I Built a $500 Microphone for Only $20 and It WORKS!

[@rickseiden1]

I've used that USB-C breakout board myself. I put the holes in the circuit board in the same place and size as the USB breakout board. Then used bolts and nuts to attach the breakout board to the circuit board, and then put some pins in the header holes and soldered them to the top of the breakout board and the bottom of the circuit board. It's rock solid and makes things a lot cleaner, I think.

[@michaelseitz8938]

Could the humming be a ground loop? Maybe try a DAC with an optical output and connect it to your PC with a toslink cable? And/or try powering your microphone from batteries (temporarily) to exclude the USB power supply as a source of noise?

[@Arduino_and_Redstone_Pro]

The Audio quality is so amazing 🤩 Love your videos:)

[@CesarAnton]

Awesome video and results! 👏 Checked your sound test with studio monitors and hifi amp/dac and it sounds GREAT in my opinion. The humm sounds to me like a ground loop but could also be noise coming from AC. I get the same sound if I plug my amps directly to the power source without the power conditioner. Humm aside, your DIY microphone sounds MUCH better than the Lavalier sample to me. The sound is cleaner, detailed and natural. Yours does have a little too much detail but I'm sure that's because there's no filter. A few ideas from an audiophile: - Braided litz wire. - Heath shrink shielding in the joint of the mic. - It would sound better with a filter to smooth the high frequency. - Maybe high pass & low pass filters to narrow things to 80hz ~ 16khz, surely this can be done digitally. - A hifi op amp. Ideally a discreet one like OP8802 or anything Burson. There are some nice integrated ones too from china in Aliexpress, they all have this fancy metallic encasing similar to Burson v5i. - USB ports usually carry lots of noise, most USB adapters use a switching power supply which generates lots of noise. Easiest way is to just plug to a battery but a linear usb power supply connected to a EMI filter (4 stage) would rule out AC noise. Thanks for the great video, happy 2025! 👋

[@ELECTRONOOBS]

@@CesarAnton thanks so much for such a helpful comment :)))))

[@kayezero703]

Very nice sound quality

[@ELECTRONOOBS]

@@kayezero703 I would like it to be a bit better and remove that hiss sound... maybe next version

[@stefandumoulin1872]

You will get more clipping if you lower the power supply voltages. Clipping occurs because the amplifier wants to amplify the signal to a voltage higher than the power supply. You'll need to lower the gain, it will probably also lower the noise floor

[@arduinoblokodtr3699]

You can connect solder wick and faraday case to gnd for better isolation as far as i know.

[@ELECTRONOOBS]

I've done that :)

[@4Fixerdave]

Your ADC is digital. Did you shield it from the analog board? I mean, great design to get both in a really small space but the shielding around it isn't going to stop noise generated on the inside. For that matter, the +- 15vdc charge pump has to be pretty noisy too. Separating the noisy stuff from the amp... even a somewhat divided PCboard with separate ground planes and a place to solder in a metal wall to isolate the 2 sides? Oh, and using solder wick as shielding... that's awesome. Never even considered that :)

[@Voyager_2]

I think you are right. He is picking up noise from the ADC, and in his case it's not only a audio ADC but also a capture device, so I has a microprocessor, clock, data going etc

[@lmamakos]

I'm kind of puzzled why, with the fancy oscilloscope, he doesn't go looking in various parts of this simple circuit to see where the "noise" (AC hum?) is being introduced? This troubleshooting by randomly changing out parts shotgun style doesn't seem like a great path to a resolution. Also, it's not a Faraday cage if you don't have solid connections all around. Just having incidental connections with parts of that material just pressed against each other doesn't seem robust. After some time vibration conducted into that electronics box is going to likely impair the shielding ability. I realize this isn't exactly a microwave RF problem trying to be solved, but all I could see is slot radiators along all those seams in the box.

[@high_voltage603]

diy perks ?

[@АлександрЕфимкин-н8д]

Man your best!

[@mikeonthebox]

Some components are missing in the description. But isn't the EZCap alone way over $20?

