I Built a Doorbell That Powers Itself When You Press It

Hello people in this instructables i made this doorbell that does not need any battery!

Yes! you heard it right, This door bell uses piezoelectric energy and do not need any power source to work but rely on human power!

The knock on your finger drives a buzzer and an led that makes this door bell work!

There are many reasons that led me to come up with this project, Even for today there are many homes which could not even afford electricity.

In some areas the houses are soo remote that the electric grid lines are not able to reach.

Also in few instances the electricity is soo much expensive, these are the outside factors!

I will tell about my situation that motivated me to build this project.

I live in a small town and i would like to be more specific as the outsiders call as "countryside" i would term it as village.

Every year when the monsoon hits the entire region will run out of power for atleast a month from the 4 months monsoon season.

Even the UPS system fail and even the solar power is barely able to power the electronics on household.

Now the doorbell is something which is considered as a optional need rather than want.

So i wanted to make a self powered doorbell that does not need battery power forever! (atleast until the electronics fail)

There are already many version of doorbell on the market, Solar powered ones, rechargeable ones and the ones that rely on the house electricity.

Out of all these one common thing is it needs power and the system these rely on are the power from the grid or the stored energy that will vanish after a period of time.

My version of door bell is powered by piezoelectric discs and unless and until a human is there to press a button this will work!

Powered by piezo discs and few other circuits this door bell glows up light and a beep from buzzer attached to your door will let you know if someone is waiting at the door.

I have given all the materials to build this project and hoping how this project came out for you.

PS: I wanted to show the actual doorbell used in my region(embrace all the objects :) No Judgement please! i have added a picture on this step of the doorbell which was used before.

These are the supplies that you will need to make this door bell project

Piezoelectric Discs(these convert mechanical pressure to electric energy) of 35mm size

Buzzer(Small)

Capacitors(10mf 63v, 10mf 50v and 100mf 50v)

MB10S

BC547

LED(Green or Red)

PLA Filament

3D Printer

Cura Slicer

Soldering Iron and Lead

Super Gluw

Few Cables

Door(with guests!)

Double Sided Adhesive

I used Tinkercad to design the frame for this project, and it took me quite a while to come up with the final design.

There were 7 parts in total for this project and each one of them was designed with a purpose.

I will give the stl for all of these in this step, You can use cura slicer to slice the model and then export to the printer.

I would not recommend to make any changes to the design unless you properly understand how each parts impact in the overall performance of the project.

Since the stl are given one after the other you can easily print these.

Follow the settings that i followed while printing the each piece, Note that there is no need of any rafts or supports at the time of printing.

No need of post processing since all the parts will come out great and no much complex geometry is involved.

I will use cura slicer to print the parts and it will take more time to print the body of the doorbell and i would like to call this as rocket since it looks like rocket.

The print time will depend on the speed of printer and the print settings, i have given all the settings that i used to print them and with the placement on the print bed.

The choice of color for this main part i recommend is white because i will use green led to illuminate from inside so that the guest/pusher will know that this is working.

Green indicator from a diffused led will illuminate this inside part of frame, so consider using white pla filament here.

Rocket tip and the wings are printed on red since the main body is white and then you can print the push buttons.

Piezo discs need proper impact to work with their maximum capacity so i will be using a small ring to elevate the base from surface of frame and an pusher (flat piece with a hump).

Lastly an blue ring that finishes the project, it is an ring that is attached on the side of indicator.

After we print all these parts we can proceed with the circuit building since this is the main highlight that drives this project.

This is the circuit diagram that we will be using to build this working circuit for door bell which is self powered.

Infact if i deep dive to this term self powered actually this is powered by human push which is basically conversion of one form of energy to another.

Enough of too much deep dive, I will now proceed with the circuit we are going to make.

Start by soldering the piezoelectric disc, one at the silver plate and the other wire to the golden color plate.

Solder these terminal now to the mb10s rectifier, solder these to the input side(nothing will me marked).

The other end of the mb10s should read + and - and these also needs to be soldered with wires.

What does an mb10s do?

This converts the alternating current received from the piezo discs to the stable dc output.

But here is a problem, the output received will be in small flashes of power and cant power an led continously so we need something to contain this flash of power.

Capacitors will do the job and i will be using 3 capacitors here.

Use parallel connection between the capacitors legs.

All the positive leg from 3 capacitors will be connected to positive side of the mb10s and the negative side to te - or the ground side.

Now connect the positive side of capacitor side to the base of the bc547 (middle pin)

Hold the flat facing side and now from left if you read the pins capacitor, base and collector.

As mentioned above we are done with the base part, now connect the collector to positive of led and the buzzer.

Connect emitter to ground of all the component(mb10s,buzzer and the LED)

This will finish the circuit, You can also use multimeter to check if the circuit is working fine.

If you face any issues just interchange the piezo disc input pins(swap).

Use diffused green led or the red led here since these 2 colors illuminate well and also consume less power compared to white and blue leds and also use the small buzzer module.

There are 2 parts on the frame that will serve 2 different purposes, First one the top part that will cover the electronics circuit from the base.

Base part is the one that will hold all the electronics, Follow the electronics setup like i did.

Attach the base ring first and upon that you will add this disc and then arrange the cables inside this frame properly.

Face the led to hit the light on the top lid part so that it illuminates the surface.

Use some drops of superglue to arrange all the wires in place, Now comes the main part.

The flat part with a cylinder at the center is the pusher that pushes the piezo disc and generates power.

Here add a drop of superglue to keep these both parts in place, Close the lid and glue the button that pushes this plate.

To finish this ring part add a blue ring(3d parted) using superglue to the corners, At this point we are almost done with the assembly.

Finishing is color coded here, I mean the 3d printed parts with red color will be the finishing parts in this project.

Wings and the top part that resembles the tip of the rocket or the bell from an actual bell is glued to the top and bottom using superglue.

Side wings are connected to the side slots and it will fit with ease, Use few drops of superglue here also and hold it until the parts are dry completely.

Now the door bell is ready to be used, i will use double sided adhesive tape to fit this on the grill of my door and you can attach directly to the door also.

Press the button with some force and the led will glow with a beep from the buzzer, Releasing it will turn led and the buzzer to halt.

How cool is that! no need of batteries or recharging them or leakage issues.

This is how you could make a self powered door bell that does not need any batteries.

Do you have anything to ask? ask in the comments section but before make sure to check the video given at the below step.

Here is the complete video tutorial of this project, it includes all the build steps from design to testing the working.

If you missed to follow any step if you look at the video all your questions will be clarified.

I also tested this bell in different areas and door was the best place, you can also use in a garage or a cafe to call up someone!

This was all about this build, Hope you will try to make this and post a make and let others know what you made this weekend.

Thank you for showing interest on this instructables and have a great day!