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Hello all, Newbie arriving :)

I have been around electrics for most of my 50 year working life in various forms, strangled a few miles of cable and played with electrons at the Ion stage, worked with Laser comms, Fibre optics and designed a few dozen computer circuits.

Technology has changed so much since I retired 5 years ago, and, as I cannot find guidance on what I would like, I thought I would ask the professionals here.

I want a doorbell, simple you say? But not just any doorbell, I already have the usual doorbell-transformer-bell located in my hallway, but I cannot hear it if I am in the garden or in my shed.

So what I am after is a system that runs through the ringmains.
Ie. you plug the bell-push into the mains via an (as yet) unknown to me box, then the bell plugs in anywhere else on the ringmain.

My strangling cable life stopped when it changed from the 15th edition (a long time ago) and I 'mess around' as my wife calls it in my shed. The shed is a single spur from the downstairs ringmain, so if I am in the shed I could just plug the doorbell end in there.

Before you suggest radio (I have tried), there are 5 solid walls and no direct line of sight between the bell-push and where I will be, also there is sporadic radio interferance here.

Any and all suggestions welcome, many thanks, MichaelT
 
Many thanks for your suggestion David, I have just looked at the Ring Doorbells.

You need a smartphone to load an application, keep a permanent eye on the doorbell so the battery in it does not go flat, and remember to take your phone with you.

This, for me, is a non starter. I would need to buy a smartphone, change the operating system on my computer's (because I still use the industry standard Windows 7 and Ring only supports Windows 10). Then remember to charge the phone every other day, and rely on the internet.
 
Many thanks for your suggestion David, I have just looked at the Ring Doorbells.

You need a smartphone to load an application, keep a permanent eye on the doorbell so the battery in it does not go flat, and remember to take your phone with you.

This, for me, is a non starter. I would need to buy a smartphone, change the operating system on my computer's (because I still use the industry standard Windows 7 and Ring only supports Windows 10). Then remember to charge the phone every other day, and rely on the internet.

You can get pretty cheap android phones and tablets if you need to run apps, you don't necessarily need to run it on your PC as well.

Just had a look on Amazon and in the technical information it says you can use your existing doorbell wiring to charge the internal rechargeable battery. No need to keep an eye on it.
 
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I'd keep it simple with something like the one Spoon suggested. It hardly merits an app/smart phone/rechargeable batteries etc for such a simple task.
 
Must admit I only looked briefly. Assumed it worked over the mains wiring

Thats what I thought.. I did't check it out fully.
 
I'd keep it simple with something like the one Spoon suggested. It hardly merits an app/smart phone/rechargeable batteries etc for such a simple task.

The ring doorbells can be powered by your existing wiring, as i said in an edit of my original post, unless you mean the phones. I keep a poundland power bank with me when I'm out and about with my mobile phone, also have a charging cable for it in my jam jar.

Not that you'd need to bother as much with a new phone vs my old HTC.
 
I had a look at that and the op says radio signals won't work due to thick walls.

You are correct. On the bright side, it does say it can do 250 meters, which is 100 meters more than most I've looked at.
For £10, it might be worth a try.
 
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Mains Ring (Final circuit) .. Door bell extender .
I do like your line of thought as Ethernet extenders use a similar technique.
(Do you have any computer lovers who could test your proposed route-If ethernet Works- so should bell solution)
... Sadly needing quality components does seem to make the Ethernet models not that cheap ...
Have yet to see what you have described -- It feels like it should exist - (If not priced out of the market)
Do you have any Raspberry Pi s !
 
Mains Ring (Final circuit) .. Door bel extender .
I do like your line of thought as Ethernet extenders use a similar technique.
(Do you have any computer lovers who could test your proposed route-If ethernet Works- so should bell solution)
... Sadly needing quality components does seem to make the Ethernet models not that cheap ...
Have yet to see what you have described -- It feels like it should exist - (If not priced out of the market)
Do you have any Raspberry Pi s !
Do you have any Raspberry Pi s !

m-i-l makes good apple pies.
 
Hi, Yes I have used ethernet extenders to test wether or not I could get data from the house ringmain to the shed ok, and it works, though with a lot of data dropout. Thats why I thought of the plug-in doorbell running through the mains would not be such a problem.
It does seem like i'm looking for rocking horse poo though.
I'm 15 years away from when I did any circuitry design and messing about with computer guts and I had hoped that there would be an 'off the shelf' solution that I could not find.

Many thanks for the suggestions guys.
 
Joke post... DO NOT take this advice!!!

Wire your doorbell push button to the live and neutral of the circuit that's going out to your shed. Plug in a lamp in the shed.
When the light goes out, you know someone has just pushed the button.


?⚡:skull:
 
LMAO littlespark, love your thinking.
I was thinking along the lines of grounding a wet doormat and putting a 5Kva touchplate instead of a bell-push, when the lights dim or a scream is heard then someones at the door. Then I wouldn't have to hurry to answer the door at all.
[automerge]1568833806[/automerge]

I like the bell end (no pun intended) that is just what I want, but the front end rigmarole is another version of the Ring doorbell system.
 
You say that as a joke, but ...
Someone I know has a tale of when he was an apprentice maaaaany years ago. He was a lodger in a house with a landlady who was somewhat hard of hearing. So her father had wired up a lamp above the fireplace in lieu of a doorbell.
Only it was a main lamp. and the switch was one of those old porcelain bodied things where the brass button was connected to the internals of the switch :eek: He was always very cautious in how he pressed the button :rolleyes:
 
You say that as a joke, but ...
Someone I know has a tale of when he was an apprentice maaaaany years ago. He was a lodger in a house with a landlady who was somewhat hard of hearing. So her father had wired up a lamp above the fireplace in lieu of a doorbell.
Only it was a main lamp. and the switch was one of those old porcelain bodied things where the brass button was connected to the internals of the switch :eek: He was always very cautious in how he pressed the button :rolleyes:
had similar once. onlyi was the victim. old lady had a new pvc door and frame fitted. fitters fitted a nice posh new brass bell push to replace the 60 year old bakelite one. what they didn't realise was that it was a 240V bell push. muggins turns up to service the alarm system and Zap. button became live when pressed.
 

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