AUDIO-DOOR PHONE SYSTEM Objective of the Project This project aims at making an audio door phone, a type of intercom

circuit, based on PTT(Push-to-talk) mechanism, by using just two speakers and eliminating the use of a microphone from the circuit. Materials Used The whole project relies on the LM386 power amplifier IC, which is the most common commercially used amplifier IC providing a voltage gain in the range variable between 20 and 200. Two speakers were used for input as well as output of sound using a switch which set them in input and output mode alternatively. Capacitors of 220 F were used to filter out the noise in final output. Smaller capacitors of 10 F, 0.005 F and 0.047 F were also used. A resistor of 15 was used. Project Description The LM386 is an 8 pin chip. We select LM 386 because it consumes only 24 mill watts making it operable on a battery. The 1st and the 8th pin control the gain. When the pins 1 and 8 are left open the internal resistor of 1.35k provides a gain of 20. A capacitor placed in between the 1st and 8th pin bypasses the internal 1.35k resistor and makes the gain 200. The 5th pin is the V output that is connected to a 220 F capacitor acting as a filter. Furthermore the same pin is also connected to a 0.047 F capacitor and a 15 resistor in series and which in turn is connected to ground. The 2nd and 3rd pin are the negative and positive sides of input of the signal respectively. The 2nd pin is connected to ground. The 4th pin is the ground itself. The 6th pin is the VS, that is, the chip draws power from it. The 7th pin is the bypass that is connected to a 0.005 F capacitor and then to ground. A 9V battery drives the entire circuit. The speakers are connected to the 3rd pin when in input mode. At this time they act as microphones. The speaker at the other end requires a signal output in the range 1-2 V. The speaker acting as a microphone generates a potential difference

of a few milli-volts and the power amplifier amplifies this to about 200 times generating enough potential to make the speaker at the other end work. The whole circuit is duplicated so that one chip acts as an input to one speaker giving its output to the other. When the switch is thrown the other way, the second speaker acts as a microphone and provides the input signal to the second LM386 amplifier. This whole system acts as an audio door phone. A person standing in front of the door switches on the talk mode. The other speaker is set to listen mode. The speaker on his side acts as a microphone producing a potential difference that is amplified by the LM386. This output signal reaches the other speaker to produce a sound output. The whole system works in the opposite way if a person from inside switches on the talk mode. Circuit Diagram

Audio door phone circuit diagram Flowchart

Speaker used as microphone

LM386 amplifier

Speaker output
One-way stepwise working

LISTEN MODE

Speaker

TALK MODE

LM 386 Amplifier

SPDT Switch

LM 386 Amplifier

TALK MODE

Speaker

LISTEN MODE

Two-way working

Challenges Faced Initially we used a base biased transistor and single LM386 combination with a DPDT switch given in the circuit diagram below. This combination was used to filter high amount of noise and amplify the signal.

But this system turned out to be complicated and often resulted in a short circuit due to the complexity of the circuit. Also, we noted that the transistor amplified the initial input audio voltage by a factor of 10 only. Since this amplification could be compensated by increasing the gain of LM386 chip, we decided to duplicate the entire LM386 unit and remove the transistor. This simplified the circuit to a great extent. Now the speakers were connected to two different switches with talk and listen mode on each of them. Assembling the circuit all at once again yielded no results. Then we used the bottoms up approach and assembled the circuit by putting in the components individually. First the LM386 was attached to the circuit and tested with an actual microphone and speaker at input and output points respectively. After its success, the microphone was replaced with another speaker. When this yielded result, the second LM386 was attached to the circuit and then the speakers were connected to SPDT switches.

Picture of Assembled Circuit