Mic pre-amp hum

microphoneoperational-amplifier

I've designed a very simple microphone pre-amp to use with my headphones. The thing is I get this 100Hz hum in the output.

Is it because I should've used a voltage regulator?

Here's what the VRipple in the Op-Amp's output looks like:

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Circuit:

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http://no4nwo.com/images/2133891163.png

Best Answer

Your ground connection is adequately decoupled by C1 and C2 but there appears to be nothing on it to set the mid-rail DC voltage to be half V+. However, if the centre tap of the transformer is connected to gnd then this will be OK.

If you are not using the centre tap you'll need a pull-up and a pull-down from ground to either voltage rail to set gnd at mid-point.

The next thing to consider is that the V+ supply will have a small amount of main AC ripple voltage on it. Because you are seeing 100 Hz I can presume your supply is a 50 Hz waveform. This will still get through a little bit and you have to find a way of killing this off. The way it affects things is by superimposing itself on the microphone signal via R3.

The type of mike you have is an electret which relies on a dc bias but it can't perfectly cope and eradicate ripple so you may have to use a small voltage regulator such as an LM78L05 feeding R3.

I'd also put 100 nF capacitors across C1, C2 and the power pins to the LM324