Er.... Anyone bought a school bell system recently?

[pete]

Our current bell ringing system is a Heath Robinson contraption that doesn't keep time very well (or settings following a power failure). It's hardwired into mechanical bells all round the school and I'd like to replace the schedule / ringer unit and keep the existing bells.

 

Google turns up a lot of "use your PC speakers / tannoy system" type stuff, but we don't have a tannoy and we want to use the (known good, not unpluggable) existing bells.

 

Yeah, I know - cron job, web front end, serial port and a relay. But I've been asked to find a decent commerical product, so I am doing.

[plexer]

Our school bells run of a timer that is wired into the mains just a central heating controller really.

 

Ben

[tech_guy]

We use one that's integrated with the fire alarm system - so I'd look at what those sort of companies are offering. The maintenance/property people at your LEA should be able to help.

[Oops_my_bad]

The maintenance/property people at your LEA should be able to help.

Yeh.. how about getting your caretaker/site dude to do it!?

[pete]

*laughs hollowly at the idea of site people getting off their collective arses*

 

I'll have a word with our alarm blokes.

 

@plexer

Don't suppose you know the make/model?

[tech-man]

Our head had the bells turned off. Makes the day more civil.

[tech_guy]

We don't have any issues with the LEA guys - they're pretty good and the response is ok.

 

Our Head has had the bells turned off between lessons so they only sound for the start of the day, break, lunch & the end of the day. Bloody stupid - we have kids spilling out of lessons too early or late, so that lesson changes can take anything up to ten minutes.....I'm sick of kids wandering around when they should be in lessons.

 

Our poor old caretakers have to periodically go around the site and make sure that all the clocks in the classrooms tell the same time. They get megapissedoff when daylight saving comes around I can tell you!

[ConTheITGuy]

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/Electrical,+Lighting+&+Security/Heating+Control+Equipment/DANFOSS/841/displayProduct.jsp?sku=MC00879

 

We have one of these wired into our bells. It had been here longer than me - probably a lot longer actually. Anyway, it broke - CPC still did them. I was able to swap the front plate over - works a treat again

 

Andy

[plexer]

Yup that looks just like ours.

 

Ben

[rhyds]

Exactly the same one here. The manual overide is handy for half term as an I'm locking up alarm

[pete]

Thanks, Farnell's site doesn't mention battery backup - does it have one to keep settings?

[SpuffMonkey]

Yup that looks just like ours.

 

Ben

 

And ours

[pete]

Thanks everyone for responding. For future info, the units come with a 3.6v 100ma battery soldered onto the board, which can be replaced.

[john]

Yup mines one of them as well

[joe90bass]

Looks a lot like ours as well!

 

@tech_guy, I'm sure the teachers love that, kids turning up late to lessons...........

[MicrodigitUK]

Same one at the school I’m at now and one I used to work for.

[Sirbendy]

Our poor old caretakers have to periodically go around the site and make sure that all the clocks in the classrooms tell the same time. They get megapissedoff when daylight saving comes around I can tell you!

 

Same here. Not IT Though, or a few maths rooms...they've been replaced with cheapy atomic setters. No point in going for old "manual" clocks now, IMO.

[Zorro_Slot]

same here!

[laserblazer]

And ours. They must have a bloody good salesman

[stephenleak]

Why not sell your SMT on a trendy wireless one?

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SCHOOL-HAND-BELL-IN-NICKEL-RECEPTION-PORTER_W0QQitemZ310000507239QQihZ021QQcategoryZ60655QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[Scho-edu]

We’ve just bought a new system, I believe it’s called a “sounder”. It’s great because we can play different ringtones for different breaks; we can even create our own which the staff think it’s brilliant !

 

I’ve attached the link in case everyone is interested..

Select a bell

[Andrew_C]

And ours. They must have a bloody good salesman

Fecking right! That is a central heating timer! OK, it will do what it needs to do, but I doubt it does it nicely.

 

We don't have bells, very civilized, but few lessons actually end on time, which makes the boys late for the next lesson.

 

Unless the school is small physically, the significant cost would be in wiring to disparate buildings. It may be possible to do something clever with bells triggered by PCs but that would be bespoke and costly.

 

As I write, I'm having ideas. I've just bought a serial to TCP/IP device, and I wonder if the supplier might do TCP to relay... I'll get back to you when the catalogue is in front of me!

[ITGURU]

I'm waiting for someone to come up with an IP bell system controller unless it already exists. I used to get told the time was wrong on the pcs in relation to the bells, but it's hard to change when your using the NTP protocol which the first DC gets its time from the internet, and then NTP is used across everything IP based - PCs, Access Control , CCTV, Phones, so everything is spot on in sync, time wise

[ITGURU]

We don't have any issues with the LEA guys - they're pretty good and the response is ok.

 

Our Head has had the bells turned off between lessons so they only sound for the start of the day, break, lunch & the end of the day. Bloody stupid - we have kids spilling out of lessons too early or late, so that lesson changes can take anything up to ten minutes.....I'm sick of kids wandering around when they should be in lessons.

 

Our poor old caretakers have to periodically go around the site and make sure that all the clocks in the classrooms tell the same time. They get megapissedoff when daylight saving comes around I can tell you!

 

We need some WiFi clocks that can use NTP lol

[Guest Guest]

We looked really seriously at this, apparently it is being used by a U.K. School as a bell / intercom system.

 

http://www.2n.cz/en/products/ip-audio-systems/ip-audio-devices/net-speaker/

 

£300 ish per speaker, Bursar said no at that price but it looks interesting.