When Darth Comes Knockin'

We've got a stack of projects to catch up reporting on. This one goes back months.

A couple of years ago C got a re-gifted Darth Vader bank for his birthday. When you put in a coin, Darth would spin from side to side raise his light saber and say very loudly, "Impressive! Most impressive! But you are not a Jedi yet!" The whole production would go on with the Imperial March (Darth Vader theme) blaring. Mom really hated the noise, and there really isn't much question of why the thing was re-gifted. C peeled the rubber cape off to use with his action figures. He threw the rest out when he was cleaning his room.

I pulled it out of the trash and sat down with C to hatch our devious scheme. Mom had taken down the doorbell chime ages ago to paint, and since a real visitor comes up our driveway and rings the doorbell about three times a year, we never put it back up. This also reduced the barking in the house marginally. We would get Mom this time for sure.

C and I spent an afternoon deconstructing Darth and carefully extracting the parts that made the noise. Next we pulled the guts out of the chime and disconnected the transformer under the house so the bell button was just a switch. We reinstalled the chime, inserted Darth and connected the switch wires. Worked like a charm! Chime! (that is) We got our neighbor, P, to come ring the doorbell after Mom came home. She was in the bathroom--Oh well. But now we have the only Darth Vader doorbell in town and the only dog that barks when she hears the Imperial March. Next time you visit you can try it out--once.