Can You Build a Speaker from Scratch?

[Firm]

Building a Speaker...New member

ok, well firstly let me introduce myself; I am a new member here, I am by no means a physics/engineering person...but I got myself stuck in grade 12 physics and I am almost through the semester. Now we've got this assignment to build a speaker or headphones from scratch. Me and my partner spent the last 5 hours trying different things and researching all over the net with no success. Anyone got some clear(fool proof) ideas??

Thanks

Zack.

 

[chroot]

Do you at least understand how a speaker functions? You should be able to build one fairly easily once you understand the functionality.

- Warren

 

[Firm]

Not really...I've look at a lot of diagrams...and even took apart a speaker so I have a general idea...but nothing solid. Also we've built a few different prototypes(none of which work...yet) but I think that might be becasue we're not getting the music to it correctly using an ipod with the headphone jack inplace, but since the jack originally had two separate wires coming from it, we connected two aligator clips to it at the two terminals where the wires came from it. I was also wondering if the ipod was providing enough power...so we tried a small portable stereo with no change. I was tempted to hook it up to my car stereo, but if our design is faulty it's just a waste of time.

 

[chroot]

The iPod's headphone jack only produces a very, very small amount of power, and it'll be difficult to make a crude speaker that will work with it. Instead, try using some kind of amplifier to produce a powerful signal.

All you really need is a cone made out paper, with some kind of permanent magnet attached to it, and an electromagnet made out of a coil of electromagnet wire.

- Warren

 

[sas3]

Here is a good example of how a speaker works.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/speaker6.htm