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DESIGN OF A CIRCUIT WHICH PRODUCES A CONSTANT AUDIBLE TONE (OF

ABOUT 800 HZ) IN AN 8 OHM SPEAKER FOR 5 SECONDS AFTER A BUTTON IS
PUSHED MOMENTARILY
Student
University of Southern Queens Land

2

Objective
The aim of the project is to design and test and electronic circuit. The circuit should
produce a constant tone of ~800 Hz in an 8 ohm speaker for 5 seconds when a button is pressed
momentarily.
Block diagram
The block diagram of the proposed circuit is illustrated below:

Trigger circuit: the trigger circuit is essentially the switch that activates the oscillator when
pressed momentarily. The trigger is designed such that when the user presses a button
momentarily, the trigger signal lasts for 5 seconds.
~800Hz Oscillator: this part is responsible for producing an audio frequency that is connected to
the speaker. The oscillation produced from this part is a square wave at about 800 Hz frequency.
The 8 speaker is the transducer from electrical energy to sound energy. An ac signal is
necessary for proper output in the speaker. The connection should also consider the current
limitations of the oscillator circuit.
Circuitry for each block
The trigger circuit is implemented using a monostable from a 555 timer as shown in figure 1. A
high signal of 5 seconds duration was required hence the choice of resistors and capacitor values.
Trigger
Circuit
~800 Hz
Oscillator
8 speaker
3

A monostable produces a high output for a fixed duration of time when manually triggered with
a low input (USQ, 2011). The ON time for the output pulse is calculated as below:
T
ON
1.1 R
1
C
To attain a theoretical 5 seconds, possible values of R
1
and C that could have been used are
4.55M and 1F. However, 4.55M is not commercially available. The closest value is about
5.1M. Moreover, the term 1.1 R
1
C is an approximation and not an exact value therefore a
slightly higher value could yield a value less than theoretical in practice.

Therefore, in the below circuit, the output pulse is ON for 1.1x5.1Mx16 seconds
5.1M is a typical resistor available commercially. 1F capacitor is also available.
The values required to achieve an exact 5 seconds cannot be obtained commercially (Davis,
2011).



The ~800 Hz Oscillator circuit was also developed using the 555 timer as shown in figure 2.
C= 1F
R2 100K
R1 5.1M
+9V
PUSH
OUTPUT
Figure 1: Trigger circuit
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The values of R
1
and R
2
cannot go below 1K so as not to destroy the IC chip with excess current.
(Maximum current for 555 timer is 200mA). The value of R
2
should be kept as low as possible
so that the duty cycle of the signal produced to be about 50% (Cogeco, 2011)
In the above design, R
1
=8.2K and R
2
=2K. These are typical nominal values of resistors available
commercially. The frequency of the signal produced is given by

)

The capacitor 0.1F is also an available nominal value.
The frequency produced was thus

()

The duty cycle is calculated as:

%
The duty cycle achieved was good. The ON time and OFF time were almost equal. A duty cycle
of about 50% would imply a tone of even quality.
The speaker is connected to the trigger circuit through a 100F and a 100 resistor in series as
shown in figure 3.
C= 0.1F R2 2K
R1 8.2K
+9V
OUTPUT
Figure 2: ~~800 Hz oscillator
Connected to the trigger output
5


The purpose of the 100F capacitor is to increase the output by providing an ac current to the
speaker so that it is driven in both directions. Without the capacitor, only a pulsating DC current
would reach the speaker. The 100 resistor limits current to <200mA so as not to overload the
555 timer.
BUILDING AND TESTING
Trigger circuit
The trigger circuit was built as illustrated in figure 1. The apparatus used was: Breadboard,
555timer, 100K resistor, 5.1M resistor, 1F capacitor, a soft switch and a 9V dc source. All
connections were made on the bread board. The soft switch was used to input a pulse to the
monostable manually for a short time.
The output Pin 3 was connected to a CRO and the signal was observed.
Results:




