Sometimes we need an indicator that indicating status of our
appliance / system. For some reason the visual indicators can’t be used, for
example, in standard IPxx (ex: IP56, IP65, IP67 etc.) box that must be water
proof and dust proof, it’s very difficult and expensive to attach visual
indicator. I think it’s possible to made but must a big factory not a DIY maker
like us J.
Or another case, our instrument is in environment that’s too far away to be
seen or dark for naked eye. Well, if you meet these situations, sound indicator
can be your solution. The sound indicator can increase the resale value of your
instrument or at least look more professional and easily troubleshoot in case
of equipment failure.
For this sound indicator you can use a 'buzzer' or ‘tweeter’,
which is a kind of electric current modifier transducer into human-audible frequency
(20 Hz - 20 KHz). Buzzer sounds can only be monotone, but by adjusting frequency
of the incoming voltage to the buzzer pinout, you can issue a simple melody
with this component. There are two kinds of buzzer available on the market,
namely passive and active buzzer. Both of them is very cheap.
Arduino - Active Buzzer Experiments
If using passive buzzer, we must use additional circuit, i.e.
a transistor current amplifier and a resistor on its basis. If our system is a
complex circuit, it will spend an additional PCB space and make it difficult to
manufacture PCB layout. Well, the solution you can use is using an active
buzzer that can be directly connected to Arduino’s digital pin. Buzzer active
has a current amplifier in its internal circuit, so we can immediately wired to
the Arduino digital pin that only has current sink of 10 mA.
Handle active buzzer with Arduino is fairly easy. Try to open
example sketch in File-Example-Basic-Blink in Arduino IDE menu (download in
arduino.cc if you do not have one). Then connect the buzzer’s longer pinout to Arduino
pin 13, and the shorter one to pin Ground (GND). Upload the sketch and listen,
the buzzer will sound once every 1 second.
If you want more fun again, now try opening example sketch
in File-Example-Digital-toneMelody menu. Connect the active buzzer longer
pinout to Arduino pin 8, while the short one fixed at Arduino GND pin. Shortly
after uploading to the Arduino sketch, listen to the 'music' that came out of
the buzzer. It's fun, isn’t it? You can either advance the sketch by issuing a
more varied tone for your project.
A blogger, electro-hobbyst, freelancer n technopreneur. I'm an Indonesian, I did my best to make tutorial without spelling errors, please CMIIW or if something burned your eyes..
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