Electric Dinner Bell

Electric dinner bell FARM HOME Miscellaneous 11-3-31 "There's nothing quite like it. It's a laugh to hear it sound off," says Fred Huber, Lemmon, S. Dak., about his electric dinner "bell" built with used auto pans. Huber says his home-built horn makes a comically loud "machine gun" blast that can be heard for miles. He mounts an ignition distributor with the points intact on one end of a 3-ft. length of a 2 by 6 in. board. A V-belt pulley about 2-ft. in dia. is then welded, or otherwise attached, to the gear end of the distributor shaft. A 6 or 12-volt direct current generator mounts at the other end of the 2 by 6 base, positioned so its pulley lines up with the large drive pulley on the distributor. A car horn mounts in the middle. Wiring from the generator runs through the points on the distributor and then feeds to the horn. The last step is to attach a crank to the large drive pulley on the distributor. When you spin the pulley, current from the generator will be broken intermittently by the points on the distributor causing the horn to emit a raucous blast. Huber has a caution for anyone who attempts to build their own electric dinner bell. "Remember that the hot terminal from the horn should be grounded to the distributor case. The cap doesn't do anything but cover the points. It's okay, though, to ground directly to the generator case," he explains. Huber says you could use an alternator in place of the generator, which would produce current at slower speeds than a geverator. "In either case, there's no danger of getting shocked with this electric dinner horn," he notes. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Fred Huber, Box 504, Lemmon, S. Dak. 57638.

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