psone speakers + volume knob, help.

[Cojiro]

How exactly do these psone speakers work? They have one positive wire, and one negative wire. The negative is ground, the positive is, what? Is it the signal wire, and is the signal from that wire also enough to power the speaker?

I have the speakers and wired a headphone jack, all in stereo. I want to do away with the on board tact switches and instead to use a volume knob. Are these things just potentiometers? And to keep from mixing signals, would I have all the normal signal wires going to the speakers/headphone jack, and then tie all the ground wires together and put it through the volume knob?

Thanks.

 

[bud]

How exactly do these psone speakers work? They have one positive wire, and one negative wire. The negative is ground, the positive is, what? Is it the signal wire, and is the signal from that wire also enough to power the speaker?.

Speakers are made of a magnet and a coil basically. What they do is convert the electrical signal into sound waves. Thats how I understand it anyway.

 

[seanmacdonn]

I have the speakers and wired a headphone jack, all in stereo. I want to do away with the on board tact switches and instead to use a volume knob. Are these things just potentiometers? And to keep from mixing signals, would I have all the normal signal wires going to the speakers/headphone jack, and then tie all the ground wires together and put it through the volume knob?

Thanks.

as far as I know, it is a digital potentiometer, and you might be better off making your own audio amp and using a switch to go to the headphone jack. There probably is a better way of doing that (like tapping into the audio out before you get to the digital potentiometer) but I couldn't tell you how to even start that. There's a thread somewhere here saying how to make an audio amp, but I'm too lazy to link... Also if you keep your speakers turned up using the digital pot you could wire in a regular pot, but I don't know if the digital pot will stay turned up, I've never tried it. Also, I'm pretty sure the way you said you want to wire in the potentiometer is right.

 

[Cojiro]

You can already do this with the audio amp on the psone screen, you can wire it so you have speakers and headphone jack, and the regular speakers cut off when you plug in headphones, because there is a switch wire wired directly to the headphone jack (because of the mechanics of the jack, it knows when something is plugged in or not). the speakers have a signal wire and ground wire each, and the headphone jack has L audio, R audio, a switch wire, and ground.

The theory here is to have the volume on the psone screen turned all the way up, then disconnect the tact switches, connect all the ground wires (from speakers and headphone jack), run them through a potentiometer, and then ground them wherever. Will this setup work?

If I can't get this to work with the psone speakers and onboard audio amp that is already there, I would sooner stick with regular tact switches.

 

[Mario]

While that idea will technically work, you'll kill the audio amp pretty quickly. Normal speakers are 8Ω. Adding more resistance puts strain on the amp, and will burn it out.

What you can do, however, is set up a pot on the INPUT line that acts as a voltage divider. That should do the job pretty well.

 

[Cojiro]

how would I keep left and right audio separate?

 

[Mario]

You'd have to use a stereo pot. It has two pots in one that both turn at the same time.

http://www.google.com/search?q=stereo+p ... r&tbm=isch

 

[Cojiro]

oh sweet, didn't know about those. so are we talking about installing them between the 64 and the screen board, or between the screen board and the speakers?

 

[Mario]

Between the 64 and screen, NOT between the screen and speakers. That will damage the amp.

 

[Cojiro]

Ahh, I see. So something like THIS?

 

[seanmacdonn]

But will the digital pot remember where the volume is at?

 

[Cojiro]

If I understand correctly, the volume will be turned all the way up at the psone screen, all the time, and the stereo potentiometer will be controlling the strength of the audio signals. Anyone know if the one I linked to on the first page will work?

 

[Mario]

Yes, that will work just fine. If you need help wiring it once you get it, go ahead and ask.

 

[Cojiro]

like this?

 

[Mario]

Yep, exactly like that!

 

[Cojiro]

Cool, thanks for all your help.