I work in an environment in which we have to wear respirator masks, but this also means it's hard to talk to other people, especially with some of the noise in the area.

So I'm curious if there exists some kind of small microphone/amp/speaker combo that could be retrofitted into the masks so our voices could pass through the mask easier, or basically anything that would allow me to put a small mic inside the mask, and a small speaker or two on the outside.

 

Motorcycle riders have a wireless com system, low power, so that they can talk
to other bikers in the flock.

Just a thought for a turn key solution.

Regards, Dana.

 

I work in an environment in which we have to wear respirator masks, but this also means it's hard to talk to other people, especially with some of the noise in the area.

So I'm curious if there exists some kind of small microphone/amp/speaker combo that could be retrofitted into the masks so our voices could pass through the mask easier, or basically anything that would allow me to put a small mic inside the mask, and a small speaker or two on the outside.

I'm not aware of any off-the-shelf product but I wonder if there couldn't be a solution that uses bluetooth earpieces.

 

The motorcycle communicators seem like they might be a bit more of an expensive option, and we don't need to make things more difficult by adding in earpieces and such.

I didn't really think an off the shelf solution would exist, but I was hoping

I'd imagine this could be done fairly simply though with a small op-amp circuit and mic and speaker? Mount it in a little box attached to the headband or something with a mic running into the mask, maybe even add in a remote switch to activate the circuit for talking and keep battery use down by not having it on all the time.
There are probably also a million devices I could take apart and modify to do this too, I'm just not coming up with many ideas off the top of my head as I have a bunch of other more important things going on atm.

It's not a dangerous environment, just a bit dusty and loud.

 

Try searching over here, they have lots of small amp modules and
various unusual combinations of feature's. Many very lost cost.

I searched on "audio amplifier mic", lots of hits.

www.banggood.com
www.alliexpress.com

Regards, Dana.

 

Here's another site with a lot of DIY stuff. https://www.parts-express.com/cat/audio-amplifier-boards-modules/3464

The problem you're going to face is power. Having enough juice to power an audio amplifier means having a battery - more than just a button cell. You can probably design around a 9V battery but even that is "biggish" to wear in a respirator.

 

3M makes some communication products that fit inside respirators.