Hi Everyone,

My friend approached me with a microphone that she would like to use for an acoustic monitoring project she wanted to conduct near her house and asked if I could make the accompanying circuitry for her. However, I haven't worked with mics before since I do mostly RF, not audio stuff. The trouble with this is that I cannot clearly interpret the data sheet for the mic that she had picked out to use. Can someone help me understand how the V/Pa unit can be interpreted into a max voltage output of the mic so I can design a preamp to fill the ADC's range?

The mic in question is a Knowles Electronics WP-23849-C36 and I've attached the link to the datasheet below.

http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/218/-532674.pdf

Thanks in advance,
Mezz

 

You can use this site to calculate dB SPL from the Pascal units:

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-soundlevel.htm

I'm too sleepy (and too inexperienced) to properly explain what to do with the resulting numbers.

You'll need to know roughly how loud of sounds you expect to be amplifying. The maximum output the mic is capable of is probably quite a bit higher than the maximum output you'll need to work with (unless you're recording snare drums or gunshots.) Decide on your maximum SPL requirements, estimate the expected mic output voltage based on that SPL, and design a preamp with the necessary gain to achieve whatever output signal level you need.