Advise needed please

Thread Starter

NS37

Joined Apr 9, 2013
1
Hi there,

I'm an art student (so obviously don't have much of a budget!) that has no background in electronics and am in need of some help to work out my tech problem. I need to build a circuit that will trigger a small pre recorded audio file/ soundbyte. The sound is triggered by a small cupboard door opening. I'd prefer for the power source to be batteries if poss and am guessing would need speakers of some description. It all needs to be quite small? I spoke to an electronics shop and they said it would be possible, that they would probably have all of the parts but that they wouldn't be able to do it for me. Am happy to give it a go myself but need to know what to do where to start...etc...

Help?
N
 

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
Off-the-shelf solution...
You can pick up "recordable" birthday type cards on ebay for cheap.. They already have the built in microswitch to trigger the recording when the card is opened.
 

elec_mech

Joined Nov 12, 2008
1,500
In addition to the recommendations already suggested -

If you're in the U.S.,

RadioShack recordable module found here.

Hallmark recordable greeting card - I haven't been in one of their stores lately, but would assume they have them.

Big Dawgs Greetings sells an assortment of recordable modules including thin greeting card modules out of Canada. They also sell USB modules that allow you put a wav or mp3 file (after converting) directly onto the module which may give you better clarity than recording a play back.

All of these solutions work with and some include batteries, speaker, and switch. Be careful to avoid any greeting card modules with slider switches - unless you can figure out how to have the cabinet door pull the slider just right, you'll need to solder wires to the board to add a switch and this can be challanging to a beginner.

You may need to swap the switch with something bigger that can work with a cabinet. Here, here and here are some alternatives that might work better.
 
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