Transducers

Claimed by Derin Ozturk (dozturk7) --Dozturk7 (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2015 (EST)

Short Description of Topic

Transducers are devices that convert one form of energy to another. This topic will explain what transducers are, specifically bidirectional transducers, and their applications.

The Main Idea

A transducer, in general, is any device that converts one form energy to another. Usually this is some signal in one form of energy that is converted to signal in a different form of energy. There are many types of transducers, and the topic does incorporate many different concepts from physics and spans many fields, so this page will be only focusing on one type of transducers, bidirectional transducers, and two important applications: microphones and loudspeakers.

Bidirectional Transducers

In short, a bidirectional, or sometimes also called bilateral transducer, is a transducer that can convert some form energy from to another, such as an electric signal to an acoustical signal, but can also convert the other way, such as an acoustical signal to an electrical signal. Hence the name bidirectional.

Sound, Microphones, and Loudspeakers

A Brief Recap of Sound

Sound is a wave, that travels through a medium (usually the air, but it can also be any material such as water or steel) as a disturbance in that medium. This wave transports energy from one location to another location. This wave originates from the vibrating of an object or particles that causes the disturbance in the medium. Because there is particle to particle interaction, sound is considered a mechanical way. As a wave, sound has a frequency (sound is usually measure in Hertz, where 1 Hz is equal to 1 vibration per a second. The sensation caused by the frequency in sound is called pitch. A low frequency corresponds with low pitch, and vice versa.

Microphones

A microphone is simply a transducer which detects sound signals and produces electrical "images" of this sound. This image can be a voltage or current. These images are proportional to the sound signal.

There are several different types of microphones. The most common are dynamic microphones, ribbon microphones, and condenser microphones.

Dynamic Microphones

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The diagram above shows the inside configuration of a dynamic microphone. Sound enters into the cone of the microphone where it causes a diaphragm to vibrate. As the diaphragm vibrates, the coil that is attached to the diaphragm vibrates as well (this is proportional to the frequency at which the diaphragm vibrates!). The movement of the coil causes an induced changing current in the coil due to the magnet (remember Faraday's law). A dynamic microphone can simply be thought of as the inverse of a loudspeaker (see loudspeaker for more information).

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