Hello, I have an electronic quartz clock with chimes that needs a volume control. It has a 2 1/4 speaker and is way too loud for the room it is in. Is there any place that makes a inline volume control that I might be able to use to adjust this so it wouldn't be so loud. Please reply to the group. Thanks, Marty
volume control for clock
May 21, 2008
6 Replies
Place a variable resistor in parallel with the speaker and adjust until you get a reasonable volume. You can then replace the variable resistor with a fix resistor of similar value.
If it's merely a clock, chanced are good that it's a piezoelectric transducer, ie quite high impedance. So he may need to start with quite a high value of resistor.
Michael
He said 2.25" speaker so maybe not!
He did, I missed that.
It seems odd though, because in a straight alarm clock (as opposed to a clock radio) all the ones I've looked at use a piezoelectric transducer.
Michael
Not a good idea since the driver may be overloaded by the lower
impedance of the speaker-resistor combination.
A better way would be be to keep the load impedance constant while
attenuating the input to the speaker, like this: (View in Courier)
VOUT>----[R1]--+-----+
| |
[R2] [ZL]
| |
GND>-----------+-----+
where:
R1 + (R2||ZL) = ZL
JF
I'd agree, it seem that only clock radios still use a speaker for the alarm. I do like John's approach to balance the load impedance however. This is an L pad.
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