Eggtimer beeper tone

[Binder Design]

Anybody else have a problem hearing the eggtimer beeper? I've lost a good part of my upper hearing range and can't hear it at all. I know it's working because my family goes crazy when I plug it into the USB port to program it. They say it's loud as hell. Not sure how I'm going to be able to know if it is armed once it is in my rocket.

 

[Oberon]

Which Eggtimer (classic, quantum, or quark)? They all have different tones. But they are all pretty loud in my experience, loud enough to be irritating if they aren’t muffled by being inside the rocket.

Chris might be able to recommend a different buzzer part you could swap out with a different tone.

Or alternatively, the Quantum shows you arm and continuity status on your phone - no beeps necessary!

 

[thequick]

Yep! My family goes crazy and I just stare at them clueless. I can put the buzzer with in inches of my ear and just barely hear it.

I find it especially hard at the launch pad and have had to ask for help from others to make sure the altimeter was ready. So on my last 2 builds I've started populating the extra ready LED output and positioned the light near a port.

My understanding is that the piezo buzzers are loudest at specific frequencies. A change freq would result in lower volume. Or you'd have to spec in a different buzzer all together...


I blame growing up in the 80's. Hearing loss awareness wasn't what it is today and we all started wearing walkmans.

 

[Binder Design]

Which Eggtimer (classic, quantum, or quark)?

Classic. I can't hear a thing, even if I hold it right to my ear. I've worked around loud machinery for too many years. Looks like I may have to switch out to Quantums.

 

[Binder Design]

Yep! My family goes crazy and I just stare at them clueless. I can put the buzzer with in inches of my ear and just barely hear it.

Sorry to hear that, but glad I'm not the only one. I've got an e-mail in to Cris to see what he suggests. After a few close calls with a certain altimeter brand firing the deployment charges at the pads while I was waiting to hear tones, I really cringe at the idea of trying to put my ear against the rocket while the altimeter arms.

 

[qquake2k]

How about a simple stethoscope? Remove the chestpiece and hold the end of the tubing over the avbay port. Or put a short length of aluminum or copper tubing in it. Just a thought.

https://www.prestigemedical.com/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=103

 

[Binder Design]

How about a simple stethoscope? Remove the chestpiece and hold the end of the tubing over the avbay port. Or put a short length of aluminum or copper tubing in it. Just a thought.

https://www.prestigemedical.com/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=103

Won't work. I can't hear that frequency no matter how loud. To give an example, I smoked a nice set of computer monitors recently when they were emitting a high frequency at full volume that I could not hear. The animals were all hiding and I couldn't figure out why the room smelled like electrical smoke.

 

[T-Rex]

I connected an LED to the external LED port. I can't hear but my eyes still work....

 

[Binder Design]

I connected an LED to the external LED port. I can't hear but my eyes still work....

Yeah, I'm going to work that into my design. Maybe where one of the vent ports doubles as an LED hole.

 

[ecarson]

I have the same problem, as in total deafness above 3000 Hz. No matter if it is 150 dB, I still won't hear it.

On my EggTimers, I removed the buzzer/beeper, and soldered in a 680 ohm resistor in series with a LED directly off the board contacts. I am developing a panel that mounts in the avbay ring that has ports for 4 LED's. White for the buzzer/beeper replacement, blue for channel A continuity, green for channel B continuity, and yellow for the ready status LED.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...Solutions-on-EggTimer&highlight=eggtimer+deaf

 

[K'Tesh]

Yeah, I'm going to work that into my design. Maybe where one of the vent ports doubles as an LED hole.

If you don't want to use a port, you could always use Plastruct Fluorescent Rod to create a "light tunnel" for the LED. It comes in a couple of diameters and a few colors, yellow, green, blue, and red. One of those carefully matched up with your LED, and cut/sanded to match the curvature of the rocket, and it'd be nearly invisible when the LED is off.

 

[Binder Design]

I have the same problem, as in total deafness above 3000 Hz. No matter if it is 150 dB, I still won't hear it.

On my EggTimers, I removed the buzzer/beeper, and soldered in a 680 ohm resistor in series with a LED directly off the board contacts. I am developing a panel that mounts in the avbay ring that has ports for 4 LED's. White for the buzzer/beeper replacement, blue for channel A continuity, green for channel B continuity, and yellow for the ready status LED.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...Solutions-on-EggTimer&highlight=eggtimer+deaf

Thanks for the link to your thread. I've found piezos with a 2000 hz frequency but I have yet to check compatibility. The one with the kit is 4000 khz which is about 1K too high for me too. 3khz matches my tinnitus frequency and then my hearing fades out quickly at anything higher than that. I'm fine with the piezos on the MW RRC2's and 3's. Getting old sucks.

 

[Binder Design]

If you don't want to use a port, you could always use Plastruct Fluorescent Rod to create a "light tunnel" for the LED. It comes in a couple of diameters and a few colors, yellow, green, blue, and red. One of those carefully matched up with your LED, and cut/sanded to match the curvature of the rocket, and it'd be nearly invisible when the LED is off.

I've used that stuff and have my doubts that it will be visible enough in bright sunlight.

 

[Binder Design]

Cris says you can't just switch the piezo over to a lower frequency one because the tone is driven by the processor. His suggestion was the same as T-Rex and ecarson. External LED. I'll find a way to work it in. Thanks for the replies!

 

[snrkl]

I've used that stuff and have my doubts that it will be visible enough in bright sunlight.

