Do-it-yourself high-quality microphone for a computer. DIY directional microphone. Attachment to lamp

Working with electrical appliances has always been considered a difficult task. Usually only people who have enough experience or have studied this in educational institutions do it. We are used to buying equipment in specialized stores, so few people think about self-production various types devices. Of course, you can repair something yourself, but making equipment at home requires skill.

If you have the necessary equipment and materials, experience in this field and a desire to design something and save your family budget, you can try to find interesting ideas on the Internet. There you will find many interesting ideas and tips on how to make devices better.

In our article we will look at one of the studio devices that can also be used for personal use. We will talk about microphones and how to create them yourself at home. We will look at all the pros and cons of this method.

IMPORTANT: Working with electronics and electrical appliances carries risks and potential health hazards. We recommend that you refrain from working if you are not confident in your skills and abilities in the field of electrical appliances.

Is it possible to make a microphone with your own hands?

Man is capable of creating almost anything he wants; nature has endowed him with inimitable intelligence and the ability to fantasize. A microphone for a computer is far from the most complex device of all possible inventions of mankind. But it is worth considering the level of your abilities and skills. The final result of all work will depend on them.

If you are seriously thinking about creating a unique microphone, you should provide the workflow with all the necessary tools and materials in advance. To do this you will need to purchase:

• To create an electret microphone, you will need a special capsule, which can be taken out of the radio or taken second-hand from the market. This will be the main element in creating a home microphone.
• A special adapter for connecting to a 3.5 mm jack connector. You can use a wire from an old headphone with a matching cable.
• For the main body, any cylindrical material is sufficient: syringe tubes, jars, tubes...
• Required amount of wire. Choose the length according to the distance from the sound transmitter. The optimal length would be 1-2 meters.
• Foam or fur covering that protects the body from wind and moisture.

This is quite enough to create a homemade version of the device. No expensive elements, only the essentials for normal functioning. This method will help you save money, since good equipment in stores is very expensive, and cheap models usually have poor parameters and sound characteristics.

IMPORTANT: The appearance of the microphone will be unusual and will differ from store-bought options. If you wish, you can purchase additional parts for the case or look for old non-working devices and take spare parts from them.

Manufacturing instructions

After you have prepared everything for manufacturing, you can begin the most difficult stage of the work. Be especially careful when performing sequences of manipulations with electronics. For convenience, all points are described in detail in the instructions below:

1. Prepare the microphone body. Round off the pre-prepared cylindrical workpiece and cut it off at the ends, leaving the edges open.
2. Pass the wire inside the cylinder and secure it inside by tying one end with a knot.
3. Now solder the capsule to the end of the wire that is located inside the cylinder and secure it with a paper clip or paper clip. The braid of the capsule must be connected to the shielded wire.
4. Solder the other, remaining free end of the wire to the 3.5 mm jack plug. In this case, you should connect both channels for transmitting sound vibrations and broadcast them to the transmitter.
5. A foam covering works great for the top, cut it to the appropriate size and shape and attach it to the top.
6. After that, connect the device and check its operation by saying a few phrases into the microphone. When the wires are connected correctly, the sound should be transmitted to the capsule and amplified.

IMPORTANT: If there is no result, the problem may be in the adhesions. Try to disassemble everything and re-solder the wires to the capsule and plug.

How long will a homemade microphone last?

It is difficult to determine and say the exact service life for homemade items, as opposed to purchased items. You will not have a warranty for this product, so you will also have to repair and extend its performance yourself. Depending on a number of factors, the period of use will vary. Among the main parameters influencing the duration of operation are the following:

• The quality of materials used during work.
• Wire security and ability to withstand heavy loads.
• The operating mode depends on the required technical parameters and the supplied voltage.
• Careful use and timely troubleshooting.

Try changing the specifications and using different materials to compare and choose the best option.

On them you can not only dabble with voice search in Google (there are a lot of extensions for the Chrome browser for this, they are almost all the same, they use the same thing, but I found the most convenient extension “ Voice search 2.02 – in all input forms a microphone icon appears by clicking on which you can say or dictate, or rather, a search request as in the picture) but with speech recognition somehow, but still work.

I was not able to achieve any kind of reciprocity from Siri on Apple, to the extent that it could be “used” for something serious, after all, it is “imprisoned” by English language It has an effect, but I already know the addresses of the nearest dumpling shops. In any case, Google remains the leader in speech and voice recognition; it’s a pity that it is not yet possible to use it programmatically and in Russian.

So the main thing weakness For microphones this is sensitivity, and then of course the price.

