Doorbell ringer.
Wel, it finally works.
The problem? A dog that gets way too excited when the doorbell rings.
The solution? Ring the doorbell at random times when no one is there, and nobody answers it, so as to counter-condition the dog - to break the association that a ringing doorbell equals excitement.
The technology? A Parallax 418 MHz RF Keychain Transmitter, Receiver, and a Basic Stamp 2.
My original schematic is attached below. BP1-3 are binding posts. P1-11 are sockets and plugs, where off-board components connect to the on-board components. S4 and S5 were going to be dipswitches, but ended up being jumpers. The idea is that if I steal the BS2 for some other project, I can close these two jumpers and connect two of the RF Receiver buttons directly to the relays.
I built it on Perfboard, cut to fit a Radio Shack project box. I didn't have connectors or headers available, so I used some machine-pin sockets. They're in five groups. P2 is where the internal 9V battery plugs in, if I'm powering it from an internal 9V battery. P1+P3+P4 connects to the external power binding posts, the on-off switch, and the power-on LED. P5+P7+P10 and P6+P8+P11 connect to the switched binding posts, the indicator LEDs, and the momentary contact test switches. P9 is the Basic Stamp serial programming interface.
The design as built differs from the schematic in a couple of places. The orginal design worked fine, until I actually plugged it into the doorbell circuit. Doorbells are 16VAC, 1A solenoids - and created sufficient noise to cause my Basic Stamp to reset. In trying to address this I added ripple filters to the LM7805, bypass filters in a couple of other places, powered the Basic Stamp from the raw VIN instead of from the 7805 output, and still didn't solve the problem. Finally, I replaced the relays with S101N11 solid-state relays.
The program has buttons 1&3 switch one relay, buttons 2&4 switch the other relay, and button 5 starts switching the relays randomly, between five and fifteen minutes apart.
You'll notice two commented-out sections. I used to have buttons 3&4 latch the relays - press them once and they'd close, press them again and they'd open. That's not appropriate for a doorbell, but I left the code in the file in case I use the box for something else.
The final picture shows it connected to the doorbell wiring. The wiring had been a tangled mess. I built a little breakout panel out of a couple of Radio Shack terminal strips and some basswood. There are two wires running from the stepdown transformer that powers everything, two from each of the two doorbells, and three from each of the two chimes. (One upstairs, the other on the other side of the wall that the panel is screwed to.
The Project box is mounted with velcro, resting on the top edge of the basswood panel. The smaller project box fixed on top of it contains a bridge rectifier, a 1000 uF 35V capacitor, an LM7809 voltage regulator on a small heat sink, and the 7809's ripple caps. It converts the doorbell circuit's 16VAC into 9VAC, which is acceptable as input to both the 7805 and the BS2's onboard voltage regulator.
The problem? A dog that gets way too excited when the doorbell rings.
The solution? Ring the doorbell at random times when no one is there, and nobody answers it, so as to counter-condition the dog - to break the association that a ringing doorbell equals excitement.
The technology? A Parallax 418 MHz RF Keychain Transmitter, Receiver, and a Basic Stamp 2.
My original schematic is attached below. BP1-3 are binding posts. P1-11 are sockets and plugs, where off-board components connect to the on-board components. S4 and S5 were going to be dipswitches, but ended up being jumpers. The idea is that if I steal the BS2 for some other project, I can close these two jumpers and connect two of the RF Receiver buttons directly to the relays.
I built it on Perfboard, cut to fit a Radio Shack project box. I didn't have connectors or headers available, so I used some machine-pin sockets. They're in five groups. P2 is where the internal 9V battery plugs in, if I'm powering it from an internal 9V battery. P1+P3+P4 connects to the external power binding posts, the on-off switch, and the power-on LED. P5+P7+P10 and P6+P8+P11 connect to the switched binding posts, the indicator LEDs, and the momentary contact test switches. P9 is the Basic Stamp serial programming interface.
The design as built differs from the schematic in a couple of places. The orginal design worked fine, until I actually plugged it into the doorbell circuit. Doorbells are 16VAC, 1A solenoids - and created sufficient noise to cause my Basic Stamp to reset. In trying to address this I added ripple filters to the LM7805, bypass filters in a couple of other places, powered the Basic Stamp from the raw VIN instead of from the 7805 output, and still didn't solve the problem. Finally, I replaced the relays with S101N11 solid-state relays.
The program has buttons 1&3 switch one relay, buttons 2&4 switch the other relay, and button 5 starts switching the relays randomly, between five and fifteen minutes apart.
You'll notice two commented-out sections. I used to have buttons 3&4 latch the relays - press them once and they'd close, press them again and they'd open. That's not appropriate for a doorbell, but I left the code in the file in case I use the box for something else.
The final picture shows it connected to the doorbell wiring. The wiring had been a tangled mess. I built a little breakout panel out of a couple of Radio Shack terminal strips and some basswood. There are two wires running from the stepdown transformer that powers everything, two from each of the two doorbells, and three from each of the two chimes. (One upstairs, the other on the other side of the wall that the panel is screwed to.
The Project box is mounted with velcro, resting on the top edge of the basswood panel. The smaller project box fixed on top of it contains a bridge rectifier, a 1000 uF 35V capacitor, an LM7809 voltage regulator on a small heat sink, and the 7809's ripple caps. It converts the doorbell circuit's 16VAC into 9VAC, which is acceptable as input to both the 7805 and the BS2's onboard voltage regulator.
Comments
Mine finds them exciting, and barks at us because we're not getting to the door fast enough to let in his new playmate.
Suggestions?
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
YA....I'm going to that hot place down-under now!!
Awesome project though!!
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Steve
"Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."