Banshee Horn - The first AUTOMATIC loud horn and headlight warning system

Reviews

Screaming Banshee Horn - Sportsbike Network

Banshee Horn - Commuting Motorcyclist

Move Over!!!!! – The Truth About Cars

Incredibly Loud Horn Coming: Banshee Horn – News.Motorbiker.org

BansheeHorn – Motorcycle Warning System on Kickstarter - motorcycles.dacharycarey.com

Banshee Horn Lets Your Bike Scream Like a Banshee – blog.motorcycle.com

Banshee Horn warning system for motorcycles – Canadian Motorcycle Rider

Latest Updates

4/10/12 - Many of you guys have been sending us pictures of your installations. The images are very impressive and we would love to see more, so we've decided to start a contest. Send us pictures of your Banshee Horn installed on your vehicle as well as some descriptive captions and we will choose the best and post them on our installation guide. First prize will be 1 full Banshee Horn system for you to use on another vehicle or give to a friend. By sending us your images, you agree to let Screaming Banshee use your images on our website and installation guide. Now is your chance to show off how clean of an installation you can come up with.

To submit your images, post them on our facebook page with the comment "I WANT TO WIN!"

4/4/2012 - If your Screaming Banshee™ system sounds constantly:

We have found that there are a small percentage of vehicles (8 out of about 400 so far), that have a slightly different style of horn wiring to the majority. If you hook up your new Screaming Banshee™ system and it turns on immediately (or as soon as the ignition is turned on), then you probably have this type of horn system.

If this is the case we will supply a small adapter to “flip” the signal and this will solve the issue. We are supplying these free of charge and apologize for not foreseeing that there were two ways that our system will need to be configured. If you are encountering this issue, please email us and we will ship you the adapter device along with easy instructions on how to hook it up – all at no cost.

Note: We are starting the next production run of Screaming Banshee™ control units, and we will have a version that will work with this type of horn wiring setup. We should have this new model on the market by late in May.

For those technical people: Basically, most vehicles have a positive (+) signal that energizes the factory horn and the other side of the horn is grounded all the time, this is the most common horn wiring configuration. However, on some vehicles the horn is constantly supplied with power, either directly from the battery or when the ignition switch is ON, and the horn switch grounds the negative (-) side of the horn to energize it. The Screaming Banshee™ control unit needs a (+) signal so the adapter unit inverts the signal so the Screaming Banshee™ control unit will operate properly.

4/4/2012 – Full instructions and troubleshooting guide have been posted and updated. If you have any issues getting your Banshee Horn to work, the troubleshooting guide walks you through how to correct any issues. They can be found here http://screaming-banshee.com/how-to-install downloads are available in pdf, docx and doc.

4/1/2012 – All domestic orders have been shipped - there are only a few international shipments remain. We should have everything out the door by the end of this week!

3/16/2012 – We are pleased to announce that we will be receiving our first shipment of 1000 units by the end of this week. Thank you for your patience, we will be shipping out by the end of next week at the latest. We will be posting an update to keep you informed on the progress and will send you an email with your tracking number.

2/27/2012 – We've updated the shipping costs for both domestic and international. If you had problems with your shipping rates in the past, please check out our latest shipping costs. Rates have changed significantly! We have also limited the maximum quantity available for order to 8. If you require more than 8, simply place multiple orders or contact us directly

2/10/2012 – Welcome to the new Banshee™ horn website. We just finished a very successful launch of this product on KickStarter.com, where we sold 430 systems in just over a month! The Banshee™ horn website is now launched and to celebrate we are extending the discounted pricing we offered on KickStarter - $69 for a full system! This is just for February; the price has to go to $89 on 1st March. Because of the high demand, delivery will be in mid March.

More Information

Background

We are bringing to the market the first AUTOMATIC loud horn and headlight warning system. Using our system you can be heard by other motorists up to 3 blocks away. Just use your regular horn button; the Banshee Horn system does the rest. It works great on all motorcycles, scooters, cars, in fact it’s very effective on just about anything that has an unimpressive horn.

Did you know?

According to the statistics in “The Hurt Report,” around 75% of motorcycle crashes are collisions with other vehicles, most of which are cars and trucks. The driver of the other vehicle violated the motorcycles right-of-way and caused the accident in two-thirds of those accidents.
Over the last 30 years of riding motorcycles in various countries I’ve certainly had my share of close calls like this. I’m sure just about all motorcycle riders out there can relate to that! I wanted a solution that would retain the regular horn for friendly use, but also be able to automatically deploy a loud, intrusive horn and light combination in a potentially life threatening situation.
The challenge was designing a system that was easy to fit, and would kick in automatically in an emergency situation with no thought required. So, with this in mind and with my background as an industrial electrical engineer, I designed the Banshee Horn system which is now available for the first time. The Banshee Horn system has been patented to cover all types of motor vehicles including several design forms and iterations, in the US and many other countries.

Smart Design using Quality Parts

This product is made up of two main components: a 139 decibel compact air horn, and a control unit that is really what this product is all about.
The control unit is about the size of a matchbox and the internal parts are sealed in resin. This creates a water, heat and vibration proof environment which in turn provides superior reliability.
It has been tested in extreme temperatures (from 10 - 160 degrees Fahrenheit), and works faultlessly.

Technically Speaking

The electronics in this product control the loud air horn and the high beam lights. If you press the horn switch briefly, only the regular horn is activated. Pressing the switch for ¼ or ½ second (depending on the setting you choose) causes the logic in the control unit to now engage the raucous air horn and high beam lights. When doing this, it pulses both the horn and lights for even greater impact - as shown in the video.
When designing the electronics we kept the original vehicle horn system intact. We do not in any way alter the regular horn system in the motorcycle or car to keep within DOT (Dept. of Transportation) regulations.
Also, we don’t put any electrical loads on the existing vehicle wiring because we take our power directly from the battery. This is important as loud horns like the Banshee Horn draw significant amounts of electricity, (18 amps +/-). Factory horn wiring in vehicles is not designed to support this extra load. Our system solves this issue completely.

Settings

If you prefer to have the Banshee Horn and High Beam come on solid (not pulsing), there is a small switch on the control unit to select this option. However, the whole idea of pulsing the loud horn and the High Beam is to get the maximum attention, so we recommend the pulsing option.
On the control unit there is a small switch that allows you to set the delay. This is the time between when you press the horn switch and when the Banshee Horn starts to operate, and the lights flash. You can set this to ½ second or ¼ second depending on your preference. We prefer the shorter setting.

How easy is it to fit?

Easy! We specifically designed this to be fitted by anyone with very basic mechanical skills. There are only a few wires to hook up and we will give you all the bits to easily attach the parts.
We have a full installation section on this website and picture gallery showing how to fit this to your bike or car.
Even if you hook this up totally backwards, you will not damage the Banshee Horn system – so relax and have fun installing this cool product.

What about Cars?

We just did our first installation on a car with a pitiful horn, it was really easy, took under an hour. We added a picture to show you the finished product - its WAY louder than the factory horn system. At the very bottom you can see the control unit; the horn is right in the center. You can see the orange wire going to the battery and if you look hard the small yellow wire that heads off to connect to the factory horn. The blue wire connects to the high beam to flash the lights.