Here is an example of how you can get around these two restrictions for very little money, and if you have the details listed below, then for free, you can get a fairly sensitive homemade microphone. A photo of how to make it yourself, a description of how it works and microphone diagrams are below.

Made by me homemade microphone It is highly sensitive and can even perceive the ticking of a clock at a distance of several meters. It also allows you to record high-quality sound using a computer. The recording quality also depends on the capabilities of the sound card in system unit. In the design of the microphone unit, components of worn-out electronics are used as much as possible.

An electret microphone can be taken from any old radio (in extreme cases, from mobile phone). I used two microphones at once (+), which made it possible to significantly expand the directional pattern of sound perception. The signal from the microphones, amplified by the low-noise transistor VT1, is sent to operational amplifier DA1 (see drawing - microphone diagram). The amplifier output can be connected to regular headphones or feed it further to recording and signal processing devices (desktop computer, laptop, etc.).

Drawing 1. Microphone circuit

The microphone amplifier is powered from the battery of any old mobile phone. Its battery life is tens of hours. You can use a free USB port on your computer to charge the battery. The amplifier can be left constantly plugged into the port, since the charging current is low. Wire with USB connector I took it from the mouse. The amplifier output connector used 03.5 mm, like for headphones, from any player, the volume control, too, and the rest of the parts, including the SA1 power switch, were any small-sized ones.

All components should be placed on a small fiberglass board (photo 1 - above). I glued a small piece of foam rubber onto the battery, and laid the board on top (photo 2). I tied it all together well with electrical tape and tried on the regulator knob (photo 3). Then, to eliminate interference and interference, such a “sandwich” was placed in a tin screen, which was soldered to the common wire (photo 4, 5).

Microphones need to be secured in a piece of dense, soft material. After that, I cut out a niche in a piece of foam rubber (which, for example, is used for washing a car) and inserted the entire block into it (photo b, 7), and put a fabric cover on top of it (photo 8). You only need to provide slots for the plug, switch and volume control.

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Microphone is a device that converts sound vibrations into electricity. In sound transmission, the microphone is the primary link in sound reception. A microphone is a useful device that can be used to communicate on the Internet, as well as to record voices or sounds (instruments, special effects). However, high-quality microphones cost a lot of money, and cheap ones will not provide sufficient sensitivity and quality.

In this article we will tell you how to make a microphone suitable for daily use with your own hands.

What can you use a homemade microphone for?

Of course, making a condenser microphone for vocals or podcasts with your own hands is almost impossible - their design is too complex, which can become a hindrance for a person with little knowledge of electronics.

Electret microphones are much simpler in design and therefore more reliable. In addition, the small size and low cost of electret microphones allow them to be used almost everywhere where sound reception may be required.

Here is a simple way to make such a microphone with your own hands.

What will you need?

• Electret capsule - it can be pulled out of the old one cell phone or radio;
• Jack 3.5 plug for connecting a microphone to a computer;
• Microphone body - a syringe cylinder works well;
• Paper clip - for fixing the case and further attaching the microphone, for example, to clothing;
• Thin wire - cut off a small section 1-1.5 meters long;
• Black foam rubber - a small piece for protection from the wind.

Manufacturing procedure

To make it easier for you to navigate, look on the Internet for photos of a homemade microphone or a device for a standard electret microphone (“lapel”).

• To make a microphone body, you need to cut off the tip from the syringe body with a knife. You can erase the markings on the syringe with a solvent;
• Insert a wire through the cone of the syringe and tie a knot at its end to secure the microphone in the body;
• Solder the electret capsule to the wire from the node side - connect the shielded braid to its body;
• Install the capsule into the body, and secure the cone with the eye of a stationery clip;
• Solder the second end of the wire to the plug, additionally connecting the left and right channels together;
• Make a narrow round hole in a piece of foam rubber for the microphone. You can cut off any excess corners with a knife - this will give you a decent windproof cap.

That's it, your homemade microphone is ready! You managed to create a sensitive measuring microphone with your own hands, which is also good for communication.

DIY microphone stand

As a rule, expensive and high-quality microphones are bought for serious work or a hobby, be it professional sound recording, broadcasting or hobby vocals.

In the vast majority of cases, for comfortable work and for maximum access to the sound source, you have to additionally purchase a special stand for such microphones. Now we will tell you how to make a tabletop microphone stand at home.

What will you need?

Lamp on a clamp - can be purchased at any electronics store. Attention: the mass of the lamp must match the mass of your microphone, otherwise the microphone on a weak clamp will easily fall under its own weight.

