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Miniature, pleasent-sounding buzzer

StevenS

I have an Itaki cooking lunch box, which is a tiny Japanese 200W steamer, made to take your lunch to work and heat it.

 

Its operation is pretty simple: It has a heating element, switch, pilot light, and temperature-controlled switch. You put water it in, and when the water boils off, the temperature rises and turns the heating element off.

 

The trouble is that there is no audible alert when it is done - you have to set a timer and keep checking the pilot light.

 

I want to add a buzzer that will make sound when it's done cooking. My plan is to take the voltage that will be across the temperature-controlled switch. I'll have a capacitor in series to drop the voltage, and a full-wave rectifier to make DC to power a 5v or 12v buzzer.

 

My issue is that I'd like to use a buzzer that sounds pleasant, not annoying. A repeating "ding" would be nice, but I can't find anything to buy that sounds pleasant and will fit in the small space I have.

 

Do you know where I could buy such a sounder?

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    Hi Steven,

     

    There's quite a few ways, but I don't know of any single off-the-shelf sounder that is pleasing. Mostly they are designed to be unpleasant and to alarm : )

    I did a doorbell project a while back, and I concluded that if I wanted a nice chime, then I'd need to do it digitally, so that's what I did, it involves a lot of effort though.

     

    If you search aliexpress, you'll find tiny (stamp sized) boards that are intended as chime effects for doorbells. They require a miniature speaker (not piezo disc).

    It's a low-cost electronically generated chime so it sounds electronic : ) You can even get sound recording boards for custom sounds, but they won't be hi-fi.

     

    Below is a circuit for a nice-sounding piezo output generator, it makes just a constant tone, not a ding, but it's a kind of old-fashioned design (i.e. the type that sometimes sounds as if it is drifting slightly as the battery dies : ). I found it pleasing because I like that sort of analog drift, but it is subjective.

    It requires a small tranformer to be wound though - use very thin enamelled wire (0.15mm approx maybe), the left side has about 100 turns, and the right side has 18 turns (you can wind the right side one on top of the other one. You can replace R1 with two 22k resistors if you like (it's not critical) and the circuit runs from 1.5V to 9V.

     

    image

     

     

    Alternatively, for an easier analog sound, consider using a 555 chip. If you arrange two 555s in the right way (it is experimental, you'll have to try different values until you finds something pleasing), you can make it do siren-type sounds i.e. slow-changing, or alternatively faster vibrato style effects. See here to learn how to use the 555, with some examples: 50 - 555 Circuits

     

    Depending on how far you want to go, you could even consider MP3 boards. That would be high-quality, but possibly excessive (depends how far you wish to go to reach the sound that meets your needs : )

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  • 0

    Hi Steven,

     

    There's quite a few ways, but I don't know of any single off-the-shelf sounder that is pleasing. Mostly they are designed to be unpleasant and to alarm : )

    I did a doorbell project a while back, and I concluded that if I wanted a nice chime, then I'd need to do it digitally, so that's what I did, it involves a lot of effort though.

     

    If you search aliexpress, you'll find tiny (stamp sized) boards that are intended as chime effects for doorbells. They require a miniature speaker (not piezo disc).

    It's a low-cost electronically generated chime so it sounds electronic : ) You can even get sound recording boards for custom sounds, but they won't be hi-fi.

     

    Below is a circuit for a nice-sounding piezo output generator, it makes just a constant tone, not a ding, but it's a kind of old-fashioned design (i.e. the type that sometimes sounds as if it is drifting slightly as the battery dies : ). I found it pleasing because I like that sort of analog drift, but it is subjective.

    It requires a small tranformer to be wound though - use very thin enamelled wire (0.15mm approx maybe), the left side has about 100 turns, and the right side has 18 turns (you can wind the right side one on top of the other one. You can replace R1 with two 22k resistors if you like (it's not critical) and the circuit runs from 1.5V to 9V.

     

    image

     

     

    Alternatively, for an easier analog sound, consider using a 555 chip. If you arrange two 555s in the right way (it is experimental, you'll have to try different values until you finds something pleasing), you can make it do siren-type sounds i.e. slow-changing, or alternatively faster vibrato style effects. See here to learn how to use the 555, with some examples: 50 - 555 Circuits

     

    Depending on how far you want to go, you could even consider MP3 boards. That would be high-quality, but possibly excessive (depends how far you wish to go to reach the sound that meets your needs : )

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