Speaker Technology samples

In reflection of all materials used when sampling electromagnet coils for our space saving speaker concept, it is clear to see that the some materials are a lot more effective than others. Once we had found a circuit structure that worked with our audio jack to produce sound, when testing the materials we kept this a constant to eliminate any errors in the circuit. This circuit started with the connection of the ground wire and ended with the connection of both the channel 1 and channel 2 wires. 

Very initial samples were created using the BARE conductive paint. All samples using this medium were unsuccessful in generating sound. We are unsure as the why this was the result found. We thought that it may have had something to do with the connection of the wires and the paint on the paper but even when we used the copper conductive tape this made no difference to our findings.

Samples that used conductive thread were able to produce a very quiet sound. This could have been due to the size of the electromagnet created in some of the sample yet when also considering the aesthetics of our speaker; we felt that the tape would be most effective for our concept.

The copper conductive tape generated the loudest sound when sampling. The tape was very consistent as all experiments were successful in producing sound.

Samples also give evidence for the research surrounding the topology of the speaker electromagnets. The majority of our samples use the coil formation using the copper conductive tape as this was found to create the loudest sound. Experiments with parallel structure were able to produce sound get at a much smaller amplitude and volume than when coils were used. Samples that used the sparse structure did not produce any sound at all. As a result, through concept development we chose to continue to work with coil structures.

In development samples we discovered that the number of turns in the coils and therefore the size of the full electromagnet created meant that the sound produced could be louder and clearer. Towards the end of the project, we experimented with cone structures to see if these were able to amplify the sound. We were unable to complete enough samples to fully evaluate this and therefore this could be something that we could go on to develop further.