Fixing a Ring Chime Pro to run off USB
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- Опубліковано 24 лип 2024
- I have a Ring Chime Pro that no longer powered on at all, so I opened it up to see if it was something simple to fix. I filmed the process I went through to fix it, replacing the built in AC/DC converter with a standard USB connection, just for power. Follow along and ask questions below! Jump to 16:09 for the short version.
They don't even sell the v1 anymore, but it may work for other ring devices...
Amazon affiliate links (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases):
Ring Chime Pro v1: amzn.to/31obAfy
Ring Chime Pro v2: amzn.to/38ezVGk
Ring Chime (no wifi extender): amzn.to/2B6WkJC
Breakdown
0:00 It's Broken!
0:44 Remove the screws
2:03 Determining Voltage
2:45 Test with a power source
5:19 Try a bigger power supply
6:25 Try another power supply
8:16 Test the amperage (current)
9:48 Test another charger
10:58 Adding a capacitor!
13:23 Cutting up a USB cable
14:50 Connecting it all together
16:09 Recap of all the steps
I love your common sense and deductive reasoning approach. Great explanation.
Thank you kindly! It must have been all those videos from @BenHeckHacks that I've seen over the years.
Awesome work. Learned a huge amount. I was almost ready to throw mine out. Now I will try your way.
Thanks for not having music in the background.
Happy to help! It was pretty easy, and definitely worth the trouble to get it working again.
Genius work Luke! Employed this modification using an old phone power supply 5.6 Volts and works like a champ. Kudos.
Glad it worked for you!
Chime died and your video helped revive it. Thanks Luke. Even the pigtail to avoid tugs was great. USB had 4 wires with shielding but black and red wires worked. With USB cable I can mount the device in a better place for wifi. Soldered antenna I accidentally pulled off and just used crimp connections for wires and capacitor and wrapped with electric tape.
Sounds like a great technique, and even faster than mine. Happy to help!
Worked for me. Upsetting my less than 2 year chime just died. Thanks for your video, the USB cable i used had 4 wires and black and red still worked and I cut back the annoying shielding . Brilliant! Keep up the well explained videos. Even the pigtail you did was something I wouldn’t have thought of.
See my response of today, another success.
Glad you got yours working again, luckily the wiring is pretty simple! Yeah, I've seen the pigtail trick on some other electronics, it's a simple way to add some stress relief, but I don't usually remember.
Great job - mine just crapped out dang it .., thank you for the video and great soldering wiring job
Glad to help, it's not too hard to do that yourself!
Thanks Luke! Nice work! It was a bit of a chore to open without breaking too much. I used a heat gun to loosen the glue then pryed around the antenna to get the first seam loose. Once loose I used 2 small flatheads to pry along the case. A Samsung high output USB charger worked without the cap and hopefully continues.
Great idea using the heat gun! Glad it worked out using the larger charger too!
I had one that was the same way. Your fix worked! I now have a USB powered chime. Thanks DC
I did have to use a really good USB plug.
Awesome! I'm glad I was able to help!
Hi LUKE WALLACE Great job tried on my ring chime pro and it is working perfectly thank you
Glad it worked for you!
Wow! Just what I need. Useful video. Plan to rewire one to use in my RV's dc circuitry for my ring install when I am not connected to AC power.
Thanks, glad it helped! I never thought about doing this with a working unit, but you bring up a good use case!
@@LukeofAllTrades. SUCCESS!!! I went on Amazon and got a "DROK Mini Voltage Reducer that steps down DC to use the Buck Converter Board's Volt Step-Down Transformer Power Supply Module." I soldered the red wire of the 5v 300mA USB cord to the Buck Converter Board ("BCB") input and soldered the main Ring board's red wire to the BCB's output. I had to create a pig tail of the black ground wires with a WAGO connector to solder them to the BCB's common ground. The Chime Pro not only booted up smoothly; it also updated its firmware. Initially, I was going to reduce the voltage output of the BCB (down to 2.5v or 1.8v), but it's running smoothly and, it appears, I don't need to do it (but it's two quick adjustments to the BCB). This is great for my travel trailer, which runs on 12v Lithium batteries and propane and is powered by solar when not connected to an AC power supply. Now the final step is to hook it up in my trailer to its 4G LTE hot spot unit, to see if I can make full use of my Ring account. Again, thanks!
@@edberrios3679 That's great! I don't know if the Ring will operate below 5 volts, but it's great you have a board that can give you up to 5 amps out, you could probably power several things off that! I wonder how many 120v AC to 5v DC devices I have around the house that are doing the power conversion, I'm sure when running off solar every milliamp counts! Congrats again!
Hey Ag, nice video! I have the same problem and I won't use your fix on my broken Chime Pro to correct my problem, but it looks like a fun project to do to see if I can make it work. Thanks! For $25 bucks I will just buy the second generation Chime Pro for my doorbell.
Haha, thanks! Yeah, fun if you have the time, but not too expensive to just replace.
Thanks for the video. Great detail.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you very much for sharing this video, appreciated!
You're very welcome!
@@LukeofAllTrades. my Ring Chime pro back in life in 30 minutes after viewing your video. Thanks
Wow, that's awesome!
Thanks! This worked!
One other thing that stopped was the blinking blue Ring LED. Weird that it worked during the test but stopped. Then ... ChimePro suddenly just began giving me voice commands and announced it was complete.
Glad it worked for you! The blue LED is supposed to be a status indicator of some sort, so maybe it was trying to tell you something, but I'm glad it started working regardless!
Same thing happened with me but it was after a firmware update I got on the app, I think the firmware update disabled the blue led completely
@@CharmandrigoGG Yes!!! After an update!
