Batboard

I've been checking out other threads on this subject, but I'm still coming up a little short on information. It took me multiple hours today to stumble upon this BBS, which I've enjoyed surfing thru...

I've got a Minitor 4 w/ amplified charger (NYN 8348A) here at the station. Our old emergency light system (10+ yrs old) has failed and nobody understands the 'field engineering' that went into the old system.

I understand that the amp charger has a relay for such activities, pin'ed out to pins 2 + 3 on the 6 pin Dim. I've canabalized a radio shack cable (42-2151) and when this cable is plugged in the charger and the pager is alerted I get '0' ohms on the multitester when checking 2 + 3 together.

On the other end, I've got a 'Phillips rly1142 dpdt 10A @ 240VAC, 28 VDC with a 12 VDC coil'. This relay has the 'black' AC from the wall on one side and black to the lamps on the other, along with other wires coming from the old 'field engineered' system. (It's a shame I left my camera at home)

LONG STORY SHORT - how exactly would I go about tying the two together so that when the pager alerts in the amp charger the overhead emergency lights come on until you press the reset button on the charger face (jump pins 4 + 5 together?)

Any help, schematics, pictures, anything would be appreciated. The guys here are bugging me - I'm the only one tech enough to attempt this repair.

Thanks in advance

FFBlackie

Well first of all the amplified charging base provides a CONTACT CLOSURE. It does not put out any voltage or ground sense.

What you need to do is the following:

1.)Only pass GROUND through the pins do not pass any sort of VOLTAGE!
2.) Take the 12VDC side of the relay and purchase a 12VDC power supply capable to power the relay.
3.) Connect the 12VDC + side DIRECTLY to the relay!
4.) Connect the 12VDC - side to one of the pins on the amp and connect the other pin to the - side of the relay!

Now we foucs on the lights, and since I am not sure what type of lights or voltage the lights are using you need to do some research for yourself. I ahve never used AC with a relay for the lights we only use it to activate the speaker and alert audio out!

Good luck and most of all be careful and do not fry yourself!

We do all of our station alerting such as overhead lights, buzzers, ect through X10. As much as we spent on labor wiring these units, we could spend a couple dollars and get a few x-10 modules and have it do exactly what we want without all of the relays and wiring.

x10 modules work great we use them as well but have you found the trick to activating them from an alarm setup such as the pager amplifier? If you found the trick please share we would like to know as well.

Get a "Power Flash" module for x10. It has terminals you provide contact closure to in order to activate it. You can have it control one light, all the lights, or flash a light.

So if you connect the pager charger's contact closure to it and set it for all lights on, it will turn the lights on when the thing trips.

Thanks we will give the module a try and report back

I like the powerflash modules because it will accept a closure, voltage, or audio to do about anything you want them to.

We have it turn on can lights in each bunk room, with red bulbs, until reset by the x10 lightswitch on the way to the truck.

Then on some stations we have a bell, others we have a buzzer, that stays active only as long as the radio gives voltage during decode.

We have rarely ever had any trouble with these. I can recall 2 service calls on them. One unit would only alert 1/5 times if you were lucky and couldnt figure out why. Well I specifically asked for the outlet used for the buzzer or bell be wired off of the same side of the service panel. So I traced out the outlet only to find out that it was in a total different breaker box, and when we moved it over, BAM!!, it worked fine.

So now 3 months later they build a new station and ask me to re-explain how I want these circuits to be ran. I explain in great detail, and then once again I have the same problem, intermittent alert from the buzzer or bell. So I check the outlet again, and they had wired it to the switch for the bunk room lights, meaning that by the time the modules had turned on the bunk lights, that the radio had dropped voltage during the delay. We ended up just moving the bell to another location and it still works fine to this day, no complaints.

So if you have problems getting modules to respond, check and see what side of the breaker panel you are on. If on opposites, consider moving a circuit over, or X10 makes a unit that combines signals between the two bars of a normal service box....

Hey guys,

I realize this is a long short since the last post on here was from 2005!!!! Any wasy we're redoing our bunk room and I've been looking at the idea of having the bunk room lights come on when the on air tones are activated. We don't have a Zetron system or anything like that. We would also be runnningit off a MInitor V pager with charging base. I read the 2 suggestions but the powerflash x10 modules i'm having a hard time finding.

rtbemt wrote:Hey guys,

I realize this is a long short since the last post on here was from 2005!!!! Any wasy we're redoing our bunk room and I've been looking at the idea of having the bunk room lights come on when the on air tones are activated. We don't have a Zetron system or anything like that. We would also be runnningit off a MInitor V pager with charging base. I read the 2 suggestions but the powerflash x10 modules i'm having a hard time finding.

I just did this in our new station. The electrician ran the AC line for them to the ceiling in the radio room. I hooked them to a solid state relay which is activated by a Minitor amplified charger.

Is your Minitor V charger the amplified one with the accessory jack?