Intercom circuit

The wire shouldn't be too critical unless you have an electrically noisy location. The application is low impedance which should buy you a high degree of noise immunity. There is little current involved. The resistance of the wire should be small relative to the speaker impedence. Offhand, I'd use something like 22 AWG wire.

Some twisted pair "bell" wire should be adequate. Avoid running it parallel to the mains wiring if possible.

Caps:

The large 1,000 µf cap is to supply energy quickly when it is needed. It lowers the effective impedance of the battery.

The 220 nf is used to couple the AC signal into the amplifier without unbalancing the transistor bias with a DC level. It is a "coupling cap." It also serves to make the "listen" position a zero battery drain position.

To that end, both switches should be spring return to the top position (as shown) so you won't inadvertently discharge the batteries. (unless, of course it is a baby monitor)

The 47pf cap looks like it may be some degenerative feedback on the input stage, probably to improve the stability and limit the bandwidth. It may help to prevent the amp from picking up nearby radio stations, and keep it from oscillating.

Other than explained on web-page , the bc558 transistors are set-up as "Emitter Followers" ( very high resistance(AC impedance), basically what it boils down to is this :

You can use resistors in wire 1 and thusly reduce the volume without effectively reducing the speakers " microphone pickup "

The speaker is used as a speaker in one switch position , and as a poor-mans microphone in another...just like very cheap toy walkie-talkies .

If you want less volume , the easiest way to do it is with some 10 ohm resistors in paralell on wire 1.

tim

Once you determine the wanted values for say low-medium-high (zero) , you can use a cheap switch to select the approximate volume you want .

First before trying the 10 ohm resistors , try to changing the value of the 1k resistor ( at 220nf and switch to 5 or 10k or more )

tim

"smelialic" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@lic.com...

Alex,

As for your first question:It depends. Nobody can say from her/his desk how noisy your environment is. The best way is to try it yourself. Start to use ordinary, cheap twisted pair. Low power wire of 0.5mm diameter will do. You can even twist them yourself if you want to. Taking to different colors of isolation will make things easier. My guess is that you can go for some tens of meters and you may find the volume decrease with increasing cable length. Try to keep distance from mains cables, TL's and other electrical equipment. If this all is not enough can you try shielded twisted pair. Make sure the shielding is firmly tied to ground.

In this application the senders amplifier is used and the receiver can't do much to it except lowering its battery voltage. Which make things too complicated. The best I can imagin is a 56-100Ohms resistor in series with let's say a 1KOhm variable resistor. A logarithmic one may be better then a linear one. Connect this combination parallel to the speaker. But beware. You will decrease the sensitivity of your "microphone" as well. You can prevent this by using a double pole send/receive switch to switch off the attenuater while sending.

The 1000microFarad elco is meant to shortcut the internal resistor of the battery. It reduces the voltage changes of the battery due to changes of the load and is a shortcut for (AC) signals.

The 47 Pf capacitor prevents oscillation of the amplifier.

The 220nF decouples DC on the speaker from the input of the amplifier.

So how it works? When both switches are up, both batteries are effectively switched off. Nothing happens. When S1 is pushed:

- The left amplifier is powered by the right battery via the right speaker.

- When you speak in the left speaker it is used as a microphone. Its signal goes via the 220nF cap to the input of the left amplifier. The amplified signal goes from the output (the collector of the BC558B) via Wire 1 to the right speaker.

pieter

impedence. >Offhand, I'd use something like 22 AWG wire.

I worked with a guy who put a commercial intercom in his friend's house and ignored the "use twisted pair only" label on the box, choosing to go with the (cheaper) telco wire he had on hand. When it hummed like a kazoo, he realized the small savings he could have realized were more than offset by what it was going to take in labor to rip it out and start over.

My advice: Play it safe; go twisted.

|pieter said |...You can even twist them yourself...

Tie 2 wires of equal guage and similar length to something, back off and pull the slack off of them, cut them to equal length, put them into the chuck of an electric drill, spinn them till you have a twisted pair.

|different colors of isolation [insulation] will make things easier.

The most sage advice in the whole lot. NEVER underestimate the value of color coding

--this from a guy who professionally installed burglar alarms and had to fish wires into and out of walls.

|If this...is not enough [you] can you try shielded twisted pair. |Make sure the shielding is firmly tied to ground.

A shield is probably overkill, but keep it in mind.

BTW, the circuit analysis from both guys is top-notch.

I would just like to say thankyou for all of your responses. I sort of understood which section of the circuit was doing what and when, but the job of the capacitors was a little beyond me. Thankyou for clearing that up, and thankyou for the wire reccomendations. If anyone has anything else they'd like to say, then please post but other than that I think I'm ok with this circuit now. If there's anything else I get stuck on I'll be sure to ask here again.

Alex Bradbury

Balanced, too, if you can.

Balanced, too, if you can.

Balanced? On Usenet? Bite your tongue! ;-)

There has to be a first time :-)

I think of capacitors as batteries , they hold a charge , and oppose a change of voltage between their terminals .

tim