How To Create Your Own Home Alarm

Making a home alarm is one of the best things you can do to secure your home and family, albeit temporarily. An alarm or security system made at home is easy to assemble and cheap to put together, but it may not be as secure as the high end security systems and alarms you find in stores. It will without a shadow of a doubt, though, give you the temporary safety measures that you need to put in place to ensure your home is safe and secure from unauthorized access.

The best tips for creating a home alarm system is to keep the design as simple as possible, and ensuring you use everyday materials that are readily and easily accessible. You also need to have some basic knowledge of electricity and electronics, lest you end up electrocuting yourself in the name of creating a home alarm. The simplest alarm that you can make at home will cost you nothing and you can easily make it from readily available items in the house.

On the flip side of the coin, all the materials you will need to come up with an electronic alarm can be purchased from local hardware stores for just a few pounds. If you do not have the technical ability or time to build an alarm, then you can find most of the components of an alarm system already assembled for you in online or local hardware stores as well. Here is how to create your own home alarm.

The first step involves buying a power supply and a buzzer. The power supply is simply an adapter that takes in electric currents (AC) from a wall socket and converts them into DC current for the alarm system. You want to purchase a power supply with more or less voltage than required by the buzzer, and more or less amperage. What this means is that if for example your buzzer has 9.2 volts and 30 milliamps, going for a 9 volt power supply that has 60 milliamps would be ideal. However, buying a 9.7 volt supply system could damage the buzzer.

The second step is to connect one end of the terminal of your newly acquired power supply to one end of the buzzer terminal. You can use a length of wire to join them or solder them together. While at it, you might want to protect your power supply and buzzer by mounting them in a box that has a hole that will let out the cord. Using electrical tape can help wrap them up so they do not come in contact with each other.

The next step is to solder the electrical wires after connecting them to your trigger mechanism. You might need to have a tiny rectangular-shaped iron plate on either side of the set up, and a neodymium magnet which will both work as the alarm switch. Once motion is triggered, the magnet is supposed to latch on the iron plate and turn the alarm on the moment it completes the circuit. Ensure one end of the wire is soldered to the iron plate and the other to the magnet.

The free ends of your wires should be connected to the circuit with one end soldered onto the free terminal of your power supply and the other onto the free terminal of your buzzer. Once this is done, let the magnet touch the iron plate and plug in the circuit and if everything in the set up is correct, your buzzer ought to go off. The last step is to attach the plate where you want the alarm installed. You can attach it using a tape and put the magnet right just in front of the iron plate. The most ideal place to put these two is in the door, and should be positioned in such a way that when the door is opened, it latches on the iron plate turning on the alarm.

Dan is a DIY enthusiast and loves to make things on his own. He works one of the leading wireless burglar alarm systems in UK.