Microphone circuits can be very simple. But the first time I tried to build one, it made me avoid them for years to come!
Most condenser mics just need to be powered through a resistor to get something out of it. And with a transistor and a resistor, you can get an amplified signal to turn on an LED or something else to see that it's working.
I had a simple circuit diagram of how to connect a mic to a tiny speaker. And I had a random mic that I had desoldered from an old circuit board.
The goal was to hear some sound from the mic through the tiny speaker. I didn't expect the results to be great, but I expected to hear something, and then be happy with my achievement.
But I connected the circuit, and, nothing!
What?! I had built some circuits successfully before, so I couldn't understand why this wouldn't work! After all, it was a pretty simple circuit. And I had triple-checked my connections.
The thing was that I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know the basics of how mics worked. And I didn't have anyone to ask for input.
So when it didn't work, I got so discouraged that I decided that mics were stupid.
And I wouldn't want to have anything to do with stupid components.
It took years before I tried building a microphone circuit again. And when I did, I spent 15 minutes reading about mics. And I learned that the voltage level to the mic matters. And the resistor value matters. Different mics will need different voltage levels and different resistor values.
Ideally, I should have spent $1 and bought a new mic with a datasheet and all the necessary info about voltage and resistor value to remove the guesswork.
Anyway, I didn't want to wait, so I tried a few old ones that I had in my drawer. The first one didn't work. But I didn't give up. This time I knew that it could be an issue with the voltage or the resistor value. Or it could even be that the mic had been damaged.
So I tried another. And what do you know - it worked!
With just 15 minutes of studying the basics of mics, and with the mindset of experimentation - I had finally overcome my mic-phobia.
So if you're stuck on some circuit, make sure you spend a little bit of time learning the basics of the main components in the circuit 😉
Keep On Soldering!
Oyvind @ build-electronic-circuits.com
PS! Wherever you are on your journey, if you want to improve your electronics skills - here are two ways I can help you learn electronics:'
- Getting Started With Electronics is a beginner-friendly eBook to help people get started. It contains clear and simple instructions on the basics with circuits I recommend you build to get started. Perfect for complete beginners.
- Ohmify is for people like you who are interested in electronics and want to learn skills like soldering, circuit design, Arduino, and circuit board design - while also building practical projects along the way.
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