Canada
Asked — Edited
Resolved Resolved by Dave Schulpius!

Sound System For My Robot

Now that my InMoov is mobile, I need a good sound system for it. I did at one point have it over WiFi to the robot thru the EZB as per d.Cochrans "Breaking out the sound" thread, however, I was not happy with the amount of volume, so I tried a little larger amp and promptly blew the sound board in the EZB. Since then I have had it hardwired from my computer to a small amp to the two 1" speakers in the robots head. So instead of blowing the sound board out of another EZB - experimenting - I thought I would get some advice from the community, I am looking for some guidance to the great sound I have thru my computer on board the robot. Hardware and wiring advice would be appreciated. Thanks


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#9  

@bhouston Perhaps a sound bomb would work? Small and pretty loud. Only requires 5v to power

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#10  

The tip I showed is a stereo jack and it supports two channels (two speaker stereo). On this plug with a cable already attached you would find two wires inside the cable with a braid surrounding them inside the insolation. One wire for each channel and the braid is the ground.

The EZB supports only one speaker (mono). You could use either channel wire on the cable and cut off the other one. And attach the braid as your ground.

On the "speaker out" ports on the amp you would then have to find which one is active as you only have one channel active coming into the amp. You would attach your single speaker to that port.

I'm not sure you would want to attach both channel wires to the sound breakout point in the EZB. In theory it should work and give you mono sound on both speaker out ports on the amp. However the double draw by the amp may be too much for the EZB to handle. Without knowing all the variables I'd play it safe and only attach one channel wire to the breakout point on the ezb and just find the speaker port that's working. Feel brave? Go ahead and wire both wires to the EZB point and see if it will push it. Ask yourself; What's the worst that could happen and what losses are you willing to take.

With that all said the little amps with built in speakers like the Boom Ball shown above may work OK. However you may only get sound out of one speaker here also if you follow my suggestions. ;)

#11  

There are plenty of mono to stereo adapters available (one of the sad things about RadioShack going bankrupt is that is just the kind of thing you could just drop in and pick up where now we will need to search the internet for the right thing).

anyway, they basically do the same as just wiring the ring and tip together, and the amount of power they pull is certainly not enough to burn an EZ-B. More likely is that Bob hooked ground to EZ-B ground and one of the channels to the speaker - solder point and the other channel to the speaker + solder point.

It should be sleeve to speaker - , and then both ring and tip to the speaker + (can be backwards, won't make a difference since you aren't trying to balance stereo speakers). Then you will get mono sound but it will be on both channels. If you get humming, and your amp is DC powered, you can share the ground between the amp and the EZ-B power supply. Or, you can put a ground loop isolator inline with the cable going from the EZ-B to the amp. (basically, it is a magnet that the wires wrap around many times. I don't fully understand the electronics of it, but it quiets down the hum when connecting audio equipment. I have one between my iPod and my car stereo and it works wonders on the sound quality).

Alternately, just get a mono plug, connect sleeve to speaker - and + to speaker tip. Then you can get a mono amp, or use a stereo amp, but you will only have sound on the left channel.

Alan

#12  

One more question. If I want to use the Amplified sound out of the EZB, then I would connect one of the channel wires and the ground from the 3.5mm plug to the two points marked "SPKR" on the EZB. Correct?

#13  

Correct. It can't drive a very big speaker without distortion though.

Alan

#14  

That was the first place I attached my speakers. The sound was muffled and dull. I think that break out position option is just for really small non amplified speakers.

#15  

Thanks everyone for the information you provided me. I've got the EZB connected to a small amp now and I didn't burn anything up, Ya! Dave, I'm going to get that amp you suggested.