Field Expedient Repair – Or Not…

My truck didn’t have a gentle chime to remind one to remove the keys. No, when you opened the door, a buzzer went off like a fire alarm. I finally unplugged the beast and dropped it in the glove box, intending to find some way to muffle it later. I remembered it when I came out to a dead battery after work one day. Yup, headlight and key buzzers, both in the same box. Ah, but who really needs a headlight warning anyway? I guess that would be me.

Lesson learned about the value of little reminders, I proceeded to try to make the buzzer a little less obnoxious.  I finally stopped the sucker from being annoying – by making it completely silent.

Linda – wanna ride to Radio Shack to get a ding-dong?
A what?
A ding-dong. You know, a little chime thingy.
Don’t go in there and ask for a ding-dong – they’ll think you’re weird.
They know I’m weird – I brought my own record once to check out a turntable.
What’s so weird about that?
It was by Tom Lehrer.
Ugh – point made. It doesn’t matter – you will not go in there and ask for a ding-dong!
Sigh. Okay.

Can I help you?
Yes, I’m looking for one of the two-tone door chimes.
Sure. You looking for wireless, or?
No, no, the component part – it’s for a project.
Oh, you want a ding-dong!
Exactly!

Buzzer with chime – open

The chime on top replaces the now-defunct key/headlight buzzer on the left. The seatbelt buzzer is on the right in the background; the bimetal strip and heater in the foreground serve as a timer to kill the seatbelt buzzer after a few seconds. Threading the orange wire in through the fine wires required a bit of care, hence the hot-melt in the corner to secure it.

Buzzer reassembled

I left the wires long and the back cover off with thoughts of coming back later with more sophisticated logic than (keys and door open) = buzz, but the new chime wasn’t annoying enough to bother with.  I probably did this about 15 years ago.  When I pulled the chime out for it’s photo op, I noticed that the back had been off all this time.  Did I throw the back out?  I walked over to the bench, rummaged around for a bit, found it, sawed a slot in the case for the wires, and snapped the cover back on.  Maybe it’s time to clean up the bench.

Installed back in the fuse block.

And here it is, back in the truck, hot-melt muffling the chime down to a tolerable level.

Project complete…