electric horn

[seadog2]

Hello all, I'm searching for a circuit diagramme (schematic) to
emulate the old 1920's type electro mechanical car horn. You know the
type, Elliot Ness and old London Taxis sort of thing. Sort of went'
AhhhOOooGah'. Any help appreciated that does not involve simply using a
sound-chip. Transistors or IC's not a problem. Hopeful. Cdog.

 

[jasen]

On 2006-08-29, seadog2 <seadog2@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

Hello all, I'm searching for a circuit diagramme (schematic) to
emulate the old 1920's type electro mechanical car horn. You know the
type, Elliot Ness and old London Taxis sort of thing. Sort of went'
AhhhOOooGah'. Any help appreciated that does not involve simply using a
sound-chip. Transistors or IC's not a problem. Hopeful. Cdog.

AFAIK called a "Klaxon"

good luck.



--

Bye.
Jasen

 

[Bjorn]

seadog2 wrote:

Hello all, I'm searching for a circuit diagramme (schematic) to
emulate the old 1920's type electro mechanical car horn. You know the
type, Elliot Ness and old London Taxis sort of thing. Sort of went'
AhhhOOooGah'. Any help appreciated that does not involve simply using a
sound-chip. Transistors or IC's not a problem. Hopeful. Cdog.

That's a fairly complex sound. I'd suspect an analog circuit could

become very complex as the trueness of sound is increased. Many question
come to mind: how small?, how loud?, how much power?, money?, time? If
mechanical is out of the picture, I'd go digital. First thought is the
easy way: use a Winbond Chipcorder (ISD1110 maybe) - borrow or buy a
horn, record it onto the chip then play it trough your choice of
driver/speaker - just remember, you will need a lot of overhead to
accommodate the dynamics. I'm not even sure that chip can hanldle that
range. Non-linear companding and expansion may be needed which could
hurt the fidility. Bandwidth is poor too but it may be OK.
Another possibility is to synth it with either a DSP/DAC or a
microcontroller driving a Yamaha MIDI chip, perhaps a pull from an old
SB16. This has the ponential to sound very nice, depending on
programming and you can actively control the blast length.