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[Glorfindel]

Okay I have been following these directions http://davesdomainonline.com/microphone/babymonitormod.htm (Dave's Website) to mod a baby monitor so that I can use it as a speaker. I have all the materials I need and I have cut the rca ends off of the cord and opened it up. My problem is the second picture is slightly blurry and I can't tell which wires are connected to which. If anyone knows how it properly goes it would be a great help. TIA

[dave w]

Dave X10 can confirm, but the baby monitor audio output is coupled to the PC. So the PC wires connect to the monitor wires which are soldered to the speaker. I believe Dave disconnected the monitor speaker to silence it, so lift one of the monitor speaker wires and connect the PC wire to the lifted wire.  

[Glorfindel]

but there are 2 rca wires. So I am supposed to connect 2 rca wires to one wire from the speaker? Because if so I already tried that and it didn't work.

[Brian H]

The PC sound card has a Stereo Input and the baby monitor is monaural.
Connect BOTH center conductors to the wire driving the speaker. The red wire in his tutorial. It was also disconnected from the speaker to silence it.

Twist both outer shields together and connect them to the common on the speaker. Black in his tutorial.
Make sure none of the strands of the outer shield didn't get connected to the center wires in error.

[HA Dave]

The baby monitor is mono, while the PC's in-line input requires a stereo (plug and input). I simply soldered both of the stereo inputs on the positive side (in the pictures it would be both the red and white wires) and the shielded wire to the ground side.

Coming from the monitors circuit board red is positive and black is the ground.  




from my Site:  http://davesdomainonline.com/microphone/babymonitormod.htm

[Glorfindel]

Okay I solved the soldering wire problems and tested it out on a stereo, it worked. I then plugged it into my computer in the light blue line-in jack. And unmuted the line-in volume in the Audio Manager. It worked there too. But when I follow the video and get to the voice tab. I select line-in input and the buttons for test hardware are grayed out. I don't know how to proceed if I can't use the test hardware button.

[Glorfindel]

Sorry for the double post. But I wanted to say I fixed the problem I described in the previous post. I also found the "sweet-spot" in which the computer seems to understand me best. The problem is after I set the settings in Volume Control they seem to reset back to the default ones when bvc speaks. This effect only happens when BVC speaks not when it plays an audio file. I wanted to know if anyone else had encountered this problem and if so how they fixed it.

BTW I am using Windows XP.

[HA Dave]

Sounds like your making great progress.

You've selected the line-in for the monitors input.... that's good. The microphone jack never works as it will continue to automatically reset the auto-gain.

But in your advanced (sound) settings... now set the line-in to be the default microphone. It's OK since it is the line in... you won't have auto-gain. This should also UN-gray-out the setting.

Now... MUTE [check the check box] to mute the microphone/line-in. All the mute function does is mute the sound from the computer itself.... so it won't hear the speech the PC generates.

[Glorfindel]

Okay sorry to if I am bothering anyone. But I still seem to be having problems. Your solution fixed my last problem but I have another one. There is some interference in the baby monitor (both are on the same channel) and I have cleared out as much as I could by adjusting the balance. The issue is the little bit of interference left the computer about 50% of the time interprets as thank you this resets the computers attention and on commands over 3 words usually causes the computer to not understand. Is there a way to fix this?

[HA Dave]

Okay sorry to if I am bothering anyone.

I am happy to help.

There is some interference in the baby monitor (both are on the same channel)

Not sure what you mean here.... The baby monitors have two units... a sender and a receiver. Should I assume you mean both the sender and receiver are set to the same channel yet you still get interference? If that is the case it may just be your computer that is generating the RF interference. A CFL near ether the sending or receiving unit can also cause interference. Try getting the receiving unit a little farther from the PC and/or it's monitor.

You might find some more tips in "My setup" story:  http://davesdomainonline.com/microphone/mystory.htm

By far... I think the biggest setup problem is having too much volume to the PC. Getting the input volume adjusted between the monitors volume setting and the PC's microphone setting is touchy and can take a little time. But once you get it figured out you have it.

[Glorfindel]

Okay I'm not quite sure I wrote the last post very well and so I apologize if it was hard to understand. Anyway I have been testing it on a stereo and on the computer and have gotten the settings on the baby monitor and computer about as good as I am going to be able to get them. Originally it couldn't understand any of the commands. I have now gotten it so about half of the voice commands it can understand on the first try and the rest it can't understand at all. So I am making progress. However when I listened to it on the microphone setup wizard the background noise was almost as loud as my voice this makes it very hard to use certain commands, the computer constantly thinks I am saying thank you aswell. So I was browsing through this http://forums.x10.com/index.php?topic=14534.msg80930 topic and I noticed a reference to a direct box. So my question is would this help? Half the commands the computer can't understand. And I have spent hours working with the volume and as much as I try I can't seem to get it any clearer.

[HA Dave]

...................... I listened to it on the microphone setup wizard the background noise was almost as loud as my voice.

Yeah... well that's not right. Off hand... I'd say dial down the volume on the receiving baby monitor. Then increase the volume through the PC settings. I would try adjusting the input volume (in PC settings) till a nearby radio or TV is just nearly out of hearing range/volume. Then adjust the microphone through microphone setup.

Then.... recheck to see if you still have background noise. Good luck.

[Glorfindel]

This is driving me nuts I tried your solution but it didn't work any better. I tried switching the baby monitors to channel 2 but that didn't seem to help either. The only command it understands are: play (song), dresser lamp on/off and weather. Also whenever I run the Microphone setup Wizard. I get the following message which I notice you didn't get in your video. Also there is almost no  in your video

The quality of your recorded voice input could be better
 which would result in better speech recognition accuracy.
To improve it try some of the following

 - Speak in a quieter environment. (my room is quiet, might be the static in the baby monitor)

 - Make sure your microphone is positioned correctly.

 - Ensure your microphone is properly configured; consult
   your microphone and computer documentation.

 - Speak more clearly and do not rush.

For better speech recognition you should try to improve
these conditions, and then run the microphone wizard
again from the speech control panel.

Also does weatheraloud still exist? I can't seem to find it for download.

[npampel]

In regards to the background noise, it almost sounds like the lack of shielding in the cable going from your baby monitor to the LineIn of the PC.  The first attempt that I did with the baby monitor, I used a poor quality cable, actually I tried to use a PC microphone cable and solder it to the baby monitor.  This cable did not have shielding and I experienced similar issues as you.  I then removed that cable and used a proper cable like Dave_x10 used in his and then I had perfect static free and noise free communication to BVC.  So with all that said, I thought that I would share my experience; so you may want to check your cable from the baby monitor and LinIn of the PC.

Good Luck.
Nate

[Glorfindel]

Okay I bought a really good quality cable from radishack (shielded and gold-plated) I would have bought something with out the gold plating but it was the type of RCA to Stereo cable they had. But I think the shielding wire may have something to do with it. Because in order to get the case to fit back together and still run the shielding wire to connector on the speaker I had to connect some speaker wire to the shielding wire and then connect the speaker wire to connection on the speaker. Would this have any effect on the quality of the audio? If it does how would I put everything back together, or would it just be better to leave it apart? I am new to home automation and soldering and so I am sorry if these questions sound kind of dumb (no pun intended)