interfacing a wireless doorbell

[electron]

So I want to use a wireless doorbell unit as my mail sensor, but I can't remember what hardware I need to interface the chime (looks like a PC speaker) to the Ocelot/SECU16. I know smee mentioned it once, but I was at work and forgot about it, and he is on vacation now. Does anyone else have an idea what to use? Thanks!

 

[smee]

Hacked GE doorbell picture

This is the wireless doobell that Electron has been looking at. The contact marked "Signal" will either be grounded or provide about 4.5v - depending on whether the button is pressed or not. I don't remember which condition indicates the button press.

 

[electron]

hey smee, back from vacation? Do you remember what parts you told me to use?

 

[smee]

Still on vacation. Just thought I'd check in.

If you tap into the doorbell receiver where it shows in the picture, you can probably feed that voltage directly into the SECU16 without anything else. Just connect the "Signal" contact to the input on the SECU16 and the ground to ground.

I think the voltage is safe for the SECU16.

 

[electron]

would I have to use analog mode, or digital?

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

E:

Looking at the picture is says the signal goes from 4.5 volts to ground so it looks like its an analog signal.

I would use a palmpad hack myself and a magnetic contact switch myself! That way you could get the X-10 signal into your MR26a without using an SECU16 input. The nine volt mod would also run for a pretty long time.

I'm going to try to repost that How-to (Hack A PalmPad) this week since the pics got lost in the crash. I also need to use this for a car monitor that I want to work on.

My time this week has been chewed up with family matters, but hopefully I can get on this soon. I ordered some 555 timers, binary counter chips, and various other items (resistors, capacitors, relays, etc...) from Jameco and they came in today. I have a very rough schematic that I wouldn't mind sending to people to review on how I'm going to do this (smee are you interested?!?!), but don't want to post anything till I get it working.

Regards,

BSR

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Edit:

Strike that last comment about using the palm pad hack. I just realized that you would need to have a Normally Open contact switch and the X-10 signal would be triggering the entire time the mail box door was opened.

 

[JohnWPB]

BraveSirRobin:

If you are looking to monitor your vehicles, I found a site that has the ideal sollution in all aspects! It will tell whos car is home, and if it is coming home, or leaving.

I have yet to give this a try, but sure looks like a fantastic project! You could use this with HomeSeer to tell what time a perticular vehicle left, how long it has been gone, what time it arrived homw, and how long it has been parked, for each individual vehicle. That seems to cover a lot more bases than most of the sollutions I have come across.

You can check out the Detailed how to here.

 

[electron]

that's pretty much the same concept as using the motion sensors in the car or the palmpad hack. I do all of this stuff already with a hawkeye, but a more permanent solution would be nice. The nice thing about using a hacked palmpad is the great range you get as most people already optimized their X10 RF receivers (by installing a larger antenna etc).