[@tenlittleindians]

Nice start! Looking foward to future developments. Most professional mixing boards have a switch on their imputs for Phantom power. Active microphones that need power can then get their power from the mixer board. I also have a box that sits between my microphone and an amplifier or mixer board that's battery powered to supply phantom power in case the amplifier or mixer does not have this feature. You may want to someday make a microphone with a more professional XLR jack on the end and if so, consider making it run from phantom power through the XLR jack. Another possibility is the addition of an impeadence matching audio transformer within the microphone. I often use a transformer on my Sure vocal mic to match the input to whatever It's getting plugged into. The device is a passive transformer with a switch to swap from high to low or low to high.

[@Hobypyrocom]

you can use copper or aluminium tape to cover the inside of the box instead the metal mesh, using tape is way easier...

[@tenlittleindians]

There are videos on KZbin that show how to make carbon graphite paint with graphite powder. It's often used by guitar manufacturers to paint inside the guitar body cavities where the electronics go to prevent noise.

[@Hobypyrocom]

@@tenlittleindians that sounds even easier... thanks for the info, i will check that out

[@joemwangi5813]

Your content is very for tech enthusiasts..watching from kenya

[@TronicsHack]

🎉🎉 i love watching your videos, please we want collaboration between you and GreatScott 😁☺️

[@MichelangeloFPV]

Thanks for sharing this video. I also failed to replicate the DIY perks version using the that 1512... I may try with INA217 using your layout. Cheers

[@zigisg5454]

INA217 is good enough for this projekt, little more noise in theory, but you cant hear difference in project like this. Your noise problem is somewhere else - wrong shielding, ground loop, noise from ADC or DC/DC convertor (both are too close to sensitive preamp) Dont reduce power supply voltage! This is not clipping reason! By reducing power voltage clipping may become even earlier. Do you try adjust opamp gain ? My guess, part of your problems, if not all is wrong gain. you can adjust it by changing resistor between legs 1 and 8, see table in Figure 13. in INA217 datasheet In figure 16 you can see mic preamp with 1,6 kohm trimer with 8 ohm resistor in series between 1 and 8 leg, this give variable gain 20 - 60 db. Maybe try something like this?

[@mohtashimali9669]

The Sound is very Good Sir .

[@mrdovie47]

Litz wire might be good to use on the capsule. (very flexible stranded magnet wire)

[@ajtucker4217]

I’m looking forward to the video. Where are you? Address the problems and troubleshoot. That sounds like fun. I look forward to the final version.:)

[@Savage-lx5yj]

Excellent sir!

[@irkedoff]

Awesome ❣️

[@technotronics5849]

first time i got your video in my feed great start for 2025

[@pfabiszewski]

I would add some capton tape as an insulation underneath the PCB - just in case

[@stm32user]

Audio technologies is complex topics in electronics and embedded world

[@AramAzhari]

Great video! Could you please share an affiliate link for the Oscilloscope you were using in this video? Thanks.

[@tmiller9099]

Would like to see you build an Ultrasensitive microphone for finding water leaks and other low volume noise applications. Homemade ULTRA SENSITIVE Ground Listening Probe ~ Locate Buried Pipes! is the title of a video done by electronicsNmore where he demonstrates an update version to a very old video he did (you can find it on his channel as well). The old video quality is not great and is missing some details on how to do the project.

[@winlose3073]

So cool idea !

[@JenkinsUSA]

Nice project! Thanks for sharing the gotcha’s. I’m going to research that IC and comps. I recommend to get all parts from DigiKey or Mouser, for quality reasons. Thanks and Happy New Year 2025 - from Central Florida 🌴🇺🇸

[@csai5763]

Can we use it with the audio interface?

[@Enderkruemel]

i also had problems with the ic, so i used a simple cheap mic and disasambled its capsule and used its transistor. this fet does work realy well and i only used a simple headphone cable, to connect it to my pc. it has very low noise and just works great this way. but i found it only works well on good soundchipsets, i also had planned to use a usb soundcard but it s realy bad. i endet up using an Realtek ALC4080 and an Savitech SV3H712 as an amp

[@PeterPolycarp-ci3bh]

Nice video, Electronoobs. I love your videos. Please, what do you use to animate electrical concepts?

