Electromechanical Transducer Out of a Polystyrene Conical Section!

Step 8 Finish Up

A piece of tape will hold your speaker in place. With the power off, attach the signal source to the speaker by taping or twisting. Be sure that the two wires do not touch each other at the bare connections.

Power up and rock on.

For further experimentation try different size cups, better glue, different materials, larger magnets, and different connections. This is an ugly utilitarian build just to show off the basic construction principles. But go ahead and knock yourself out making it good looking. Build a iPod speaker that looks like an old phonograph, build a giant sub woofer, or build a whole home theater system using decorated cardboard boxes for speaker cases. Go nuts you mad scientist you. Best of luck!

Comments

[Mandela]

Nice explanation and pictures ! (maybe you dont have to write the explanation, just show the images!) :P Confused still with the sound source.. Would you show the images from the sound source? (like from ipod) Requesting electric guitar amplifier :P

[fade400]

excellent. I'm going to recreate this as soon as I get some magnets. I was wondering however, did you achieve the best sounding speaker from the plastic cup or were you able to find a better material ? By better sounding, I mean better sounding in terms of music not random sounds. Thanks

[jmc1029]

pretty cool! you could be very creative with design simplicity and freedom like this . Is there a trade-off between # of coils for the driver and better/worse performance?

[Bookburn]

There are a lot of trade-offs when it comes to the coils. Since the coils are glued to the bottom of the cup, they hinder how well the bottom of the cup can vibrate and produce sounds. Heavy coils = poor performance. Light coils = better performance.

A smaller gauge of wire might be used which would be lighter, however, the smaller the gauge of wire, the greater its resistance to the flow of electricity. So you would start to lose electrical efficiency.

More coils equals a stronger magnet (to a point). With a stronger electromagnet, it may be necessary to have a stronger permanent magnet, a material that has different flexibility, or a larger coil (placing the permanent magnet and electromagnet further apart).

I'm certain that lost in the great mysteries of space and time there are equations and documented experiments that relate all of those variables (perhaps an electrical engineering textbook). But what can I say? I am but a humble middle school science teacher. I can only go so far, and hope that you've been encouraged to experiment and discover.