Home April Fools Joke....pranking Everyone That Comes to Your Front Door, Harmlessly.

by Goodhart

10K10128

Intro: Home April Fools Joke....pranking Everyone That Comes to Your Front Door, Harmlessly.

This prank is pure shock value, but will not offend anyone. The effect comes with the first time you see it or actually, when you first "hear" it.

I wanted to add a video here of the expected results of this before describing it, as I want to demonstrate it first. The first time I witnessed the results of this, I nearly wet myself laughing so hard, and soon after it "went off", those that had "set it off" also were laughing at the novelty of this. Happiness all around :-)

So, with out further ado: Imagine you are coming up onto the porch of front stoop of your friend's house. You reach up to ring the door bell and this is what you hear (play video):

<I am sorry, I can't get my video converter to work, and YouTube is not rendering my video properly at all >

This one is audio only, and poor at that. My mic does not seem to be sounding so good lately....

STEP 1: Here Is All You Will Need....

One digital voice (sound) recorder / player (pre-built or one constructed yourself of from kit; NOTE: do NOT bother with Radio Shack's little pre-built module. It does NOT record well enough for this, playback is not loud nor clear) UNLESS you wish to build a playback Pre-amp and amplifier (and add a larger speaker,
one door bell unit (minus the bell)
one step down transformer (if necessary because of voltage difference of door bell and digital play back module); OR a relay

Depending on the voltage of your doorbell, you may need to regulate it so you don't fry your voice recorder/player.

Some solid and hollow pieces of wood, or door to create your "sound" from. My wife's desk, inside the drawer, was the perfect "hollow" sound chamber for a "knocking" effect (pictured below).

STEP 2: Creating the Joke

Set up your recorder/player to record.

Finding the best and loudest sounding "knock" from your wood, or door, record a good solid 4 knocks on the recorder (knock knock, knock knock).


Now, play it back to make sure this is fairly loud. If it is loud enough to hear, while standing outside the front door, while being played just inside the front door, we have success (if it is not loud enough, one may need to add an amp before the speaker, and possibly a speaker also with greater capacity) .

Wire this all up to the existing door bell unit, using either the step down transformer (and any voltage regulation you may need), or the relay (make sure the regular "bell" is not connected).

Now, we are ready for the final step.

STEP 3: This Is Best If You Can Observe the Person "ringing" Your New Door "bell"

Now, think of this.

Imagine going up to a person's door, and when you "ring the bell" you get a Knock, Knock, Knock sound ?

Can you imagine how startled people will be at first ? :-)

It is really overly simple in it's application. But the effect is awesome (I think, but then, I have a fairly ODD sense of humor :-).

114 Comments

_NightSky_ 6 years ago

You should put a sign on the door that says:

"Please ring the bell"

dokcal 10 years ago

LOL! I got really confused reading your description, and I thought your doorbell recording literally said "I am sorry, I can't get my video converter to work, and YouTube is not rendering my video properly at all."

I thought "That's kind of meta, but not really a hilarious joke..."

Goodhart 11 years ago

Why thank you very much :-)

AngryRedhead 14 years ago

I just had a terrible (hilarious?) idea.  Change the doorbell to say (in a really high pitched voice), "OUCH!  That hurt!  Hey, wait, could you help me out?  I got stuck in this button back in the factory.  Send help!"

My SO wants a doorbell of a pump-action shotgun...  Tempting.  However, I love the doorbell that knocks.  Instant classic.

EtCetera112 11 years ago

*doorbell noise* *gun load sound* "Ring that doorbell one more time and see what happens!"
lol

Goodhart 14 years ago

Oh I agree, any variation could be really funny, but the ole knocking doorbell is still the most ironic :-) 

Biggsy 14 years ago

Very Funny... well done Sir I am AMUSED! hehehe

Funnily enough... my cellphone knocks when i receive a text message... Just as I clicked this I'ble.... I got a text... spooky no?;)

anyways very good... very funny :D

Goodhart 14 years ago

the first time I heard/saw this done....I had difficulty breathing (catching my breath, I was laughing SO hard :-) 

Biggsy 14 years ago

hehe brilliant. If you ever re-visit this I'ble, can you for the sake of those who perhaps can't work out what you have used show  us how to wire things up and what you have used?....... Is that a pipe/wire  wall sensor?

Goodhart 14 years ago

I haven't been more specific since so many door bells (run on rectified A/C OR on straight D/C  OR on lower voltage A/C) and there are so many different voice / sound recorders out there....the two that many Radio Shack's carry are only two examples,  and one is quite PITIFUL.

In fact, to use the "other one"; the one that is pitiful from RS, on another project, I had to wire up a pre-amp and amp in order to get any quality sound at any volume from it.  I have another ible that describes hacking that particular RS item.   I used a little over-kill however, creating an amp with about 100x gain, and so "voice" can get a little garbled, but "noises" are amplified tremendously.

It can be found here

Goodhart 14 years ago

A digitally recorded Knocking on wood, sound.

Goodhart 14 years ago

The surprise for the person ringing the doorbell is that Knocking sound they will hear, instead.   It makes for some really surprised looks, for sure :-) 

Goodhart 14 years ago

Hmm,  now that I think about it....that is played late at night on Adult Swim, on cartoon channel (the age range has changed so many times since they started that it is nearly impossible to keep up with it), so maybe that wasn't such a good thing to post. . .
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