How loud are the panel mount LED alarm buzzer?

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WI_Wino

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Just like the title asks, how loud are those panel mount LED alarm buzzers? I am looking to move into the basement and have bedrooms over my future brewing space. Would hate to wake the wife and kids.
 
My setups were always in the garage, and if I had the door closed I couldn't hear them in my living room. I don't think you'd have anything too loud coming up through the floor. That's really hard for me to quantify though. They're definitely loud, that's for sure.
 
If you were to tape over or otherwise cover some of the holes in the plastic lens they quiet down quite a bit. I ordered a 3 pack with one ea of yellow red and green and they had different hole patterns and emitted different levels of sound.
 
I brew in an upstairs bedroom and with the door open I can hear the alarm downstairs... as others said though you can cover holes with clear scotch tape and quiet it down considerably.
 
They're fairly loud and piercing.

The few manufacturers that give a rating say 80 decibels. Not idea at what distance they measured (drops off the farther you are) but usually db ratings are at 1 meter.

To put it in perspective:

Weakest sound heard 0dB
Whisper Quiet Library at 6' 30dB
Normal conversation at 3' 60-65dB
Telephone dial tone 80dB
City Traffic (inside car) 85dB
Train whistle at 500', Truck Traffic 90dB
Jackhammer at 50' 95dB
Subway train at 200' 95dB
Level at which sustained exposure may result in hearing loss 90 - 95dB
Hand Drill 98dB
Power mower at 3' 107dB
Snowmobile, Motorcycle 100dB
Power saw at 3' 110dB
Sandblasting, Loud Rock Concert 115dB
Pain begins 125dB
Pneumatic riveter at 4' 125dB
Even short term exposure can cause permanent damage - Loudest recommended exposure WITH hearing protection 140dB
Jet engine at 100' 140dB
12 Gauge Shotgun Blast 165dB
Death of hearing tissue 180dB
Loudest sound possible 194dB

The pumps (I find) are fairly loud too but not as shrill / high pitched. If you use a duct fan to vent (you should) that will probably be more noticeable as it would be close to or in the ceiling.

Edit: Remember that decibels are logarithmic, which means each 10db increase will be perceived as approximately twice as loud.

Kal
 
Update:

You can hear both my pumps running in this video (vent fan off):
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frsuCg35V8Q[/ame]

You can hear my vent fan running in this video (pumps are off) - skip in 40 seconds to hear it turn on:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s-PUbKKit8[/ame]

You can hear the alarm go off in this video 39 seconds in (pumps are on):
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meKUpvi-dwM[/ame]

Note that I have a steady alarm without a light. Most sold noways have a light included and the alarm pulses on/off like the one in BrunDog's video (I like these ones better than my steady tone one).

Kal
 
:off:

I wanna hear what 194 dB sounds like! But only seconds before I die.

Similarly I want to know how bright it would be if the Sun went off as a type IA supernova.

Apparently, viewed from the earth it'd be about a billion times brighter than this:

neutrinos_bomb.png


The seconds before I die part might be a bit optimistic though.
 
My first thought was to just make a removable silencer for the alarm to put over it. Then I thought what if you just switched the cover to one from a regular light that doesn't have the holes. You'd still get the flashing light effect but you reduce the noise. I did a quick test on my panel. It doesn't give you the absolute volume but you can get an idea of the relativity.

video 1 - normal alarm (80-85 dB)
video 2 - replaced cover with regular light cover (45-50 dB)
video 3 - same as 2 but also has the white plastic piece from the light (50-55 dB)

The dB levels are from a random app I found with my phone held about 1" from the buzzer. Probably not exact but good enough for comparison.

ETA...sorry, I don't know how to get the videos to show up like Kal did instead of attachments. Not sure if I can since they're just files on my computer and not online anywhere.

View attachment alarm1_full.mov

View attachment alarm2_slience1.mov

View attachment alarm3_silence2.mov
 
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