Basic siren question for alarm.. I'm having a problem replacing

[Big Body LX]

The siren on my alarm fell off it's post a while back and it got caught in the alternator belt... the siren was completely damaged and unfixable. I don't really care about the siren that much and want to just replace it with a piezo. I bought the piezo and hooked it up to the wires that the siren was originally on. The piezo chirps but it is barely audible... so of course I thought it might be a defective piezo. I hooked it up to the battery straight (pos+neg) and it worked loud as hell... so it's not defective. Why wouldn't the piezo work with the preran wires that the old siren worked on? I mean... it works but it is like a cricket chirp as far as loudness goes. Does a piezo draw more power than a regular siren?

How do I go about fixing this problem?

[pretty_ricky302]

maybe u need a resistor or some extra piece to make more power. they may be two different voltages

[PRIMOCB7]

the piezo siren will not work like a regular alarm siren because it does not have a circuit board/trigger switch inside it; also, the piezo is reallly for interior use only. i have a piezo tapped into my alarm siren which triggers it to go off when the alarm is armed/disarmed and when its set off.

[Big Body LX]

But isn't the wire that goes to the siren a positive that's tripped when the alarm goes off? It would seem to me that power is power. When it does go off (tested) it does go off and does a little jingle like a siren would but it's barely audible.

[PRIMOCB7]

But isn't the wire that goes to the siren a positive that's tripped when the alarm goes off? It would seem to me that power is power. When it does go off (tested) it does go off and does a little jingle like a siren would but it's barely audible.

it is, but if you open up an alarm siren, the internals contain a trigger switch.. which the piezo doesn't have. the alarm siren acts as a relay to engage the piezo. also, the piezo is around 3-5 decibels, but has a higher pitched sound to it while a standard alarm siren is rated around 19-20 decibels. trust me, inside the cabin, the piezo is an ear-killer, annoying at most.

[Big Body LX]

102dB for the piezo

[PRIMOCB7]

102dB for the piezo

you're right on the dB part.. sorry, my info was incorrect on that
but try splicing it onto a standard alarm siren and see what happens.

[Big Body LX]

K. Thanks for your input

[Big Body LX]

OK, I found this:


So I'd run the constant to something like the battery or whatever, then the ground of course to a ground which could be shared by the piezo I'm assuming, then run the piezo positive to the relay, then run the relay switch to the positive that was coming from the alarm brain to the original siren correct?

[Big Body LX]

How often do you get bad relays? I hooked it all up with the relay and it still doesn't work. I tested my ground, my constant, my remote, and my out to accessories and they're all good but no work.

[2.2litrebeater]

im a little confused by your relay talk, so hopefully im not off point.. you cant use just a peizo siren, the reasoning is because the siren generator is in the siren, and a peizo siren does not have a generator in it, it works by tapping into a preexisting siren. the only way it would work as if your alarm had the siren generator in the brain which 99% of alarms dont, older cliffords do and there are a few others. think of it like an amp, your putting 12v and ground to it and its turning on but if you dont plug in those signal wires its not going to play anything.

[Big Body LX]

When I hook up the piezo to the siren wire that was going to the old siren and ground the ground wire on the piezo it plays but it's barely audible. When you hook up the piezo to a direct ground and direct power source it screams. It's not so much the music I care about.. more just the noise.

In theory, the siren wire is a remote.. which has power transferred to it when the alarm is set, unset, and triggered. So running the siren wire to the relay should provide sufficient power to turn the piezo on... kind of like a switch you'd hook up for fog lights under your dash.

BTW, when I had the piezo hooked directly up to the siren wire and ground and set the alarm off by kicking my tire, it played a song.. not just went off.