It still works though and I used an adapter with a long cord, so my Chime is under a couch... the blue LED is no longer important to me.
luke, another question--I just took apart a usb plug and I have 3 wires in this one--red, green and white. what to do now?
Thanks for a great video. It got me going. My power supply circuit also died. (The tell-tale smell of blue smoke escaping) I am curious with your standard USB charger. When you say standard, I assume you mean 5v DC and 500miliamps, is that correct? I managed to get mine working with a USB charger that pushes 1amp. During the boot procedure and all, the current draw did not exceed .3 amps on my Fluke Digital Multimeter. I gave my Chime Pro ample time to boot and it shows up in the smartphone app. I was able to manipulate the Chime Pro with the app. My LEDs do not come on, which is fine with me, as mine lives in my garage.
Yeah, the 500mA standard should be enough, the capacitor was critical for me to get it through some little surge during bootup, but during normal usage it's less than 500mA. That's weird that the LEDs don't come on.
The blue smoke might have escaped from the LEDs too for all I know. Considering that you started with 5v and 500 milliamps and the LED lit up, then my theory of needing more current is out the window.
Thanks for the video it helped a lot and my ring network is back in action.
@@micchow7381 awesome, happy to help!
Thanks for making this video!! So tired of companies making cheap disposable products and filling the landfills. I just can’t stand throwing things away and not trying to fix them!!! I also keep all sorts of inverters/converters to possibly se at a later time. When you connect the paper clip; “This is stupid, don’t do this!” 😂 funny stuff!!
Thank goodness for people like you taking the time and sharing.!!
Thank you for the kind words, I also hate throwing out things that are just barely broken. I fixed my old TiVo too, you should check out that video as well, I fixed it for just a few dollars in capacitors.
luke--ps--I figured the red was hot and I can touch either the white or green to get approx 5v--could I put the white and green together to make a thicker neutral? thanks
Green is probably data, and depending on the charger could have resistors attached to it internally to trigger higher amperage draws for faster charging. I wouldn't combine it with the white, it will probably not work correctly.
Hi Luke, I have a Ring Chime Pro with the antenna in screwed from the body. How did you open your back without breaking anything?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Frank
I managed to open it up. I used the suggestions of other people who had the same problem. It was a lot of help. Thanks
That's great, sorry I didn't get to you soon enough, but as you can see, it's not real easy. I think they glue it or something, so you have to break that seal to open it up. Enough force and it will separate along the seams, glad you finally got it!
Is there an increase in amperage draw when the door is rung? I am willing to do this, but dont know if your hack will work when the bell is rung and the speakers output sound. Great video tho!
Great question! I checked and there seem to be no issues when people ring the bell and it outputs sound. Loud and proud!
@@LukeofAllTrades. awesome thanks!
Can I do this with ring doorbell transformer plug in
I'm not 100% sure, but probably not. If you can find an image of the transformer that shows the voltage and amperage it puts out, that would tell you. The images I found show the transformer puts out 20 volts AC, which won't work if you try to use 5 volts DC. Most doorbell systems put out 8-24volts AC, so not as high as your wall outlet, but more than USB, and alternating current instead of direct current.
How did you open the back part?
It was definitely tricky! I took the screws out, and then had to pry it open. I think it's glued to help hold it shut, so you have to get through that. Some people have said heating it up with a heat gun helps soften the glue, but I just eventually was able to force it open. Good luck!
Great idea, didn’t work for me though. Components on my PCB were fried and stank really bad when I opened it up. Couldn’t get anything to power even with a direct 5V DC power supply. Must have been a surge….maybe. Guess I’ll use a surge protector from now on? 🤷♂️
Oh no! If the magic smoke gets out, it's much harder to fix.
Could the faulty capacitor be cause of it not working?
Based on all my other videos where it was a bad capacitor, I wouldn't be surprised!
I think the actual problem is the snap on ac plug. The brackets appear to become weak over time and no longer make a connection.
I don't remember if I tested for that, it's definitely worth checking and trying to bend them back so they connect again. It would be a much easier fix for sure!
I didnt even thought it took 5v from the PSU, my guess is your chime pro's psu died
Yeah, that's my guess too.
How did you get the back open so easily? I'm having a helluva time trying to do that right now.
It was tough! I did that before I started filming, if you notice one of the antenna is kinda floppy because it got damaged when I was trying to open it. I think they may have glued it a bit, it was pretty tough to break loose. Keep at it!
I noticed it was already opened .. haha. I eventually got it open by leveraging a screwdriver against the bottom-left inlet for the outlet.
@@phillipring9534 Great technique! Hopefully the rest of the process was pretty straightforward!
do i need to have the capacitor to make it work?
A couple people have said they didn't need it, it depends on how good the power supply you use is.
@@LukeofAllTrades. thank you
on the computer i get 5v on dcv and 10v on acv
I can get the 5v from the computer but nothing from the 120v outlets--weird
It's actually ridiculous how broken these are, seems like most people will get this issue at some point and ring refuses to acknowledge it
Agreed, based on the number of views it seems to be a common problem. At least the fix isn't too crazy!
did all kinds of combos--no go--chime wont turn on but thanks
Do you have a multimeter? Even a cheap one from Harbor Freight is sufficient for basic stuff like this, and you could verify that red is positive, and white is negative, and that it's outputting 5 volts when it's plugged in.
Great video. Two of my chime pro and one regular are broken. Ring can’t stand behind their products. I wish I didn’t buy too many ring products back them so stuck with them now.
Good luck, I'm not sure why they have such a problem, at least the problem is relatively easy to fix yourself.