DIY 555 Shift Light Buzzer
Photos and Text by: Drew Brashler (yesitsdrew5310)

Disclaimer: Modification of your car involves risks and may void your warranty. I can not be held responsible for the modifications you consciously decide to undertake nor for the results of doing so.

Note: This modification was made to an Auto Meter Pro Shift Lite, other models installations may differ slightly.


Tools Needed:
- Philips Screwdriver
- Soldering Iron
- Solder
- Small Wire Clippers


Parts Needed:
- 555 Timer Integrated Circuit
- LM386N Integrated Circuit
- 8 Pin IC Lifters
- Small Speaker or Buzzer
- 2.2k Ohm Resistor
- 220 Ohm Resistor
- 10 Ohm Resistor
- 220 uF Capacitor
- 4.7 uF Capacitor
- 0.02 uF Capacitor
- 0.01 uF Capacitor


Jason from Rally Innovations sent me his Auto Meter “Pro Shift Lite” in hopes that I could make a circuit to make a loud annoying beep when the shift light goes off. He wanted it to be fairly small and have a switch to turn on and off the buzzer.

So, I knew I needed to have an oscillator to make the tone (or beep). That oscillator needed to go through an audio amplifier to make it loud.

I talked to my father about some ideas of how to make this work. We decided on a 555 Timer Integrated Circuit (IC) to make the tone and a LM386N Audio Amplifier IC to power a small speaker.


555 Shift Light Buzzer Schematic:
Here is the schematic I came up with for the buzzer. I took the positive and negative leads off the light bulb from inside the shift light to power my buzzer circuit.




Step 1 – Bread Boarding The Circuit:
I first setup the circuit on a bread board to test it out and make sure it worked. Once the circuit was built on the board, I plugged it into a 12v battery.








Step 2 – Building The Circuit:
Next step was to get a small circuit board to build the buzzer on. Once I found that, I started laying the parts out on the board. I then busted out my soldering iron and soldered the parts into place.

 

Step 3 – Fitting the Circuit Board:
I next grabbed a small saw to trim the circuit board to a smaller size to fit the enclosure that I wanted to put it in.




Here are two photos of the circuit board cut and ready to install into the enclosure.






Step 4 – Connecting To The “Pro Shift Lite”:
Next thing I did was to grab a Cat 5 network cable and use that to connect to the Shift Light. I needed to drill out some things on the light to make the holes bigger to make room for the wider cables. I then soldered two of the wires to the positive and negative terminals that give power to the light bulb. I also added zip-ties to make it look neat and tidy. After that was all done I put the light back together.

 

Step 5 – Building The Enclosure:
I used a Cat 5 cable to connect the shift light to the buzzer circuit, and I wanted to be able to disconnect the wire incase Jason, from Rally Innovations, needed to put the wire through his dash. So I added a Cat 5 connector and hot glued that inside on the bottom of the enclosure. I added a knot in the cable for strain relief.




Next I drilled a hole and hot glued a small buzzer to the top of the enclosure. I found the buzzer in an old 56k computer modem.






I then drilled a hole in the front panel for a on and off switch.




The Finished Product:
The buzzer works great. It is very loud and is a high pitch tone around the 5kHz range. I will post comments from Jason when he tries the new shift buzzer out in his car. Here are a few photos of the finished product:














This concludes my DIY for making the 555 Shift Light Buzzer for the Auto Meter Pro Shift Lite. I hope this will help some of you out in trying to figure out how to build a shift buzzer.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day.


Drew Brashler

 

if you keep making these detailed DIYs you'll be asked to write a book.

 

too advanced for my blood awesome write up though...very thorough.

 

Haha too advanced for my blood too :x. But none the less, awsome. I wish I could just pull things like that out of my rear end .

 

that's pretty cool!

 

Good thing my 06 STI has a built in shift light and buzzer when its at the designated RPM, cause you lost me when you were saying what parts were needed.

 

Good times, I may have to give this a go soon...

 

x1000!

 

would you be able to hear the buzzer at WOT?

 

I can´t see the schematics..... =O(