These days, lots of household appliances make annoying BEEP sounds. Their product designers must want you to know the stuff is working for you, right now. Products beep to show they are finished with a cycle. They beep to show they are starting a new cycle. God bless.
Two examples are our washer and waffle maker. Click on the sound files below of the actual sounds they make. Washing machines are supposed to make soothing, gurgly sounds to lull a baby to sleep. Our washing machine sounds like it's making the signal for lights-out in a prison. Likewise, waffle makers aren't supposed to be obtrusive. The kids make waffles on Sunday morning, after mom and dad have stayed up laaaaaate on Saturday night. Our waffle maker sounds like a fire is breaking out at iHop. After a couple cups of coffee, it's like a 220-volt wire attached to my gut.
So for GeekDad Day -- a.k.a Father's Day 2012 -- my daughter, 9, and son, 11, went around the house to perform a great service to their over-caffeinated dad. They performed open heart surgery to remove all the horrible beeps. It required a little research into the product schematics and a little soldering, but it was worth it. With a few minutes of work, the house was quiet again.
Two examples are our washer and waffle maker. Click on the sound files below of the actual sounds they make. Washing machines are supposed to make soothing, gurgly sounds to lull a baby to sleep. Our washing machine sounds like it's making the signal for lights-out in a prison. Likewise, waffle makers aren't supposed to be obtrusive. The kids make waffles on Sunday morning, after mom and dad have stayed up laaaaaate on Saturday night. Our waffle maker sounds like a fire is breaking out at iHop. After a couple cups of coffee, it's like a 220-volt wire attached to my gut.
So for GeekDad Day -- a.k.a Father's Day 2012 -- my daughter, 9, and son, 11, went around the house to perform a great service to their over-caffeinated dad. They performed open heart surgery to remove all the horrible beeps. It required a little research into the product schematics and a little soldering, but it was worth it. With a few minutes of work, the house was quiet again.
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Unfortunately, the waffle maker did not have any online documentation. So Lucy had to figure out where to start. She saw a bunch of holes in the housing where it looked like blindingly obnoxious noises were supposed to emanate. She began taking it apart there. (All appliances we worked on were unplugged, of course, and also not the type of appliances with big capacitors and reserve power like TVs that could shock you even when unplugged.)
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I've been taking stuff apart, putting it together again (sometimes!) and modifying things since I was about Lucy's age, and haven't looked back since. I'm now 33 :D
What I tend to do is put a switch in line with the buzzer or beeper, in case I need to sell the appliance at a later date, I can return it to "factory settings", or if it's not my appliance, say I'm renting a place :P (Shh, don't tell the landlord!)
Best of luck to Lucy! This is a great 'Ible, and hope both she and your son have this passion for many years :)
surely, there is someone who is creative and smart enough to make this happen?
don
I work on line as an appliance repair consultant and have had my share of people asking how they can disable their appliances buzzer. For the most part they are easy to kill, but there are some models that if you disable the buzzer you disable the control board(s). The manufacturer in its infinite wisdom includes the buzzers into the safety circuitry. If removed the resistance of the circuit changes and the system reads it as a fault in the safety features. Of course the makers don't want any law suits because of failed safety features so it disables the whole unit with an error code flashing on one of the indicator lights, or showing on the readout. As the makers don't think that someone would deliberately disable the buzzer the error code isn't listed in the tech manuals, and I have no way of telling the customer what it means. That in turn makes me look pretty 5to0piD.
Please folks, don't make me, or my fellow appliance techs look stupid. Check with the manufacturer before you disable the buzzers on your appliance.
Thank you!!
With my computer UPS, I saved the buzzer just in case I had accidentally bricked the product and had to solder it back in. But it's been fine.
People could always try it with an appliance, and if you get a malfunction, reverse course to get things back in order. If all else fails, I think the electrical tape solution applied on top of the buzzer might be the next best thing.
One concern that should be mentioned here also is that Sears appliances are all made by someone else. So if someone says that Kenmores are ok to remove the speaker they need to determine who made their unit before the remove anything.
As for the tape trick, I prefer a drop of molten glue stick right in the lil hole myself. Two if it is still loud.
