Need Your Help?

[Old Chipper]

Newbie, 1st post.
Guys, I really need your help! I'm retired, pushing 70, love working in my woodshop. Problem is the little lady has trouble coming to get me if she needs my help or to tell me I have a call.
I purchased a intercom, which is fine when the machines aren't running! But if i'm using anything, no way I hear it!
Can any of you show me a ckt diagram, that would allow me to have the call signal trigger a stroble light?
I'm assuming the intercom uses low voltage for it's little beeper, I have a 120v strobe light. I'm thinking I would need a relay? I been away from basic electronis for forty years, I know I could have did this back then without help!
thanks for any leads or ideas you may have!

 

[mvs sarma]

Newbie, 1st post.
Guys, I really need your help! I'm retired, pushing 70, love working in my woodshop. Problem is the little lady has trouble coming to get me if she needs my help or to tell me I have a call.
I purchased a intercom, which is fine when the machines aren't running! But if i'm using anything, no way I hear it!
Can any of you show me a ckt diagram, that would allow me to have the call signal trigger a stroble light?
I'm assuming the intercom uses low voltage for it's little beeper, I have a 120v strobe light. I'm thinking I would need a relay? I been away from basic electronis for forty years, I know I could have did this back then without help!
thanks for any leads or ideas you may have!

Welcome Sir, too simple
if your place of work is co located with home, you may wire up two bulbs and a call bell in parallel on public mains
one can be at home and one at work point, thought the home need not have a call bell as phone sound would be sufficient.
you may perhaps implement staircase wiring method. This gives a call indication and you can use the intercom thereafter and switch the lamp and bell off from the other staircase switch. electronics alone is not needed perhaps

 

[Hero999]

You'll need to some how tap into the beeper signal.

You could use a microphone connected to the LM567 tone decoder via a small amplifier next to it but that might give you false alarms.

Another option is to open up the intercom and directly connect the device to the back of the beeper. I assume the beeper is driven by a squarewave signal, it should be pretty easy to amplify it to drive a relay.

 

[crutschow]

Pushin' 70 also. (Since we're over the hill, shouldn't the pushing get easier?)

Measure the beeper voltage for both AC and DC with a multimeter. From that you can determine the voltage level and whether it's AC or DC. If it's AC, you can rectify it to DC. The DC can then be amplified to drive a relay.

After you determine the nature and value of the beeper voltage, check back in and we'll try to help you with the rest.

 

[Hero999]

Unless he has a true RMS meter which will work up to several kHz, he's unlikely to get an accurate measurement with a standard DVM.

To get an accurate measurement, you need an oscilloscope.

 

[crutschow]

Unless he has a true RMS meter which will work up to several kHz, he's unlikely to get an accurate measurement with a standard DVM.

To get an accurate measurement, you need an oscilloscope.

True, you need an oscilloscope or true RMS meter for an accurate AC measurement, but I didn't think he'd be likely to have access to that. I do think a typical average responding digital multimeter will give a ballpark reading up to a few kHz. You don't really need high accuracy here, since it's going to be an on/off application, just need an idea of the voltage level and whether it's AC or DC.

 

[duffy]

Does it have a separate beeper, or does it use the same speaker to beep? Open it up and see what's inside. If there's a separate piezo beeper, this thing should be pretty easy.

(you know, charge pump + transistor + opto + triac + lightbulb easy)