Hi Everyone,
I am an electronics novice (so type S L O W L Y) though I'm a fairly quick learner when it comes to tech-related stuff. I have seen a few posts about using a voltage sensor of some sort to trigger a relay, but they all seem to operate in the >5v range. What I am looking to do is disconnect the internal speaker in an alarm system and use the voltage from the speaker wires to trigger a sound file player such as this one:
http://www.pricom.com/Trains/DreamPlayerLITE.shtml
or this one:
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/wav-trigger-hookup-guide
Each of these have an input for an external normally-open switch.
Essentially, I would like to not hear the annoying, screeching alarm, and instead have it play a sound file of my own creation. I am also considering using an Arduino to activate other mechatronic functions, so I guess it may be possible to use it to do this too, however my Arduino knowledge is very limited to simple robotics projects and I don't know a lot about I/O options.
The other trick with this project is that ideally, I would like for the switch input to the player to stay closed for the entire time that the alarm is sounding (or rather, soundlessly outputting audio voltage) which would be a predictable but certainly varying waveform. So it would be best if the voltage sensor could have a variable threshold setting and a variable hold/release setting, similar to a gate or expander in a recording studio setup.
Or maybe I'm overcomplicating this, so I'm open to any suggestions you may have. Thanks in advance for your wisdom and guidance!
I am an electronics novice (so type S L O W L Y) though I'm a fairly quick learner when it comes to tech-related stuff. I have seen a few posts about using a voltage sensor of some sort to trigger a relay, but they all seem to operate in the >5v range. What I am looking to do is disconnect the internal speaker in an alarm system and use the voltage from the speaker wires to trigger a sound file player such as this one:
http://www.pricom.com/Trains/DreamPlayerLITE.shtml
or this one:
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/wav-trigger-hookup-guide
Each of these have an input for an external normally-open switch.
Essentially, I would like to not hear the annoying, screeching alarm, and instead have it play a sound file of my own creation. I am also considering using an Arduino to activate other mechatronic functions, so I guess it may be possible to use it to do this too, however my Arduino knowledge is very limited to simple robotics projects and I don't know a lot about I/O options.
The other trick with this project is that ideally, I would like for the switch input to the player to stay closed for the entire time that the alarm is sounding (or rather, soundlessly outputting audio voltage) which would be a predictable but certainly varying waveform. So it would be best if the voltage sensor could have a variable threshold setting and a variable hold/release setting, similar to a gate or expander in a recording studio setup.
Or maybe I'm overcomplicating this, so I'm open to any suggestions you may have. Thanks in advance for your wisdom and guidance!