Recently we bought a new bread baking machine. The kind of device that you program in the evening so that it makes your bread during the night while you sleep.
But our new Wilfa BM-25s had one huge design flaw. To indicate the point where you can add extra ingredients in the baking cycle the Wilfa engineers found it appropriate to use a screaming loud beeper. Beeping 20 times or something. Even when placing the machine far away from where we sleep it woke us up during the night. And, it’s not possible to turn it off.
So I decided the Wilfa needed some circuit bending. Yeah, voiding the warranty.
Fortunately it was very easy to open. And I could see the beeper right away. I did some tests and ended up using a 1.8 kohm resistance to decrease the audio level. Making the machine going from screaming loud to a subtle beep.
The only thing you have to do is to locate the beeper, use a soldering iron to remove it and place the resistance on one of the pins.
And here’s the result.
Using a resistance to lower audio from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.
The video simply shows the result. I short cut the resistance with a pair of pliers to show the original audio and remove it to show the very subtle and low audio after the resistance was added.
You can use the same method on most annoying toys and devices.
Warning:
Messing with high voltage equipment can be dangerous. And messing with equipment in general will void the warranty and you can end up destroying it. I take no responsibility if you destroy your equipment or yourself…
Cool! I wonder what the Wilfa people where thinking of when they added that “yes please wake me up in the middle of the night-functionality”. Superfail.
But now that your soldering iron is warm, how about digging into some curcuit-bending? Fun and cheap. http://poetikon.no/2008/11/hva-er-circuit-bending/
Thank you for the excellent work description, I was just going to modify my two BM-25s! This saves me the hassle of experimenting.
Cool! The 1,8 kohm resistance takes the audio down to a VERY low level. I didn’t have anything less, but if I had I would have tried 1 kohm or maybe 500 ohm to keep slightly more audio for click feedback etc.
You know, a piece of thick duct tape / gaffa tape over the opening in the cabinet where the buzzer is located will usually muffle the sound very well. And avoid voiding your warranty.
Yes. That’s a good solution for some devices. Have done that on quite a bit of very annoying toys… But this one was difficult to muffle with tape. Too loud, and audio coming out everywhere.
Thanks for the info – definitely a project I’m going for asap – the beeping drives me mad and scares the heck out of the kids at night. Why they couldn’t have left out the beeping when you use the delay is beyond me – NO ONE wants to get up at 3 am to see if the dough has risen enough or at 4 am to check if the bread has baked enough.
Can’t say that Wilfa’s engineers listen to their customers… Before buying this device I read about the annoying beeper all around the interwebz. We still bought it because I knew that I could fix the beeper. But why? Why haven’t they fixed this themselves?
Nice to know you still have the skills for this kind of work. I am a proud owner of a soldering iron, but I always end up just with the thought and not any action. Inspiring!
Most of our appliances does this. Luckily they don’t wake us up, but…Why put a beeper on a dishwasher? You can HEAR that it is not running, and you don’t wait impatiently to take the dishes out because it IS SO MUCH FUN! You do it when you can’t see the kitchen counter anymore…THAT’s WHEN!
Also,…this goes for laundry AND dryers as well! …Stupid engineers with their beeping fetiches…
umm, electrical tape over the sound outlet hole would also cut sound levels……
Yes. But not enough.
i deal with this too, but my solution is a bit less intrusive. i tape electrical tape and place it over the speaker and add more as needed. simpler to do for those who are not comfortable with a soldering iron-
thanks and great job on the year in 40seconds
gregory
We had the same problem on our bread machine, but the bigger problem was that the bread it made was not very good ! That little paddle on the bottom really doesn’t knead the dough well enough. Someone “needs” to invent a better way to do that
Cool little trick, im gonna try it on some of my sister’s toys