I recently received my components on the 3rd of November. I immediately wanted to begin the project. However to be honest it is a daunting task as I have not been doing practical work on audio electronics in a whole year! So to ease this pressure I think a test run of some sort is was due. On November 5th I went to the electronics lab at DMU on campus to inspect and understand all my components.
Component list
- Arduino Board
- Piezo speaker
- 2N222 Transistor
- 1K Resistor
- 100uF Capacitor
- 9v battery
- Male to male jumper wires
- 3 pin female header
There were a couple components that I was already familiar with before getting my hands on. This is because they were reviewed previously on another blog post. This included the:
- 1k resistor
- 100uF Capacitor
- 2N222 Transistor
I began with the most vital component of any circuit, the circuit board itself. This one in particular is an Arduino board. Arduino (as discussed in a previous blogpost) is an open source platform used for building electronic projects. It consists of a physical programmable circuit board, which I have in my hand in the picture below, and a piece of software or IDE that runs on a computer. This piece of software can be used to upload and write computer code to perform functions such as play sound or light an LED. One particular aspect that makes Arduino very accessible to beginners is the use of USB. Furthermore it uses C++ program which is very popular and easier to learn.
The piezo speaker is the component of the project that will produce the sound. It is a loudspeaker that used the piezoelectric effect for generating sound. In laymen terms the piezoelectric effect is when a material has the ability to generate an electric charge in response to applied mechanical stress.
The jumper wires that are going to be used are electric wires that connects remote electric circuits used for printed circuit boards such as Arduino. A jumper wire can short circuit a circuit and short cut to the electric circuit.
The battery is 9v. It will act as a source of power for the circuit. It will enable the piezo speaker to function.
What we have here for me is a 3 pin female header. A pin header is a type of electrical connecter. It is used to take current or signal transmissions.
Simple practice
Once I got to understand each and every part through getting hands on experience I wanted to test myself with building a very basic circuit that implements simple code. I found a similar circuit on Arduino’s website that uses a simpler version of the code that I will run. Here is the link to the website. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BuiltInExamples/toneMelody
Tinkercad was used before physically starting it, to ensure that the code would run properly.
This circuit plays a melody using code through a piezo speaker connected to the arduino uno board.
The setup was followed on the website through TinkerCAD and I typed all the code into the script. I then setup the schematic (as seen above). I ran the code and it played a very scuffed melody through the piezo speaker. After the test was a success, with the code being runnable, I began with following the schematics and building this simple circuit.
Once the jumper wires were connected from the arduino board to the breadboard it was time to ensure that the circuit was working. I opened up Arduino in my laptop so I could input the code. It was very easy as I just; copied the code into the Arduino and let it run. Once the code ran, I uploaded it into the board and it played a melody through the piezo speaker.
An Overall Success
The test run was a success as I got to understand all the components of my project. Furthermore I built a very basic circuit which has a similar function to mine in order to get some hands on practice before I begin the project. I am more prepared and excited to begin!