The holder depends on the type of microphone you have: for a dynamic microphone, the holder can be purchased at a price of 250 rubles, for a condenser (spider type) - at a price of 500 rubles.

It is possible to find and purchase an adapter for a microphone holder for easier installation on a clamp.

Manufacturing procedure

• Cut and pull out the lamp wire;
• Disassemble and remove the lamp shade;
• Attach the microphone mount to the thread on the lamp pantograph - due to the mismatch of the thread, you will only be able to screw the microphone mount once;
• Attach the microphone holder to the mount;
• Place the microphone itself in the holder and secure the stand to the table.

Ready! Now you have a convenient, adjustable microphone stand that can be easily attached to your desk, and the clamp design allows you to screw a pop filter and other accessories to it.

DIY microphone photos

When conducting webinars on programming, my listeners once complained about poor sound quality. I had never thought about how important quality sound is before.

After a quick google, I realized that getting high-quality sound, for example, for podcasts, is a very difficult task that requires good, expensive equipment and good sound processing skills.

The question arose: is it possible to get acceptable sound from a budget microphone for webinars? As it turned out, yes. Below is a detailed guide on how this was done.
As the saying goes: every programmer is a bit of a carpenter at heart.

Formulation of the problem

1. When the microphone is on the table, all the key strokes can be heard while typing on the keyboard. And also any table sounds are transmitted through the base.

2. If you hold the microphone not near your mouth, but as it should be on the table, the sound is as if the webinar is being held in the toilet or a “toilet” sound. Again, holding the microphone in your hands is uncomfortable and you need to somehow secure it near your mouth. If you pick up the microphone and then put it down, the volume of the sound will vary. You will see this in the video below.

3. If you are not lazy and take the microphone in your hands, then all the explosive consonants (for example, “B” and “P”) will directly hit your ears.

How to solve these problems for a modest cheap microphone? Let's start looking.

If you look at how professionals solve these problems, it looks like this:

1. The transmission of sounds and vibrations to the microphone from the base is solved by suspending the microphone on various springs and suspensions. In general, if you search for “microphone suspension”, there are countless options. But in the simplest case it looks like this:

2. To avoid having to hold the microphone in your hands, there is such a thing as a pantograph. In essence, it is a lamp rod with a microphone at the end.

All of the above products, incl. You can buy a professional microphone, but it’s more pleasant to do everything yourself. So let's show what we can do.

Sources

Test lamp

As a pop filter, we bought a hoop with an outer diameter of 90 mm from a sewing store. It was very funny when an unshaven, two-meter man in camouflage, combat boots, and a windbreaker bought hoops in a sewing store.

And it was decided to make the microphone suspension itself using springs from a clamshell, which were purchased at the nearest hardware store.

10 and 20 mm plywood was chosen as the material for production. All manufacturing was done on a jigsaw machine. "Corvette 88".

Honestly, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t have this thing in their home. An irreplaceable thing in the household. Starting from little things around the house to teaching a child.

Plus we will need two more M6 bolts 40-50 mm long + two washers and a wing for them, two M8x35 bolts, one wing.

Result

Among other things, it provided the possibility of installation on a table as a stationary microphone.

It so happened that I did it impromptu, practically coming up with a design on the fly. Therefore, most of the drawings are made after production.

Disassembly. Blueprints

Main stand

As you can see from the photo, the microphone had to be cut. To do this, you need to disassemble it, unsolder the microphone itself, insert it into the drilled hole, and only then solder and assemble it. The drawing of the three parts is very simple. The base is held simply by friction (the hole is made smaller than the protruding tenon). Hit it with a hammer.

Pop filter

Attachment to lamp

With one

And the other side

As you can see, the bolt is pressed into a 10 mm piece of plywood, which is already glued to the base.

It is curious that the diameter of the lamp is 63mm. Not a very convenient size. So I took the inner radius to 32mm.

One more nuance: it is necessary that the jaws do not fit tightly against each other in order to grip the lamp. Therefore, after the product was made, 1-2 mm was removed from each sponge (size “1-2” in the drawing).

Table base

Bottom

For convenience, I present all the drawings on one sheet.

Total

I specially made a video of how this microphone sounded and now sounds.

I have already described one design of a microphone intended for DSC, but its operation revealed a number of shortcomings, which are described below. So I tried to make a more advanced model.

The result was two different microphones, one monophonic and the other stereophonic.

The most interesting videos on Youtube

Prologue.

My first homemade microphone had a too uneven frequency response due to resonance occurring in the tube. In addition, it only allowed recording monophonic sound. It was decided to build a more advanced microphone model, but as always, do without turning and milling work.

