I got a schwarze horn off of ebay. I have a 12v power supply that outputs dc. What will happen if i run that horn on 12vdc? Do i need some sort of doohickey that converts dc to ac?
generally, if you try to run an AC horn on DC, it will go click once as the coil pulls in, but then nothing else, because without the alternating current, it will never release and vibrate back and forth.
DC horns generally have an additional contact to make/break the connection as the diaphragm of the horn pulls in, which is also why DC horns are higher pitched, as they aren’t at 60hz, but rather the rate at which that contact is made/broken.
it’s more annoying to go back to AC from DC. You would be better off just getting an AC wall transformer in this case.
Ok. So I take 120vac from a plug in and put it thru a transformer to bump it down to 12vac. Will that work?
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Yes that will work. You can also just get a cheap 12VAC adapter.
Will a 8vac doorbell transformer work?
It may not be as loud, but it would probably work.
It works!!! It is super loud!
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If you have a decimal reader you should use that and power it and see what the DB rating is.