I did some experimenting with different coloured LEDs for my launch controller and found that blue LEDs were VERY visible even in full sun.. best check is to look straight at them - there's no way of mistaking "lit" vs "unlit" with the one I found in my parts bin...

 

[cerving]

I've used that stuff and have my doubts that it will be visible enough in bright sunlight.

If you get a bright enough one it will be fine... the orange ones that I use for the GPS 1S signal ("have a fix") are very visible in daylight. It's a Kingbright WP710A10SEC, they're rated to 2700 mcd at 20 mA nominal, they're driven to 10 mA off the GPS so the output is about 1300 mcd. The buzzer output on the ATMEGA328P is good for 20 mA, so with a 180 ohm resistor you should get full brightness if you remove the pizo element.

 

[Binder Design]

If you get a bright enough one it will be fine...

Thanks for the LED info. The original comment of "not being visible" was in reference to using Plastruct fluorescent rod over the stock LED's installed on the board. I haven't had good luck with that in daylight. I've got some waterclear ultra bright blue LED's that I know will do the trick. I just have to redesign my sled. For future orders, is there a way to set the piezo operating frequency in firmware when the chip is flashed?

 

[K'Tesh]

Thanks for the LED info. The original comment of "not being visible" was in reference to using Plastruct fluorescent rod over the stock LED's installed on the board. I haven't had good luck with that in daylight. I've got some waterclear ultra bright blue LED's that I know will do the trick. I just have to redesign my sled. For future orders, is there a way to set the piezo operating frequency in firmware when the chip is flashed?

I have some of the green mounted in my bike's headlight. I do have a little trouble seeing it in daylight, but I can always shade it with my hand. It's night right now, I will try to get a couple of daytime photos of it for you.

 

[warnerr]

An idea on how to convert sounds to visual for about two dollars: try an audio tuner app program such as Cleartune- i use it on my iphone.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

 

[Binder Design]

An idea on how to convert sounds to visual for about two dollars: try an audio tuner app program such as Cleartune- i use it on my iphone.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

Good idea, but I don't own a phone. Yeah, I'm a weirdo.

 

[warnerr]

Good idea, but I don't own a phone. Yeah, I'm a weirdo.

go to a music store then and get a chromatic tuner- fairly cheap device.

 

[T-Rex]

I bought an assortment of LEDs on ebay for just a couple bucks. I agree that the blue/purple are easiest to see in the daylight. YMMV

 

[Binder Design]

go to a music store then and get a chromatic tuner- fairly cheap device.

Thanks, I already have one of those.

 

[Binder Design]

I removed the beeper and wired in an ultra bright blue CREE led at the BUZ terminals. No problem seeing that in bright sunlight through the vent hole. Holy crap it's bright! I also soldered in a Kingbright 10000 mcd orange on the RDY terminals and then did the same on the channel continuity terminals. I can't even look at it head on, so I think my problem is solved. Thanks for the comments!

 

[K'Tesh]

I removed the beeper and wired in an ultra bright blue CREE led at the BUZ terminals. No problem seeing that in bright sunlight through the vent hole. Holy crap it's bright! I also soldered in a Kingbright 10000 mcd orange on the RDY terminals and then did the same on the channel continuity terminals. I can't even look at it head on, so I think my problem is solved. Thanks for the comments!

Does it have (or need) a heat sink? My bike light's LEDs can get quite hot... Then again in my first line of lighting, I don't use anything less than 350 lumens (actually, it's more like 750 lumens).

And while it might not help you, it might help someone else, and I did promise do do it... So here's my daylight experiment.

[video=youtube;fnLReCjkJRU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnLReCjkJRU&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

[Binder Design]

No heatsink needed, they are not that high power otherwise the board wouldn't even run them. Thanks for the video! I actually think these super bright LED would work very well with the plastruct rod. I'll have to give it some thought to see if it is worth the effort.

 

[K'Tesh]

No heatsink needed, they are not that high power otherwise the board wouldn't even run them. Thanks for the video! I actually think these super bright LED would work very well with the plastruct rod. I'll have to give it some thought to see if it is worth the effort.

Glad you liked the video.

I will say that the rod is not that expensive... And having seen the results myself, I'm thinking of how I might be able to implement it into a dedicated CinerocDV (or other cameraDV) project. Mind you, most of my DV work is designed to be indistinguishable from the originals even with a close external examination.

The idea for the rod came from of the very old Halogen NiteRider Digitial headlights (they still use them in their more expensive "Pro" models). When you can't see if the beam of your light is on (say due to wet conditions), it's reassuring to be able to just glance down and see that it's on, and not have to remove your hand from the handlebars and wave it in front of the light (and it preserves a measure of night vision). There were a few times that I was able to notice that my light had actually quit working (either through a burned out bulb, or some other reason), despite the on/off light saying it was on, while I was still in motion. I've modified all my handlebar mounted headlights to use the rods if I can.

 

[cerving]

Thanks for the LED info. The original comment of "not being visible" was in reference to using Plastruct fluorescent rod over the stock LED's installed on the board. I haven't had good luck with that in daylight. I've got some waterclear ultra bright blue LED's that I know will do the trick. I just have to redesign my sled. For future orders, is there a way to set the piezo operating frequency in firmware when the chip is flashed?

I could, but the frequency is optimized for the response of the pizo element. If you go higher or lower in frequency than the volume will be lower. Of course in your case, the frequency is more important... I'll look at making it a monitor option, but I don't know if there's enough flash memory space in the processor to do it.