Electrical – What kind of amplifier do I need to drive a piezo multi layer ceramic speaker

amplifieraudio

First post here, hope someone can guide me.

I would like to use this speaker:

http://www.dbunlimitedco.com/product-detail/SZ300812-1

on my Raspberry Pi. I have an PAM8403 amplifier board driving a regular speaker and it all works well. The board is like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3pcs-PAM8403-2X3W-Mini-Audio-Class-D-amplifier-board-2-5-5V-input-/181888663216

Do you think this board can drive the ceramic speaker from 1st link?
If not, any suggestions?

Best Answer

You can find that part at Mouser

There is a datasheet there that has a bit more information.

It is rated for operation on 5V, maximum of 16V.

It doesn't have a rated impedance like a regular speaker. Instead, the capacitance is given as 1200 nF - that's 1.2 microfarads. At 300 Hz, that is an impedance of 440 Ohms, dropping to 44 Ohms at 3kHz.

The amplifier IC in the module you linked to mentions that operating it with no load can damage it. I don't know how it will react to the varying impedance of your piezo speaker.

It should also be mentioned that most normal amplifiers don't like capacitive loads.

There are special amplifiers made for piezo speakers. You might want to check on those, and see what is different from them to normal amplifiers. Might be a better idea to use a purpose built piezo amplifier.

You might also want to read this page from Maxim that outlines some of the issues involved in driving piezo speakers.. It goes into some detail about the capacitive nature of piezo speakers, and how they are different from normal speakers.