Hi,
My house is a bit weird - split level with 2 front-doors, each on a different floor with a door-push feeding back to one central bell unit. The bell circuit is a standard wired one, powered by a Transformer rated at 10.3 Volts AC (1 amp) - although it actually outputs about 15 Volts for some reason.
To save me from rushing between floors trying to work out which door bell has been rung I decided to build a circuit that will:
- Light an LED for about 20 seconds (i.e. there will be 2 LEDs - 1 LED for each floor)
- Power a 2 input Z-Wave Sensor (9v), and trigger one of the inputs for each floor
- Power a 3v Wireless Doorpush, and trigger it (i.e. bypass the push) - which will wirelessly trigger standard plug-in bell receiver units around the house
On a breadboard this all works fine.
However, as soon as it is mounted in-situ - which is in a box behind the bell-unit:
- The LEDs sometimes come on correctly, sometimes both come on, sometimes none come on at all
- The Z-Wave circuit is sometimes triggered, sometimes not
- The Wireless doorpush trigger always works perfectly
- The main bell itself always works perfectly
I am sure that the transformer is putting out enough power - prior to the 9v regulator I get about 14v, and when everything is triggered I detect no drop whatsoever in any of the regulated supplies, although I am only using a regular multimeter.
I am wondering if this is:
- Interference from the main bell ringer solenoid - which sits in front of all the circuits, or,
- Could it be interference on the bell-push wires themselves (they are each 10-20m long, and quite thin), or,
- Have I designed the circuit badly (in particular I am wondering if it was a good idea for all triggering to be done through the door pushes)
As you will see from the Schematic - I've put connectors for all of the outputs to the ancilliary stuff like the bell-pushes, triggers, input and output supplies to leave just the meat of the thing - hopefully it is fairly clear though.
I'm new at this and got this far after a long process using all the helpful blogs and electronics tutorials available, but am now stumped and would be grateful if an expert can shed any light on the likely problem and how to fix it.
Many thanks in anticipation.
Phil
My house is a bit weird - split level with 2 front-doors, each on a different floor with a door-push feeding back to one central bell unit. The bell circuit is a standard wired one, powered by a Transformer rated at 10.3 Volts AC (1 amp) - although it actually outputs about 15 Volts for some reason.
To save me from rushing between floors trying to work out which door bell has been rung I decided to build a circuit that will:
- Light an LED for about 20 seconds (i.e. there will be 2 LEDs - 1 LED for each floor)
- Power a 2 input Z-Wave Sensor (9v), and trigger one of the inputs for each floor
- Power a 3v Wireless Doorpush, and trigger it (i.e. bypass the push) - which will wirelessly trigger standard plug-in bell receiver units around the house
On a breadboard this all works fine.
However, as soon as it is mounted in-situ - which is in a box behind the bell-unit:
- The LEDs sometimes come on correctly, sometimes both come on, sometimes none come on at all
- The Z-Wave circuit is sometimes triggered, sometimes not
- The Wireless doorpush trigger always works perfectly
- The main bell itself always works perfectly
I am sure that the transformer is putting out enough power - prior to the 9v regulator I get about 14v, and when everything is triggered I detect no drop whatsoever in any of the regulated supplies, although I am only using a regular multimeter.
I am wondering if this is:
- Interference from the main bell ringer solenoid - which sits in front of all the circuits, or,
- Could it be interference on the bell-push wires themselves (they are each 10-20m long, and quite thin), or,
- Have I designed the circuit badly (in particular I am wondering if it was a good idea for all triggering to be done through the door pushes)
As you will see from the Schematic - I've put connectors for all of the outputs to the ancilliary stuff like the bell-pushes, triggers, input and output supplies to leave just the meat of the thing - hopefully it is fairly clear though.
I'm new at this and got this far after a long process using all the helpful blogs and electronics tutorials available, but am now stumped and would be grateful if an expert can shed any light on the likely problem and how to fix it.
Many thanks in anticipation.
Phil
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