While thinking, several ideas came up for making a slit microphone tube without using machines, or even the tube itself.

Slit microphone tube made of washers.

The slit microphone tube can be made from large diameter washers. If you drill two holes in each washer, you can use two pins to assemble a multilayer sandwich, and adjust the size of the slots using small washers.

This idea, in my opinion, has only one significant drawback. In order to drill holes in each washer with sufficient accuracy, it would be necessary to make a small jig.

Slit microphone tube made of transistor clamps.

If instead of washers you use clamps from old-type transistors, then you won’t have to drill anything at all. All that remains is to collect the handset.

The disadvantage of a pipe assembled from standard clamps from transistors of type P213 ... P217 is its heavy weight. If you use duralumin clamps from transistors like KT801, you can get a fairly light tube. True, in such a tube it will be difficult to place two microphone capsules at once, so for a stereo microphone you will have to look for another solution.

Slit microphone tube made of metal tape.

A slit microphone tube can be made from a narrow metal strip by folding it into a helix on a template of the required diameter. Then the width of the slots can be adjusted by changing the pitch of the screw.

Based on these ideas, I made two microphones - monophonic and stereophonic.

This time I omitted some details regarding the assembly of microphones and the manufacture of parts, since I already covered them in detail.

A slot microphone made from transistor clamps.

This is a drawing based on which a slit microphone was made from transistor clamps.

1. The clamp for transistors is duralumin.
2. Nut – steel, M2.
3. Grover washer – steel, M2.
4. Hairpin – steel, M2.
5. The gasket is cambric.
6. Shielded cable – Ø2mm.
7. The bushing is rubber Ø11mm.
8. Body – medical syringe – 5g.
9. Rear wall – medical syringe – 5g.

Assembling a microphone from clamps from transistors turned out to be as easy as shelling pears. Here's what was used for the build.

1. Grover washer – steel, M2.
2. Shielded cable with 3.5mm Jack connector.
3. Helical spiral – solder Ø2mm.
4. Velvet.
5. Electret microphone capsule – Ø10x7mm.
6. Clamp from transistors type KT801, KT602, KT604.
7. Medical syringe – 5 g.
8. Stud, nut – steel, M2 (studs were made from a bicycle spoke).

In order to do appearance To make it more presentable, I covered the body of the microphone, made from a syringe, with heat-shrink tubing. First I seated the front part, and at the end of the assembly I inserted the cover and seated the tail part.

This is what happened.

Directional slot stereo microphone made of metal tape.

This is a drawing from which a directional stereo microphone was made from metal tape.

1. Screw – M1.6x5.
2. Nut – M1.6.
3. Clamp – steel, S0.3mm. (tin from a tin can).
4. Tape – steel, S0.5x8x50mm.
5. Screw – M1.6x5.
6. Partition – medical syringe 20g.
7. Bushing through passage - rubber Ø11mm.
8. Weight – solder Ø2mm.
9. Krpus – medical syringe 20g.

This microphone required very few parts.

1. Shielded mono cable – Ø2mm.
2. Shielded stereo cable – Ø3mm.
3. Screw – M1.6x5.
4. Bushing through passage - rubber Ø11mm.
5. Clamp – steel, S0.3mm. (from a tin can).
6. Screw, nut, washer – M1.6.
7. Weight – solder Ø2mm.
8. Electret microphone capsule – Ø6x6mm.
9. Medical syringe 20g.
10. Tape – steel, S0.5x8x50mm.
11. Heat shrink tube – Ø8mm.

In order not to have to paint, I covered the steel tape with heat-shrink tubing, and then rolled it into a helical spiral, item 1, on the body of a 10-gram syringe.

From the body of a 20-gram syringe I made the microphone body, item 3, and the partition, item 2, from the piston of the same syringe.

At this point, you can drill three holes to attach the tube to the body and cut the threads.

To reduce the length of the unshielded wires going to the microphone capsules, I extended the stereo cord with two small pieces of mono cord. The picture shows how it was done. Thick paper is used as insulation.

The microphone body, as in the previous design, was covered with heat-shrink tubing.

Another picture explaining the assembly procedure.

This is what happened.

Here's how it works.

Small details.

When testing the first pair of microphone capsules, it turned out that their frequency responses differed too much. In anticipation of market day, I even assembled a small stand for testing microphones without the use of soldering. I bought a few more capsules for $0.4 so that I had plenty to choose from. But the very first pair taken from this purchase turned out to be consistent in frequency response. I didn't experiment anymore.