140 Db Alarm Clock Hack

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEH5GxPNO8]

This silly little video caught our attention. It is an alarm clock, hacked with two amazingly loud car horns. They are using a laptop power brick to push the two external car horns. The horns are triggered by a relay wired to the internal speaker of the alarm clock. This is a super quick project that could be done, not only to help yourself, but it is the perfect amount of effort for a prank. We bet you guys could probably wire one of these up and hide the horns in only a few minutes.  If you are having problems waking up, you might also want to check out some of the other alarm hacks we’ve seen.

[via gizmodo]

37 thoughts on “140 Db Alarm Clock Hack

  1. Taylor, my sentiments exactly.

    The videos he produces are almost like a network tv “hacking” segment, all about the glitz and damn the specifics. Sure some of the “hacks” are easy enough so you can’t screw things up, but others lack the basic details to allow people to copy the procedure shown in the video step-by-step and end up with identical results.

  2. Considering that for under ten bucks you can get industrial annunciators that are this loud and work off of 110VAC, and are smaller and easier to work with, this seems just a tad showy and overcomplicated.

    (I once did a similar hack with my doorbell, wiring the actuator relay through an otherwise unused length of cable TV coax in the attic, because my wife was getting back late from a series of trips and she got mad that I didn’t wake up when she rang the doorbell.)

  3. I did something similar in high school. Didn’t always wake me up, but it sure did wake my parents up! I used a car alarm instead of a horn (it was probably not as loud) and an SCR instead of a relay.

  4. “kipkay” is a hack and a fake not a hacker.
    Check out http://kipkay.com/videos/just-for-fun/make-traffic-lights-change
    Assuming he had prior knowledge that the maximum number of “clicks” for this was 3 (long or short so 6) and the series was 5 long, that gives 7776 possible combinations. Or perhaps municipal services actually work as designed.
    Kipkay should stop the misinformation and market himself to the ~10-12 year old crowd and he may gather a fan base.

  5. What horns are those? I’m looking for something real loud (that isn’t an airhorn, but that WOULD be really cool) to put on my car. If they are really 140dB they are louder than anything I have found so far.

  6. I made something similar when I was a kid. Except it was a mechanical clock and a big speaker salvaged from an old TV. It kinda looked like a bomb from Mission: Impossible or something. Awesome. Well that’s all about my life for today. Thanks for reading.

  7. Yes, I admit that I like to post simple stuff, possibly to a fault. I also post the good stuff. Diversity in project scope isn’t going to hurt you guys.

    I didn’t like most of Kipkay’s projects, but this one seems easily adaptable and decent for a super quick project.

    P.S. Have you guys ever considered that we post so many Arduino hacks because you guys submit that many? They don’t pay us, though they should.

  8. At least the video was well edited and narrated. I hate most of the videos I come across that are made by amateurs on their cell phones and slapped up on youtube with almost no explanation of what is going on.. Or where you have to sit for 10 minutes to see whatever you were supposed to see because they were too lazy to edit out the other stuff.

  9. Simple hacks, or as I would prefer to call them projects, are fun. Something that you can do on a short time line or budget are great for a rainy day. However, spreading misinformation to the extent that “kipkay” does is irresponsible on his part. And irresponsible on Hackaday’s part because you give validity to all of his “projects” by promoting one.
    Perhaps I would be less annoyed if he ignored the sums and blindly chose a small reverse biased diode to go across the relay coil contacts in this alarm clock “hack” but, no engineering principles were applied here.
    As far as arduino projects go, I am glad to see them. I hope the arduino is a steppingstone to bigger and better things for those who want to pursue embedded programming though. It is a great way to start but not the end all be all to the embedded world. Stay true Hackaday

  10. I think that’s not so bad, but some kind of password protected off button would be great. I use such a thing on my computer, I mean I have an “Alarm Clock” application running on my Linux and always, before I go to bed, I lock the screen, so I have to type my password before shutting down the clock at the morning.

    I’d like to have some kind of Alarm Clock out of a computer. I heard about an application for iPhone, when it is a must to count something up to shut down the alarm, but I don’t have iPhone and I will not have. I really don’t need this phone and buying this toy only for an alarm clock application is so silly, right?

  11. I second Max Montana.
    First thing I could think of was: “where’s the diode”

    Kip Kay is good for one thing: My digital caliper battery died. He once posted a video about opening 12v batteries. I opened up a 12V cigarette lighter battery and have been using the button cells for it ever since.

  12. @pillbox: If it runs on 1.5V just solder in an AA or AAA and you wont have to change the battery for a long long time.

    And I also agree with Hackius. He’s real good at taking other peoples ideas and making money on it.

  13. 140dB eh? Never mind the missing diode. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but exposure to this sound pressure level for even a short time will cause *permanent* hearing damage including loss and tinnitus.

    Back of the envelope calc. suggests that this is the level 1m in front of a 1kW guitar amp at full bore.

    Other ways to make a very loud noise include sirens and compressed air-driven horns and whistles. And of course explosives.

  14. A more fun alarm clock adaption would be to rig up the output to trigger some large subwoofers playing white noise at maximum volume, as well as some bass shakers bolted to the underside of your bed – earthquake simulator! :D

  15. thets the whole point guys – this guy is a FAKE. His “hacks” dont EVER work. He makes them work in his Video Editing software.

    He didnt make this alarm clock hack, he made a video about making one. This can be called Video editing hack, or social hack (making clueless people believe whats on the screen is real).

  16. combine this with a head tracking 10W LED using that PIR sensor servo hack, and you have something…

    try to turn it off and the light shines right in your eyes. If that doesen’t wake you up nothing will :)

  17. I know it’s more fun when you do it yourself, but the Sonicboom alarm clock can wake the dead. It was the only thing that could raise my teenagers from slumber. Check the reviews on Amazon.
    screw Kipkay

  18. If Hackaday ever posts another Kipkay video or “hack” link again, I’m going to stop visiting this site. The deluge of Arduino links is one thing, but anyone even remotely serious about any form of hacking should know better about Kipkay’s bullshit… so what should that say about Hackaday posting this kind of crap?

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