How to silence or quiet a gralab 505?

[mouren]

Hi folks, I was wondering if anybody know a way to silence or quiet a Gralab 505 WHEN using the keys to enter the time? Right now, it beeps quite loudly every time I press a key to try to set an exposure time. Since I do most of my printing at night, and live in an apartment, it would be great if I can quiet or just silence it completely.

I read online somewhere somebody took it apart, but I have no idea how.

So far, I have been wrapping it in clothes, and really hold the wrap tight when pressing the timer buttons. It sort of deadens the sound slightly, but def not a long term solution.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciate it.
Thank you.

 

[Wade D]

I have a Gralab 520. It might be similar to yours. On mine the third slide switch to the right of the display turns off the tone. I leave the tone and metronome in the off position.
No sound at all. Hope that helps.

 

[Rick A]

My Gralab 525 has a four position sliding switch marked "metro-no tone-tone-warn" . If yours has a similar, just slide the switch to the "no tone" position. Unfortunatly, there isn't any way to silence the tone when setting times. Like mine, you are stuck with it. I think its there so you dont accidently bump a button in the dark and change time and not know it. While it may sound loud to you being in the room with it, I dont believe it loud enough to disturb neighbors.

 

[MattKing]

Put it into an open shoe box - it will block a lot of the sound.

 

[Ian C]

It seems that the timer should have a switch to disengage the beeper.

If not, then you can open the box and locate the transducer (miniature speaker) and unsolder one of the wires and wrap the bare end of the wire with electrical tape or install a small thread-on insulating plastic wire nut.

That will remove the transducer from the circuit making the beeper silent. I've done this to a couple of similar devices and it did no harm that I could detect.

 

[mouren]

My Gralab 525 has a four position sliding switch marked "metro-no tone-tone-warn" . If yours has a similar, just slide the switch to the "no tone" position. Unfortunatly, there isn't any way to silence the tone when setting times. Like mine, you are stuck with it. I think its there so you dont accidently bump a button in the dark and change time and not know it. While it may sound loud to you being in the room with it, I dont believe it loud enough to disturb neighbors.

Yah, that's my problem. I have turned off any beeping when the exposure finishes using the slider you mentioned.

My concern is with the sound when setting the time.

 

[mouren]

Put it into an open shoe box - it will block a lot of the sound.

Cool, I will give that a shot.

 

[mouren]

It seems that the timer should have a switch to disengage the beeper.

If not, then you can open the box and locate the transducer (miniature speaker) and unsolder one of the wires and wrap the bare end of the wire with electrical tape or install a small thread-on insulating plastic wire nut.

That will remove the transducer from the circuit making the beeper silent. I've done this to a couple of similar devices and it did no harm that I could detect.

any idea or tips on opening up the 505? I tried, but so far, only chipped some plastic.

Thanks.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Have to confess I've never opened up a 505.

But - I'll wager if you pry the feet off you will find 4 screws underneath.

If I lose that wager - the screws may be behind a door, under the sticker on the back or under the front panel overlay.

 

[Mike Wilde]

I have placed 50 ohm resistors in line with the speaker leads in a few of my kids 'too loud for dad to stand otherwise keeping around' electronic toys.

 

[mouren]

Cool. I will give them a try.

Thank you everybody for the response.

 

[kaiphoto]

Old question, but I found this thread looking for an answer. This is what I did to quiet my Gralab 505 timer set-up beeps.

Open the timer case
remove the 4 rubber feet on the bottom of the timer.
Unscrew the 4 screws with a Philips head screwdriver.

Turn the case over and gently pick up the timer case front, and set it aside.

With the timer LEDs on the left, and the power cord on the right, the beep speaker is on the upper right part of the circuit board, right above the upper right switch. It is a small back cylinder with a hole in the middle. I stuck a couple of layers of tape over the speaker hole.

When I reassembled the case, I found it was easier to pick up the circuit board and drop it into the front case. There are 2 plastic pins that line up with holes in the circuit board. Put the side panel with the power cord and outlets in the slot of the front case.

Put the back on, making sure the side panel is in the slot of the back case.

I can still hear the beep, but now it seems more tolerable. If you must have absolute silence, that would involve de-soldering the little speaker from the circuit board.