Best, Smitty
The stronger the epoxy the less sound it would conduct (I think...ridged to stop the vibrations? or would it conduct the vibrations? or soft to absorb them?) Hell I don't know...
One day he attacked it with a screwdriver to remove the banshee, but failed to find the offending part and ended up with a slightly wobbly handle, a spare spring and some extra screws to add to his collection.
The following day he picked the boiling kettle out of the base into which it sat and as he was walking away heard a wailing behind him. On looking closely at the base, he discovered a little switch underneath marked "Boiling alert" "On" and "Off".
Oh how we laughed.
Here's an example of an alternative alerting system another Instructablizer has rigged up:
http://www.instructables.com/id/A-laundry-alarm-for-the-hearing-impaired-and-every/
Did you remove the buzzer from your alarm clock? :p
Regular people is not used nor fond of that sort of high-pitched loud tones... we find them sort of an aggressive imposition.
It has (had) a low battery alert and after i started using it I discovered it had a under gauge wire alar, a alarm every time it is turned on and off.
Which is great if using in a car, but for a battery pack and a lamp in my room at night, next to my bed / head. it really annoyed me. the simple fix was to wire a switch in line with the buzzerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and all is good now.
thankfully they had the foresight to include a red LED to indicate faults as well as a green for go led.
this may be a repost if so, sorry. I posted my comment without previewing it, and it never showed up or indicated that posted.
I also thought to add a picture.
not being mean .. just some advice ..
The picture filters are a bit overkill .. especially that spinny one in step 4
other than that .. job well done .. looking forward to seeing more from you soon.
*eyeroll*
sheesh.
How /did/ you do them?
Pixlr is the service I used. I wanted to use Instagram, but I *think* they are still only for mobile gadgets. Are there better ones?
The funny thing is, the spinny one in step 4 is just an accident in snapping the picture. I was swinging it around in the low-light conditions.
But, yes, as a non-photographer, I have to take my lumps.
I can just see the planning meeting for that now ...
"ok guys .. we have these great cameras that take clear crisp pictures with millions and millions of pixels ... how can we screw it up?"
"lets add filter to make the picture look like it came for a roll of 110 film that has been hidden in an attic for 30 years"
"that's brilliant Johnson ... raises for everyone!!"
A QUESTION: I have the machine open, and I see the offending circuit board. When I detach it from the two wires, do I need to connect the two wires back to each other?
Short answer: no.
Longer answer: if the device has a pair of wires that /just/ go to the buzzer, then "in general" you're safer just leaving them disconnected (cover bare ends with plenty of electrical tape) rather than adding resistors etc which in most cases would not be necessary.
This nails a long time criticism of mine, why don't manufacturers take more interest in the tone of their devices aural alarms?
(Cost, likely)
Here's hoping they'll takes a que from our smart phones and make these tones, bells, chimes, alerts, etc more pleasant . . .
I love the pictures, (Haters gotta Hate BTW) How do you make them turn out like they were taken 30 years ago?
The things works great but like you're saying, it beeped every time you pressed any buttons for anything. It was really annoying so I dismantled it and removed the piezo.
Now it just has an annoying LED that is lit constantly if it is plugged in.
I removed the power pluging/unpluging beeps from my laptop in the bios but keep the low battery warning. Super handy when you work hard and don't see that you are unplug, drainning the battery.
You've inspired me to do this surgery on it. Plus I'm making waffles tomorrow morning.
Get a small 5v relay: Hook the control connectors of the relay to the end of a USB cable (red + black wires, but check the pinout with a multimeter against the 2 outer connectors inside the usb plug on the computer side - plug that into the computer, and wire the buzzer through the controlled connectors on the relay.
When you fire the computer up, the machine will send 5 volts down the attached usb cables, activating the relay, and therefore activating the buzzer.
When you turn the computer off, the usb power will be cut, the relay will open, and disconnect the buzzer, so if you are using the computer, and you have a power cut - or a brown out - the UPS will still bleep - but only when the computer is on!
No.
You wake up to:
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
Which is barely at the start of the cycle and is for anyone who wants nuts in their bread. No way to stop it apparently.
I don't want it to beep at night and this has inspired me to put a switch on the beeper - then I can have it beep during the day when I might actually want nuts on my bread and off at night.