The BUZZER from hell!

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mike cunningham
Posts: 489
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:21 am
Location: Jacqueline, F30 #3, Discovery Bay, California

The BUZZER from hell!

Post by mike cunningham »

Have fun if you have your engine warning buzzer go out. Called Svendsen's, a local Yanmar dealer, about a replacement buzzer. I figured it was going to be ridiculous in fact it was ludicrous (to steal a term from TESLA). A replacement buzzer was $230.00 and "you may have to do a few wiring mods to make it work".

Plan B.

1. Buy a waterproof 12 VDC buzzer form Amazon for 9 bucks.
2. Cut the existing buzzer apart to preserve the face/mounting collar and preserve the back plate to retain the original harness connector and preserve the little circuit board (which is inside the buzzer housing) so you can reuse the diode array. The buzzer ckt and piezo parts can be discarded. In my case the piezo was shot
3. Epoxy the holes in the old buzzer face to create a solid plate
4. Drill the plate to create a mounting hole for the new buzzer which is quite a bit smaller than the original.
5. Remove the diodes and zener from the old ckt board and solder them into a small array package using same circuit as on the original board (but more compact)
6. Solder the array to the original connector plate
7. Solder the other end of the array to the new buzzer
8. solder power from connector to face plate
8. Use self amalgamating silicone tape to reconstruct the buzzer form factor as best you can achieve it. I got pretty close.
9. Reinstall buzzer

Test buzzer at every stage where you do soldering. I used an old 12VDC plug in converter as a test power supply when I had the thing on the bench.

I bought a 86 dB buzzer. It works but I wish it were louder. I suggest going big like maybe 100 dB

Took me about 6 hours to do all this. Learned the buzzer circuit pretty well and saved a couple hundred bucks.
Mike Cunningham
Freedom 30 (Mull) Hull #3
Build date...June, 1986 . Freedom Yachts USA, sloop, shoal keel
Gun Mount and pole retrofitted (purchased from a Hoyt Freedom 32)
Yanmar 2gm20F , 1600 hrs fixed two blade prop
e-rud and ocean racing equipment

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