View new posts | View your posts Piezo buzzer help...

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Hi

I was just wondering if anyone could lend a hand in installing a piezo buzzer into my pke meter that i've made. Im looking at making the buzzer beep to the speed of the Leds. I understand it wont be movie accurate but I would like to give the Pke I built more life.

I have basic electric skills and dont mind having a go. The current Led set up is a DIY chaser that I can adjust the speed with the POT. Its running off around 12 volts atm.

I dont think it will be as simple as wiring the piezo to the desired Led. What would I add in between? or do i make some sort of circuit? and wire it to the pot?

Any help would be awesome.

Cheers in advance

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android

I think it goes in just like a speaker... But don't quote me on this.

You need to send an actual frequency to the buzzer, not just a signal, to make it emit sound. This is very simple to do, all you need is a 555 timer circuit set to the frequency you want. You could then use the LED signal as a trigger.

Told you not to quote me ^_^

With the 555 circuit... Would that be the 8 leg chip thats on the chaser board i have...?? or would anyone have a basic layout or diagram to go by at all? something I can maybe take into the electronics store to get the parts??

Thanks heaps for the help...

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android

Jack is mistaken.

A piezo inducer requires a frequency. It works like a speaker. A piezo buzzer does not. It has the circuity built in for making sound. Radio shack sells a number of buzzers. The better sounding ones will be the smaller round ones with a higher frequency.

You may in fact be able to simply connect the buzzer to one of the LEDs in your chase circuit. If you do this, the buzzer will sound for as long as the LED is on. This may or may not be annoying to you. In my own original RGB PKE circuits I turned the buzzer on for only 1/10th of a second.

If you have a pot to adjust the speed, then I'm guessing you already have a 555 circuit. you probably can't modify the circuit in such a way as to get the leds to turn on for only 1/10th of a second like I did. I used a special circuit to accomplish that.

You probably want to put a resistor on the piezo. I'm not esure if you need one, caus I've asked electronics experts in the past and they don't seem to know. But the consensus seemed to be a bare piezo acts like a capacitor, so on the off chance the buzzer does as well you want a resistor on it so that it doesn't draw too much current. The size depends on the voltage of your circuit. I doubt your circuit runs at 12v. More likely you're putting 12v into a voltage regular which is uotputting 5v to the rest of the circuit. In that case, a 250 ohm resistor on one of the piezo leads would provide a safety factor and still allow 20mA to flow max which should be enough for a loud sound.

Ah true. I'd think an inducer would give you better sound since you could set the frequency but a buzzer would be easier if you don't know much about electronics.

Cheers for the help guys. I got a piezo and did some testing. Got it all sorted Works great. Thanks again everyone.

Post a video?

I will once its finised. There are that many wires in the body that I dont think ill be able to anything with the wings... other than manual moving them. Still trying to nut that out..