On Thursday, 20 February 2020 14:18:01 UTC, Tim+ wrote:
Another John wrote:
Any views or advice on this, please:

We have a wireless doorbell: bells (2) plugged into the mains, and the
bellpush fixed to the outside of our porch.

I'm now finally fed up of the bellpush failing spasmodically -- Damp?
Cold? Battery failed? -- any and all of these causes have been
identified, and fixed, over the years.

Whenever it fails (due to cold and/or damp anyway), it usually corrects
itself .... so we never know when the bellpush is going to work, or not..

And so I've resolved to get a mains-wired bell instead (with the
approved transformer).


I'm looking for advice on drilling through the porch (door upright) -
it's UPVC, with a steel frame, of course.

And also any hints (make of doorbell, fitting transformer ... anything?)
would be much appreciated!


Dont discount a battery wired bell on the grounds of reliability.. The
batteries on a basic bell will last for years. I suspect the €œbing bong€�
type bell will run for decades. (When we moved into out current house I
replaced after about 10 years. They were the orange HP11 batteries. God
knows when they were last produced...

http://moblog.net/media/r/i/c/richcolour/ever-ready.jpg

Tim


Here is a proper bell battery. I came across one of these still in use many years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leclanch%C3%A9_cell#Uses

On Saturday, 22 February 2020 14:49:28 UTC, Tricky Dicky wrote:
Ours won't light up as it's connected to an input on an Arduino!

If you use multicore wire such as alarm cable then an illuminating LED with appropriate resistor can be wired to the power supply terminals of the Arduino for permanent illumination or to an output of the Arduino if you want it to illuminate when the switch is pressed.

Richard

you don't even need multicore. Just run enough i to illuminate it, either from an output or permanently, the bellpush shorts it giving the duino its input signal.


NT

On Saturday, 22 February 2020 16:36:36 UTC, Dave W wrote:

I have an old house with a wired bell (through the door's wooden
frame), but it uses batteries. They last for many years.

One factor that nobody's mentioned is that an old-fashioned bell gives
an indication of how desperate the caller is, as the length of ring
(or gap between ding-dong) depends on how long the bellpush is
pressed, unlike wireless devices that trigger a standard response.

There is a slight drawback in that if the caller can hear the bell
then it may well govern how long the bell gets pressed. In my case
with a small echoey hall it's so loud it can make the caller remove
the finger instantly, and then the ring is too short for me to notice
it faintly upstairs. I've fitted a slave bell upstairs now to solve
that problem.

The beller being able to hear the bell is necessary, otherwise you get a bunch of human behaviour problems.


NT

harry wrote:
On Thursday, 20 February 2020 14:18:01 UTC, Tim+ wrote:
Another John wrote:
Any views or advice on this, please:

We have a wireless doorbell: bells (2) plugged into the mains, and the
bellpush fixed to the outside of our porch.

I'm now finally fed up of the bellpush failing spasmodically -- Damp?
Cold? Battery failed? -- any and all of these causes have been
identified, and fixed, over the years.

Whenever it fails (due to cold and/or damp anyway), it usually corrects
itself .... so we never know when the bellpush is going to work, or not.

And so I've resolved to get a mains-wired bell instead (with the
approved transformer).


I'm looking for advice on drilling through the porch (door upright) -
it's UPVC, with a steel frame, of course.

And also any hints (make of doorbell, fitting transformer ... anything?)
would be much appreciated!


Dont discount a battery wired bell on the grounds of reliability. The
batteries on a basic bell will last for years. I suspect the €œbing bong€�
type bell will run for decades. (When we moved into out current house I
replaced after about 10 years. They were the orange HP11 batteries. God
knows when they were last produced...

http://moblog.net/media/r/i/c/richcolour/ever-ready.jpg

Tim


Here is a proper bell battery. I came across one of these still in use many years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leclanch%C3%A9_cell#Uses


My parents bought a house in the 60s that had bell pushes everywhere,
Leclanché cells to power them and a carbide acetylene generator to feed the
gas lights. (I should add that these were no longer functional when we
moved in).

Tim



--
Please don't feed the trolls