wire an on/off switch to play a song?

Alpine Warthog

Alpine Warthog

Member
Hey all,

I recently came across a really cool company that makes switch panels. some novelty items and real ones.
I bought this one: Fortunate Son Switch from Concord Aerospace.
Fortunate Son.JPG
It's got a real, heavy duty switch and I want to wire it to a speaker to play the song (on a loop) till I turn the switch off.

Any electrical guys have an idea how to do this?
 
Alpine Warthog said:
Hey all,

I recently came across a really cool company that makes switch panels. some novelty items and real ones.
I bought this one: Fortunate Son Switch from Concord Aerospace.
View attachment 381297
It's got a real, heavy duty switch and I want to wire it to a speaker to play the song (on a loop) till I turn the switch off.

Any electrical guys have an idea how to do this?
Click to expand...
Well, first of all its a 125/250 VAC switch so its probably gonna need to be run off an inverter. Im assuming that it takes line voltage from AC and steps it down to run the sound circuit, it may even regulate it down as far as 5V DC internally, but I'd have to see the internals or a diagram to be sure. Can you switch 12V DC through an AC switch? Sure, but if it regulates 125/250 to anothet voltage to run the soundboard as I suspect its probably not going to work (sound) with a straight 12V DC input from your Jeep. Secondly, the ad doesn't specify if it has speaker outputs or a tiny internal speaker. You could certainly splice into the speaker output if it doesn't have any external outputs but thats gonna require tearing it apart, you also have to figure out if it outputs enough power through the speaker output to push a larger external speaker.
Bottom line, what you want to do is possible but may involve anywhere from a little to alot of electrical work inside the unit to make it so. If you can post pics of the unit (all sides) and whatever documents it comes with, I can probably be more specific on what you have to do to make it work in your Jeep with an exernal speaker.
 
JimLee said:
Well, first of all its a 125/250 VAC switch so its probably gonna need to be run off an inverter. Im assuming that it takes line voltage from AC and steps it down to run the sound circuit, it may even regulate it down as far as 5V DC internally, but I'd have to see the internals or a diagram to be sure. Can you switch 12V DC through an AC switch? Sure, but if it regulates 125/250 to anothet voltage to run the soundboard as I suspect its probably not going to work (sound) with a straight 12V DC input from your Jeep. Secondly, the ad doesn't specify if it has speaker outputs or a tiny internal speaker. You could certainly splice into the speaker output if it doesn't have any external outputs but thats gonna require tearing it apart, you also have to figure out if it outputs enough power through the speaker output to push a larger external speaker.
Bottom line, what you want to do is possible but may involve anywhere from a little to alot of electrical work inside the unit to make it so. If you can post pics of the unit (all sides) and whatever documents it comes with, I can probably be more specific on what you have to do to make it work in your Jeep with an exernal speaker.
Click to expand...
Hey Jim,

The unit is actually only a switch. No wiring, no power or speaker. Just a small chunk of panel with a switch. So I'll have to assemble the whole thing from scratch. I was thinking about installing a good old fashion cb PA speaker under the hood (if I can find room) and then some sort of sound producing item, that would play the song on a loop until I turned the switch off. The switch, an actual aircraft panel switch, is obviously overkill but that only adds to the humor of installing a system that will bellow "Fortunate Son" at an ungodly volume for anyone caught in the blast zone.
Son Back.JPG
 
Alpine Warthog said:
Hey Jim,

The unit is actually only a switch. No wiring, no power or speaker. Just a small chunk of panel with a switch. So I'll have to assemble the whole thing from scratch. I was thinking about installing a good old fashion cb PA speaker under the hood (if I can find room) and then some sort of sound producing item, that would play the song on a loop until I turned the switch off. The switch, an actual aircraft panel switch, is obviously overkill but that only adds to the humor of installing a system that will bellow "Fortunate Son" at an ungodly volume for anyone caught in the blast zone.
View attachment 381311
Click to expand...
Ok, my bad, for some reason I got it my head that the box itself played a song or portion if a song. Maybe because they have other switches and buttons themed after different songs, and that just made sense to my brain. If you know someone who does Rasperry pi or similar have a chat with them, I think someone who knows what you want could build you something small and self contained that does exactly what you want. I haven't messed with that stuff but some guys at work have made some pretty cool electronic devices with it.
 
you could use a Raspberry Pi to play a single song in a loop with the power switch to control how long it plays.
 
jeeeep said:
you could use a Raspberry Pi to play a single song in a loop with the power switch to control how long it plays.
Click to expand...
Thats what I was thinking after my initial Snafu. There are programmmable PA systems out there but creating something that plays one song anytime a switch is thrown is a bit more involved than a trip to the local hardware shop or electronics store. You could power on a device using simple relays and the switch but what tells the device to play as soon as its powered on.
 
JimLee said:
Thats what I was thinking after my initial Snafu. There are programmmable PA systems out there but creating something that plays one song anytime a switch is thrown is a bit more involved than a trip to the local hardware shop or electronics store. You could power on a device using simple relays and the switch but what tells the device to play as soon as its powered on.
Click to expand...
You would program that on the raspberry, there are several media player programs available for the pi.
you program it to launch the song as soon as it's turned on and loop it. Once you cut the power it ends, then starts from the beginning the next time you power It on. You could use 12 volt USB power Supply on your switch to make the wiring easy
 
SO, I've been rooting around the internet and I've found this board that might work. I'm not sure it will produce the volume I'm looking for but I might be able to hook it to a little amp to get some decent volume.

www.adafruit.com

Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board + 2x2W Amp - WAV/OGG Trigger -16MB

Would you like to add audio/sound effects to your next project, without an Arduino+Shield? Or maybe you don't even know how to use microcontrollers, you just want to make a sound play ...
www.adafruit.com www.adafruit.com

My son has a pie that he's been playing with so maybe he and I can rig something up if this board doesn't work
 
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