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Adding a Floyd Bell speaker to an automatic.
- Thread starter APW
- Start date
You will need to run 5 wires to your bell.
1. 24VDC Hot
2. 24VDC Common
3. Speaker 1 (Drive Forward)
4. Speaker 2 (Stop)
5. Speaker 3 (Back Up)
The 24VDC Hot and Common you will run straight from your cabinet.
The three speaker outputs you will have to put in relays. Normally open operation with 24VDC Hot on the load side. The other side of the relays you will wire up to your bell (S1,S2,S3).
You will trigger those relays with your existing outputs for your drive forward, stop, and back up lights.
The relay trigger voltage will depend on what voltage your drive forward, stop, and back up lights are currently supplied with.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions or need me to draw you a quick diagram just let me know.
1. 24VDC Hot
2. 24VDC Common
3. Speaker 1 (Drive Forward)
4. Speaker 2 (Stop)
5. Speaker 3 (Back Up)
The 24VDC Hot and Common you will run straight from your cabinet.
The three speaker outputs you will have to put in relays. Normally open operation with 24VDC Hot on the load side. The other side of the relays you will wire up to your bell (S1,S2,S3).
You will trigger those relays with your existing outputs for your drive forward, stop, and back up lights.
The relay trigger voltage will depend on what voltage your drive forward, stop, and back up lights are currently supplied with.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions or need me to draw you a quick diagram just let me know.
OurTown
Well-known member
IIRC that is a lot less than half price of the Floyd Bell. I found it for only $236 but do wonder how the audio quality and durability compares. One thing I did not like about the Floyd Bell was that they are the ones that have to record and program the audio files.
Are you sure? When I went on their website, there is an option for you to supply your own audio files.
OurTown
Well-known member
Maybe they have to load them for you. Or maybe they changed that since I looked at them several years ago.
Floyd bells sounds files are recorded in a professional audio sound booth. You can provide your own but I suggest you use their sound files and not your own as there sound files are not recorded in a garage/basement or downloaded from the internet. They are a few hundred dollars more for the speaker but you get what you pay for. Few hundred dollars over ten years life expectancy equals practically nothing. The patalite looks like it was made before I was born lol reminds me of the sirens in elementary school hanging on the walls.
The floyd bell and patalite are both 24 VDC. Not 24 VAC. You will need relays. What is a SIMPLE PLC with relay output?? How would programming a PLC be simpler than relays?
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I made a mistake on the patalite part number I am actually using. Mine is EHV-M1HG, the one I listed previously may not be user programmable. I am a controls engineer at my full time job at a major appliance manufacture. As far as the durability of the patalite horn I can tell you that we have installed over a hundred of these horns in our factory and I have never had one go bad and they have probably been in use for at least 8 - 10 years. I do have 2 installed in automatic carwash bays. I had 2 of the speakers on my razor go bad and switched to patalite because I was tired of replacing them. You do have to make your own recording, or use a computer to generate it for you. One thing I will warn you about is its not as easy as you think to set these up to do what you want to do. You can set it up to play a sound when it is triggered and it will play the entire sound, or you can set it up to play a sound until you trigger another sound then it will switch messages. On the razor this was a little tricky because it says "please drive forward", and keeps repeating "please drive forward", then immediately buzzes when the customer is in position. You have to be able to instantly drop the "please drive forward" message and play the stop buzzer sound. If they drive to far you have to fire another message off "please back up" repeatedly until they are in position again. You may need a plc to set up conditions or time delays to get it to do what you want it to do.
With the floyd bell all you need is three relays. You can specify when you order the speaker if you want the sound played repeatedly or just once when signal is applied. I would do just once.
Forgot to mention if your output voltage for your drive forward, stop, and back up lights are already 24VDC then you don't even need the relays and it can wire directly to your output card.
Forgot to mention if your output voltage for your drive forward, stop, and back up lights are already 24VDC then you don't even need the relays and it can wire directly to your output card.
scarrylarry
New member
