A Better Relays Board Installed

It took me a little while to install he new relays board I made with Rectifier Bridge Diodes before each of the relays in order to cure that problem I was having with the SFX module I had put together. I had to do a fair amount of shuffling things around on my stock dash to make things fit right. (left).

You may recall from earlier posts when I was working on my Voice Projection Unit that I had the on/off button hooked up to a Step Relay that was located about where my new relays board is now. What I ended up doing was moving the Step Relay to the same location as the on/off button for the V.P. Unit and mounting it behind the panel that the button is mounted too (right). I also made up a small Rectifier Diode Bridge module with terminal blocks that I could easily wire up to between the on/off button to the Step Relay and mounting that in behind the panel as well. I like it a lot better now because when you press the V.P. button the loud click from the Step Relay is right behind where the switch is located and not on the other side of the dash like before, so in many way it makes more sense this way.

Voice Projection Unit Alternative Ground Hookup

After doing a little experimenting yesterday I realized that this is another option for hooking up the ground wire for the Annunciator Loudspeaker. It's simple and will save running extra wire depending on how far away you are placing your loudspeaker from the Voice Projection unit on/off button.

Voice Projection Wiring Scheme

I think I have the connections on the circuit board from the 

"Annunciator 2 in 1 5 tone / 3 tone electronic siren with mic." that I got from eBay figured out. I tested the buttons with my Multimeter to see which connection points on the board would give me a continuity reading when each button was pressed. One thing puzzles me a little is that they appear to be momentary buttons but yet when I watched videos on YouTube showing how the unit worked they appeared to be latching buttons, perhaps a pulse from the button temporarily locks a connection somewhere and when the button is activated  again it breaks the connections, not sure about that, or how that will work with the wiring scheme I am thinking of trying out. It's going to be a little experimenting I guess but from just fiddling about with it I think it should work with the simple SPST Relay setup I have worked out in my diagram. Some of the other bits on the board will be relocated like the indicator LED and Mic.

Voice Projection Hand Held Unit Dismantle

I dismantled the hand held unit of the "Annunciator 2 in 1 5 tone / 3 tone electronic siren with mic." It appears to be pretty simple, just like figuring out the Switch Pod Buttons I should be able to do the same here and add wires from the button terminals and run them to the switch of a SPST Relay to duplicated what the buttons are doing on this simple circuit board. The micro or mini button on the ends of the two black wires look to be a simple ground momentary switch, in either case a Relay will do the job for that button too. The side button for the Mic appears to be also a simple micro/mini momentary button so again another simple SPST Relay should do the trick. Now those 4 other micro switches I'm not sure if those are momentary buttons or latching, those may be a bit tricky trying to figure out a good way to use my Switch Pod Buttons for those 4. I suppose the other few things are the indicator LED light, Volume Control Knob, the Mic, those items on the board I will need to think about soldering them off of the board, extending their wires and relocating them somewhere. I mentioned in my last post about the Mic being installed into the upper console somewhere, that is certainly a possibility. I suppose the Volume Control Knob could be located beside the Mic along with the indicator LED light. The Circuit board I could mount in up inside of my Knight Rider Dash securely to another bracket I could glass in somewhere.

It's going to be a bit of mucking about with my Multimeter to figure out what is what for sure on this little circuit board and some playing about with some soldering and finer gauge wires, and some fiddling about with Relays but if I'm not mistaken I think it can be done.

Voice Projection Button Installed

I installed K.I.T.T.s Voice Projection button that I bought from Jupiter Electronics eBay shop. I just installed it today after making a mounting plate for it out of some plastic from a TV set's outer casing. The switch is currently not hooked up to anything but I do have tentative plans to wire it up somehow to the marine speakers in the nose that run off of Brenon's LED scanner and supply the "Swoosh-Swoosh" sound that K.I.T.T.'s scanner makes. I figure I should eventually be able to wire up an internal mic to the switch for projecting sound externally through those scanner speakers.... theoretically anyways ;) Perhaps even wire up a sound effects generator through the computer. All of which will need to be figured out how to be done but can be done I am sure. But in any event the button for those functions has a place and is installed.

You can see here (right) how I have used that switch bezel or whatever they call it to mount my plastic plate on for the Voice Projection button and supplied bezel. I had to cut away a small section to accommodate for the back of the V.P. button, I also had to Dremel off a small piece of plastic from the OEM dash to make room for the back of the V.P. button as well. Minor tweaks.

Now I know I have said this before but I REALLY need to bring out my Knight Rider dash and do a test fit to make sure certain things are still going to fit right. Yeah I know I've been kind of procrastinating on doing that but that's because there just always seems to be something else more pressing to do ;) One thing in particular is I want to make sure that the new dash will not obscure my V.P. button or any others I eventually place onto this mounting plate. Tomorrow I will make a couple of aluminum "L" brackets to put across the top of my new dash accessory to give it a little more support as right now it is just attached to that black plastic button bezel across the bottom with a couple of screws.