working with my wife to pick sounds for it to play on door opening, she liked two of them, and asked if I could make it alternate - so each time the door is opened, it would alternate between the two sounds. Never touched Counters, but seems simple in concept - so I set up a rule so that it would check for door open and counter set to 0, then it'd play the sound and set the counter to 1. And another one vice-versa... HOWEVER - because of how the elk handles rules, it would keep firing off both rules - so it'd play both sounds in a row. Next time, same thing - again and again. I tried reversing the order of the rules - no luck... so I figured out that instead of setting the counter during the firing of the sound, I'd set the counter when the sound/output turned off... that solved my issues.

Below is the code:
[codebox]
19 WHENEVER Doorbell (Zn 32) BECOMES NOT SECURE
THEN TURN Custom Sound 6 (Out 9) ON FOR 1 second
20 WHENEVER Front Entry (Zn 1) BECOMES NOT SECURE
AND Doorbell Num (Counter 1) IS EQUAL TO 1
AND Output 199 STATE IS OFF
THEN TURN Custom Sound 7 (Out 8) ON FOR 1
21 WHENEVER Front Entry (Zn 1) BECOMES NOT SECURE
AND Doorbell Num (Counter 1) IS EQUAL TO 0
AND Output 199 STATE IS OFF
THEN TURN Custom Sound 8 (Out 7) ON FOR 1
22 WHENEVER Custom Sound 7 (Out 8) STATE IS TURNED OFF
THEN SET Doorbell Num (Counter 1) TO 0
23 WHENEVER Custom Sound 8 (Out 7) STATE IS TURNED OFF
THEN SET Doorbell Num (Counter 1) TO 1[/codebox]
*Output 199 is my output for the quiet mode - from yesterday's post. That way it doesn't play cackling goblins as I leave for work in the morning.

If this stuff is too basic, I'll quit posting... but it never occurred to me to alternate between two sounds, so I thought that was kinda cool - and the issue with the rules firing successively was slightly annoying, so I figured I'd share my experience to get other peoples' hamsters running...

Very cool, makes me wish I did do Halloween this year

Todd B said:

"If this stuff is too basic, I'll quit posting"

Click to expand...

Never, ever think that!

I believe your 'cascading rules' concept has been used to control sprinklers but this is refreshing new application of it. Thanks for the contribution!

All I have time to do this year is the same I did last year, haul out the Beta-Brite and load it up with spooky messages. More geeky than ghoulish.

Todd B said:

So, this was kinda fun... I used Halloween as my motivator to finally get around to hooking up the Elk124 so I could do a custom doorbell sound and custom door-opening/closing sounds...

It worked pretty well... Seems I'm the only fool who bought the computer interface - everyone else is using the onboard mic and are happy with it. The computer interface is overpriced, and unless I turn the volume on my PC down to where I'd normally barely hear it, it's totally over-driven. Plus, I wasn't in the mood to deal with the software - and in fact, was sending the sounds from my Mac, so I did the manual recording method (using the recording module, but holding the record button manually rather than using the software) - so much less convoluted...

Click to expand...

Yes, an update to the Elk124 is long overdue. It woud be 100 times easier to use if:

1- You could download wav files directly into the device with a serial or usb connection.
2- It could sit on/be powered by, the RS-485 keypad bus.
3- Could be triggered by contact closures (as it is now) OR by direct commands on the RS-485 bus.
4- The RS-485 triggers were simple menu selections in the rules section such as "Play Audio Device 1 Slot 4" to play the 4th memory location for the audio board set to address 1.
5- It did NOT require the construction of "Magic Module" style hex gibberish strings in order to use it. (I am referencing features of both the 124 and 480 and proposing an updated product that replaces both).

I didn't think I'd have any time to do it because I confused myself a little on the doorbell issue at first, and I hadn't done any decorating (knew I wouldn't get home 'till 7) - but, as I pulled up, I saw that my wife had done most of the decorating, so I had a lot more free time to spend on it! Of course I stayed up too late working on it, but it's only once a year, right?

And yeah - 123... I used the cascading rules for my sprinklers, so i'm pretty comfortable doing that. Would be nice if you could do sequentially firing tasks instead of them all firing at once, but at least there's a workaround.

As far as the 124, I like the idea of it being RS485-bus controlled and perhaps load it up as outputs or custom sounds or somethingyou can trigger. As it is now, I kinda always knew I'd use it against 8 of the 10 onboard flying voltage leads, so I bought the XOVR and M1RB right from the start for my outputs - which happen to be in the garage anyway. But, with the RS485, it'd be so much easier to put on more channels - say 25 or more channels easily. I actually don't mind having to record through the headset jack because I could take sounds to the panel via my ipod or something like that vs. taking a computer - and don't have to load software/drivers, unless of course we could upload the sounds through ElkRP (that would be ideal!)... but having everything to do it onboard would be much better than requiring a computer programmer.

Spanky's previous posts indicated (in the non-official way he does) that they may be looking at a better way to do custom sounds on-board - I don't know if/when that'll make it to the main panel though. I do have a sneaky suspicion that when the next version of the M1 comes out, there'll be several good deals on slightly-used M1G's in the FS forum...

Shameless revival of an old post... since I had to come look this up so I could do it again this year... gets great reactions.