potentiometer on a buzzer?

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:23 pm

OK, so i'm building a micro door alarm for a friend of mine and this kid doesn't know jack about electronics. He suggests all sorts of weird and hard or impossible things to go in it. Since i'm just that nice of a person, I am going to do something cool to it. make it micro sized and add a volume control for the buzzer. it's already microsized, but about the volume control. is it even possible to use a potentiometer on a 3 volt buzzer, what kind of pot I'll need, and how to wire it up to 2 or more buzzers. If you help, i'll say thankyou. what more could you want?

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:02 pm

what does your buzzer circuit look like?

it seems pretty theoretically possible. but when you say "buzzer" do you mean a self-contained buzzing unit, or a sound generating circuit hooked up to a speaker. in the first case it might be a bit harder...

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:43 pm

well, to get the big dissapointment out of the way I just used one of those 1.5 to 3 volt buzzers from radioshack. heres a pic:
[img][img]http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/7950/e ... mv8.th.jpg[/img][/img]
the white blocks are buzzers. The switch turns the circuit off when pressed. it is a simple circuit, the simplest thing you can imagine.
all it is is linked in a series with 2 buzzers, a 9 volt battery, and a switch.
can a pot go in between the leads ob a buzzer?

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:20 pm

you could try, but it might just turn off below its minimum voltage, or it might change the pitch instead of the volume. i really dont know how those buzzers work.

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:31 am

yeah, i'm using a 1.5 to 3 volt buzzer that will be powered by a 9 volt, so there's a chance that there will be plenty of overkill voltage to keep it from dropping out. This is the simplist circuit that i've made in years.
it should suck up 3-6 volts on this battery cause i'm using two buzzers.
any idea of what ratings of pot i'll need to accomplish this? (ohms, resistance, that kind of stuff. If I don't have enough info to determine this, just speak up.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 8:38 am

ohms is the same thing as resistance. the way pots work, anything in the 10k - 500k range should be ok.

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:22 pm

ok, i'm going to attempt to wire up a pot in between the wire of the positive lead of the buzzer.

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:46 pm

JHC I just broke my camera cause my idiot (no, not idiot- retarted)
relative never keeps it's desk clean so the camera just slid right off and now won't work. frickin wonderful. So now I can't take a picture of the type of pot I have so now everything is screwed up. wonderful.
the type of pot I have is a micro size 100k ohm 50v dc 0.1 watt pot. will it work for this circuit??

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:01 pm

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:19 pm

OK...soldering.....

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:25 pm

OK.....something isn't right.......
the pot has three leads so I hook the positive wire of the buzzer to the wiper lead (there are two leads on one side, and 1 on the other, and the box says that the one lead is the wiper lead) and one lead of the switch
to one of the two leads on the other side of the pot.
Didn't work. so I switched the switch lead to the other lead on the side that has two leads. still didn't work. so I took the lead that was on the wiper lead and put it on the lead right next to the lead with the switch wire, so there are two wires on the side with two leads. STILL doesn't work. I don't think there's any voltage coming out of the pot- I think it's resisting all the power going to the buzzer. So you think I should try a different pot or abort the potentiometer idea?
Am I confusing you with all the words about leads?

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 5:00 pm

Code: Select all

positive power

     ^
     |
     |
     >
     <
     > <----- output to buzzer
     <
     >
     |
     |
     |
     |
     v
     
  ground

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 5:40 pm

huh....I used the negative lead of the buzzer (I think...)
And I think that it might have been arranged in this way......
hmm.......let me try this again.....