2 Messages
Mechanical Door Bell Chime Bypass
I just installed a SimpliSafe Door Bell Pro. Everything is working fine. I’ve selected the option to have the Door Bell Pro ring through the base station, but now it also rings through my old mechanical chime. I’d like to only use the base station as my door bell and stop using the mechanical chime. I’ve investigated the wiring terminal on my mechanical chime and I see a terminal with 3 screw connections. They are labeled Rear, Trans, and Front. There is a Red wire going to the Trans and Front screw terminal. There is also a wire connector with 2 White wires. I tried disconnecting the red wire going to the Front terminal. This stopped the mechanical chime from working and still allowed the base station to ring when the Door Bell Pro button was pushed. However, after several hrs I began getting low battery messages from the Door bell Pro so it seemed like the Pro was not getting constant power , so I reconnected the red wire back to the Front terminal connector. The question I have is whether it’s ok to disconnect both the Front and Trans wires and connect them together. I’m hoping that by doing this I would supply constant power to the Pro and not listen to my old doorbell chime. Any thoughts?
emily_s
Community Admin
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3.1K Messages
1 year ago
Hi @bemartin79,
This might be a better question for an electrician. The mechanical chimes your wired doorbell makes also acts as a bit of a resistor. Without it (or some other source for resistance) in the loop, you can blow out your Video Doorbell. If you contact an electrician, they might be able to find another source of resistance so you can keep the mechanical chimes off and your Video Doorbell charged.
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bemartin79
2 Messages
1 year ago
Thank you for your response. I was hoping for a simple fix and that I could eliminate the use of my 30 year old doorbell chime. Apparently there is no simple fix. I’ll probably just disable the base station audible bell and continue using my old chime.
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pjdaly
17 Messages
1 year ago
One way to do this without changing anything electrically is to remove the striker from the door chime coil and leave the wiring as it was. There’s usually a cap holding the striker and springs in the tube.
You can’t connect the transformer directly to the VDP which is what you’d be doing by connecting TRANS to FRONT in the chime box.. you’d be bypassing the magnet coil. I know someone who killed two transformers this way but luckily his VDP survived.
There needs to be a resistor to take the place of the magnet coil resistance but rather than make this modification, another way is to leave the coil and just remove the striker from the coil.
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spkaras
1 Message
10 months ago
can anyone explain why this system NEEDS a mechanical chime? Why cant it just use the power and just live connected to the WIFI/no chime?
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pjdaly
17 Messages
7 months ago
I actually need the chime because the basestation just has one tone. I have 3 doors and bought a 3-tone chime so I know which door to answer when someone rings the bell.
To do without the chime you need to emulate the resistance of the chime magnet coil as has been mentioned elsewhere. I think it should also work if you take out the moving part, the striker, from the chime and leave the rest as is.
My hardware engineer friend made a board to get the chime to work with my three VDPs. As part of this solution, he used a pair of 8 ohm 10 watt ceramic resistors in series to take the place of the coil. It seems to be okay after 10 months and works flawlessly.
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