email activated sounder

Marvlin

Marvlin

Marvlin

Associate
Joined
15 May 2008
Posts
145
Hi guys

I am working on a project at work that requires the following:

1) When an email is recieved that contains a specific subject line or key phrase either a light switches on near the PC and/or some sort of loud sounder activates.

2) This light needs to stay on and the sounder needs to activate twice then go silent.

3) This should be repeated every time an email is recieved with this phrase or subject line. (obviously if the light is already on it should just stay on)

I've been looking around and surprisingly there doesn't seem to be anything like this.

My design thoughts are:

* Light and sounder would be connected via USB
* Microsoft oulook already has the ability to automatically filter and move emails to folders based on who they are from and subject line content etc.

Surely it wouldn't take much to write a program that had a variable to look for then carry out an action when it was detected in the subject line?

What I want to know is:

1) Do any of you have any idea if such a system exists?

2) Are any of you capable of creating such a system for a fee?

3) Do any of you know anyone that is capable of creating such a system for a fee?

Appreciate any help on this guys.

We have 12 departments all on PC and most of them are in busy quite noisy environments.

When we get a "rework" we need the dept team leaders to react quickly and get straight on it so we don't let the clients down.

This system will ensure the rework notifications don't sit in teamleader's inbox unattended causing us to miss a deadline.

Regards

Martyn
 
Never mind guys.

I have simplyt set up a rule for the subject line and now need a USB single speaker that is capable of achieving a minimum of 90 DbA.

I am looking now. Ideally no more than around £30.00 each
 
I was thinking something more like a USB PC to relay board (I think they are used for home automation) to an industrial sounder. A VB script could be triggered by Outlook that would tell the board to activate for however long you want.

I doubt if you'd find a USB speaker that you could drive loud enough. Sounders that can do 90dBA or above would be fed with either a DC voltage or AC mains. If someone was sitting next to the sounder when it went off it'd be a bit of a surprise though.
 
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Tealc said:
I was thinking something more like a USB PC to relay board (I think they are used for home automation) to an industrial sounder. A VB script could be triggered by Outlook that would tell the board to activate for however long you want.

I doubt if you'd find a USB speaker that you could drive loud enough. Sounders that can do 90dBA or above would be fed with either a DC voltage or AC mains. If someone was sitting next to the sounder when it went off it'd be a bit of a surprise though.
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Hi Tealc

TBH, I never knew these things existed but as you say I could connect a mains device up to one of these provided the current rating doesn't exceed the relay rating and job done as regards the switching.

I found this one that I am assuming I put the power from the mains to one relay and the output to the device to the other.
Then when both relays close the device will power up?

If I am right in saying that then I will need a 4 relay set up to activate a light as well.

VB script is very new to me but I have just found an online tutorial so I cam see if I can create this script myself.
I don't know how advanced I would need to be though?

Speaker wise I have found these that are 85 dBA which might struggle to be heard in some of the more noisy areas that can somtimes hit 87 dBA

At the risk of boring you LOL, I have found an online text to mp3 convertor that made this audio file for me.

I think I am going to buy one set of the speakers and set this up in the noisiest area as an outlook rule using this recording and just see how audible it is.

If that doesn't work then I think I will pursue your idea and hopefully learn what looks like a very useful scripting language in the process :cool:

Thanks for your help mate.

I now feel one way or the other this concept will become reality.
 
If I were going down the relay route I'd use a DC sounder. We had a 12v sounder in work a few months ago and almost broke my ear drums when I tested it at 9v. It was scary loud. What you'd do is break one of the wires going to the sounder and run it across the relay. Then when the relay is activated the wire is effectively fixed and the sounder will do its thing.

What sort of light were you thinking? If I was using what I had to hand I'd utilise a strip of LEDs, again easily controlled via a relay.

That 85dBA is signal to noise ratio and is a different scale to actual sound pressure. It is usually quoted to relate to sound quality rather than sound pressure.

I think you'd need a fairly powerful amplifier and speaker setup to get 90dB, although to be honest I don't know much about sound pressure and what speakers put out so am probably way off on that one.

It is fairly easy to obtain an amplifier and speaker and connect it to a PC soundcard or internal sound chip and run some sounds so I'd do that first and see if it is good enough before venturing into relays and other devices.
 
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Tealc said:
If I were going down the relay route I'd use a DC sounder. We had a 12v sounder in work a few months ago and almost broke my ear drums when I tested it at 9v. It was scary loud. What you'd do is break one of the wires going to the sounder and run it across the relay. Then when the relay is activated the wire is effectively fixed and the sounder will do its thing.

What sort of light were you thinking? If I was using what I had to hand I'd utilise a strip of LEDs, again easily controlled via a relay.

That 85dBA is signal to noise ratio and is a different scale to actual sound pressure. It is usually quoted to relate to sound quality rather than sound pressure.

I think you'd need a fairly powerful amplifier and speaker setup to get 90dB, although to be honest I don't know much about sound pressure and what speakers put out so am probably way off on that one.

It is fairly easy to obtain an amplifier and speaker and connect it to a PC soundcard or internal sound chip and run some sounds so I'd do that first and see if it is good enough before venturing into relays and other devices.
Click to expand...

Okay mate thanks.

Good info.

I like the LED idea. We have literally thousands of them as they are used heavily in a lot of our products.

If I remember and this works I may post a bit of video showing the system in action by way of finishing the thread :D
 
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