How to disable Sportcraft treadmill from beeping? [Solved]
 

Loud sounds bother me, as I've discussed on the forum in the past. It's the negative side of having unusually excellent hearing. I have a cheap Sportcraft treadmill from Walmart, and every time you turn it on, it beeps for at least 5-10 seconds.

It's a loud, shrill "EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" sound. :eek:

Every time you press a button, it beeps loudly again. Getting to 3.0 mph required pressing buttons about 25-30 times -- once per 0.1mph. I tend to start walking at 2.5 or 3.0, and work myself up to 4.0 for a good 40-minute cardio workout.

(Why 40 minutes? The treadmill is aimed at a HDTV + DVD player. :P)


How to Make it Stop Screaming ??!!! ---

Important: First unplug, everything. ;)

I finally dismantled the display over the weekend, which required removing about 6 screws from underneath it, which released a metal plate. About 4 more screws -- 2 of which required an allen wrench, not a screwdriver -- removed the entire plastic display from the handlebars. After unplugging a power cable, I could sit on the ground with it. About 6 more screws removed the integrated circuit board (ICB) from the plastic display casing. The ICB also had a small power cable that had to be unplugged.

On the ICB is a small round speaker.

It's fairly obvious. I initially verified this was the speaker by plugging everything back in and seeing if the little round metal thing with holes in top was the problem noisemaker. And it was. It's not much different from the "PC speaker" found on legacy computer motherboards, or in old style computer cases. It's the obnoxious thing that would beep at computer startup, especially if there was a hardware error.

Because it's part of the ICB, there's no easy way to remove it cleanly. You have two choices:
(1) Unsolder the component.
(2) Take a pair of pliers, grip it, and gently rock back and forth (and/or circular motion) until it falls off, careful to not crack the green board.

I did the second one. :thumb:

Everything was reassembled, and now works perfectly. Noisemaker not required. :cool:

This will probably work on any kind of noisy device that has no "off" function for the noisemaker.

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i hate unnecessary noisemakers too.
i always remove the warning chime from my cars - the ones that ding if the key is in the ignition etc.
usually under the dash above the drivers feet