B
8 speaker
Output of ~800Hz oscillator
Figure 3: Speaker connection
100
100F
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Input Output
Momentarily press the soft switch.
The equivalent electrical signal as seen when
connected to oscilloscope


The output was a square wave as above. The
high value of +8.9 V lasted for about 5.4
seconds

~800Hz Oscillator circuit
The circuit was built on a bread board as in figure 2. The components used were: 0.1F
capacitor, 8.2K resistor, 2K resistor, connecting wires and a 555 timer. The output was
connected to the CRO and observations were made. Frequency was recorded and the voltage
peaks were noted. The input to the oscillator was connected to the output of the trigger circuit.
Results:
Input [at terminal 4] output

Frequency=~784Hz
T
HIGH
=0.7ms
T
LOW
=0.5ms

+8.8V
t= 0 ms 0.7ms 1.2ms
+8.9V
t= 0 sec t=5.4sec
0V
+8.9V
t= 0 sec t=5.4sec
0V
0V
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From the results, the frequency obtained was slightly less than 800Hz. The reason is because of
the design compromise due to component value limitation. However, the difference was not
much. Moreover, the obtained frequency is very much within an audible range by the human ear.
Speaker connection
The output of the oscillator was connected to the speaker circuit of figure 3. An oscilloscope was
placed at point B to monitor the signal reaching the speaker.
Results:

The ac signal obtained at point B is as shown in the above diagram [color blue trace].
An ac signal is a better drive for the 8 ohm speaker because it drives it in both ways hence giving
a higher output.
The complete circuit
The complete circuit is shown in Figure 4
The complete circuit connection was done on a breadboard by combining the three blocks
together. The circuit was tested once more and no significant changes were observed because of
combining the blocks.
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Discussion
The theoretical aspect of design and the practical results obtained did not differ much. It was
however notable that practically, the design produced a triggered pulse of about 5.4 seconds and
not the theoretical 6 seconds. The difference is accrued to arithmetic approximations used in
theory.
C= 1F
R2 100K
R1 5.1M
+9V
PUSH
C= 0.1F
R2 2K
R1 8.2K
B
8 speaker
100
100F
Figure 4: CIRCUIT WHICH PRODUCES A CONSTANT AUDIBLE TONE (OF
ABOUT 800 HZ) IN AN 8 OHM SPEAKER FOR 5 SECONDS AFTER A
BUTTON IS PUSHED MOMENTARILY

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Terminal 5 of the 555 timer was not connected anywhere. Typically, the terminal should be
connected to a low capacitor of about 0.1F to minimize voltage spikes during the high-low
transition. However, since the frequency is less than 1 KHz, the spike effect is negligible thus the
capacitor can be overlooked.
Resistors have a provision for value error. The overall error contributed by this factor to the
design was however negligible.
Conclusion
The circuit was designed as shown in figure 4 and was tested to work. The speaker produced an
audible sound for about 5 seconds. The volume of the sound was clearly audible.
A rheostat in series with the speaker could have been used to adjust the volume.
Appendix
Some standard capacitor values in F (Ecelab, 2011):
0.047, 0.068, 0.1, 0.15..0.47, 0.68, 1.0, 1.5 2.2
Some standard resistor values:
1.0K: 1.0K 1.1K 1.2K 1.3K 1.5K 1.6K 1.8K
2.0K: 2.0K 2.2K 2.4K 2.7K
8.0K: 8.2K
5.0M 5.1M 5.6M
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References
Cogeco, C. 2011. LM555 and LM556 Timer Circuits [online] Available at:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/LM555.html#4 [Accessed 14 Oct 2011]
Davis, L. 2011. Resistor Values and Package Sizes [online] Available at
<http://www.interfacebus.com/resistor_table.html> [Accessed 14 Oct 2011]
Ecelab, E. 2011. Standard Capacitor values [online] Available at: <http://ecelab.com/list-
capacitors.htm > [Accessed 14 Oct 2011]
USQ, 2011. Electronic circuits study book Queensland: University of Southern Queensland


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