Air Zound

[Melody]

Not sure if any of you have seen/heard this, but the Air Zound is a 115 decibel horn made for bikes. According to Delta's tag for the device, it's the loudest horn you can get.

I honestly don't know if it's the loudest, but I can attest that this sucker is _LOUD_. I ordered one last week from airbomb.com and it finally came in today. When I tested it, I heard ringing for 10 minutes afterwards.

What's cool is that it uses a standard bottle (included) as an air resevoir. It also has a volume control knob which is pretty cool. They advertise that you can get 50 "blasts" out of it when the bottle is charged to 80 psi, but that's only on the lowest setting. On the highest, the packaging says 30.

Still. I bike commute to/from work (starting a new job monday!) and I'm tired of trying to get driver's attentions. I think this will end up doing the job.

Now I've got to find one of our sound meters and see what the actual decibel rating is from 20 feet.

Mel

[nuthatch]

Whoa! Don't damage your hearing, Mel! I was thinking about a post in the "over 40" thread by LBTC "Bones heal!" and shivering. The older you get, the more you realize the cumulative cost of all those small things like breaking bones, hearing loud sounds, etc. Aching with every rainy day and saying "What?" all the time to your mumbling friends. Sorry! Just being a worry-wart, mother-hen like JoBob, I guess.

signed ~ Granny nuthatch

[Melody]

nuthatch, that's ok! I'm a bad worry-wart too. Since I sit behind the horn it's not too bad. It just sucks being in front of it.

Mel

[LBTC]

Nuthatch....yeah, bones heal. I said that. It takes a lot to heal them well, though. The broken collar bone from my 4 year old fall down the stairs showed up as shoulder pain and weakness at 18. 20 years later, I know when something hurts it needs to be treated with a lot of care and focus to return it to as good as or better than before. Really, I can deal with the broken shoulder detritis much easier than the bursitis that flares up sometimes without warning.

yup, I can't wait to get even older!

physiotherapists are wunderkind. exercise will keep our bodies working, along with the right combination of fuel, rest, and adventure!

Everyone here is such an inspiration to see! All you ladies rock!!

Namaste,
~T~

and, yeah, be careful about that horn! sounds wicked loud!

[newfsmith]

The Air zound is great for making noise that drivers respond to, but I stopped using it on the 3rd one in 2 years. Each time the valve that allows you to inflate the bottle seemed to fail. Once I was able to fix it by replacing the bottle. My son, the mechanical engineer, and I spent a couple hours submerging them in water, unsucessfully trying to find a way to fix them. We had fun though. I currently use a 12V car horn. Drivers really pay attention to that. It is sort of fun when someone honks at me to honk back and watch the shocked reaction. It is also great as you approach an intersection and just aren't sure that car is slowing down for it's stop sign. I also use hand held fog horns from REI. I took about a 8 inch strip of old inner tube, cut 2 holes in it that would snugly fit around the air cartridge of the fog horn. Then you slip the cartridge thru one of the holes, hold it to the handlebar, wrap the inner tube around the bar a time or 2 & finally stick the bottom of the fog horn into the 2nd hole in the innertube. It is as loud as the air zound, and has lasted longer, works better in cold weather, and is more easily moved from bike to bike. Oh, did I mention that if you want advice on how to make your bike ugly, I'm the one to talk to?

[Melody]

Which car horn do you use? Also, what are you using as its power source? How heavy is it and where is it mounted?

Mel

[newfsmith]

Which car horn do you use? Also, what are you using as its power source? How heavy is it and where is it mounted?

Mel

The horn is a standard replacement horn, low tone, from Pep Boys. It is powered by the same 12V SLA battery as runs my 46 LED truck taillight. The battery is inside a plastic tool box that is strapped to my rear rack. The taillight is bolted to the back of the tool box/battery case. The battery is made by Vector Manufacturing and can be gotten at Best Buy in the auto accessory section. It does take a special Europeon fuse which is a pain. Battery $20 + tool box $7 + horn $10 + horn button $4 + truck LED taillight $36. Until I broke it I also ran a 3w LED emitter ($56) on the same battery. The taillight gives enough light that I can see a red glow in my rear view mirror. I'll rework the front light for next winter, because this is the best system I've used yet. My NiteRider digital did not last a full season, my first NiteHawk system was great, but the replacement battery is $90. Of course this system is heavy (and very ugly). On the other hand, it is relatively cheap and has at least 2 components that blow any commercial products out of the water. I'll try to get some pictures next week. Jean

[Melody]

Cool My bike is a Bianchi Imola road bike, so there are no bosses to put a standard rear rack on. They do make rear racks that attach to the seat stem, however, most of them have a max weight of 15-20 pounds. Batteries are _not_ light plus I'd have to move my seat bag and the ulock from where they are now and put them on the rack instead if I did that... and the ulock is at least 5 or 6 pounds. So I'd be approaching max capacity or more if I ended up that way

What I could do is get 4 Lithium-polymer cells and make a custom battery. That would give me 14.4v which would be fine for a 12v horn. Plus, LI Polymer is light and its moldable, so I can just about put it anywhere.

Hrm....

Mel