[@xenoxaos1]

I'm wondering if the adc is adding a bias voltage that doesn't work right.

[@TechCornerTV]

You rock so much! 😁😁♥♥ hope you can finally buy your house, you deserve. If you came to Portugal let me know and we can have a chat. Cheers!

[@TronicsHack]

Sound like aircraft pilots microphone 😂😂 2:04

[@bartconinckx]

I think we are missing the link for the ballscrew.

[@ShadowFandub]

es genial como el original pero tambien me parecia demasiado sorprendente, no digo que diy perks haya mentido, pero imagino que es dificil replicar 1:1 la contrucción del circuito con los componentes que rondan por internet hoy en día, una version más simplificada con componentes más comunes seria fantastico, y si creo que un circuito de 5 a +-5v seria genial

[@vigneshkarthi3321]

Bro it took you to this around so many year

[@stm32user]

Super bro. I am from India

[@Stabio_PL]

*No links under video :(*

[@Mtaalas]

Designing a condenser microphone is quite an involved affair. You're talking about TINY voltages, TINY currents. Thus any mistakes or oversights or stray noise from anything connected to the system is going to cause huge issues. Not to even talka about the DC/DC charge pump and the weird USB botch board you've connected to the circuit... tey all generate noise and that must be taken into account. This is why condensers are usually powered from phantom power, which itself is highly filtered and very low noise. then the electronics inside the microphone filter it even more and amount of amplification you have without the mic preamp itself is minuscule to avoid clipping in high SPL situations etc. etc.... it's not simple affair what so ever. Thus the fact that you got sound out of this thing is in itself an achievement... You can spend your whole career only to learn how to design condenser microphones or preamps...

[@gianniszourntos3918]

my man great video but the files are not visible! Love hope you fix it.

[@axellno1759]

I think you didn't made a 500$ microphone, they sold a 20$ one for 500. :D

[@R.sabarinathan]

bro i want a video aboth diy wireless mic using wired boya mic to compact wireless mic and you do it... because most of content creater will be easy to get is.. everyonr need wireless mic but we cont able to spend nearly20k inr but boyo wird mic just 850 inr better audio outpit... i want t tranmitter with high fidelity rate. i cant find it. im not expert in eletronics..... also i hope you mak this under 20 doller i hope... im waiting for your video . thankyou... also no proper videos avilable in this topic and im sure this topic video go viral becaus everyone need it

[@LordOdin]

I Built a $500 Microphone for Only $20 and Its SHIT!*

[@Gateseleven]

they are not 1 to 1. I like diy, but that are not the same.

[@Voidsworn]

Do they need to be 1 to 1? Is it better than the equivalent priced ($20) microphone? I bet it is.

[@Gateseleven]

@@Voidsworn no but the title of video was I made a 500$ for 20$ and its was not.

[@Gateseleven]

@@Voidsworn do you think if you buy Fender guitar strings, decs or Strauss violin string , your creation is a fender or strauss,, I just over exes to make my point.

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

TechBuilder did this 6 years ago (and I bet there were earlier ones i just don't have the time) and there have been tons of channels doing this since then, DIY perks did nothing new. If you want to give credit good but don't give it to a copycat just becasue they have a following, that is when I will lose respect. The stealing of "I built this" is so rampant its sickening.

[@musiqtee]

Well… As engineers, we have built microphone preamps since their inception a century ago. Sure, we didn’t have SoMe to share or brag. We had white papers, patents and (some) engineering skills. Sharing such knowledge is still a good thing for most of us. Never mind the bragging, that’s just social capital gains…😊

[@Ferreira019760]

First off, interesting project. I have something on the line to use with I2S. In that sense, a nucleo board may be interesting, but I don’t know about the sound quality of the internal ADC. I need rye sensitivity to be quite high, and maybe 12 bit won’t be enough for what I need, but I need to try. I use ST components mainly, to keep everything under the same brand. Not there yet, but it’s part of my next project. Does JLCPCB make the circuits available so that we can order the ready made PCB?

[@ELECTRONOOBS]

I will share the files later today since I had no time to make the webpage. About the nucleo board, I don't know what is that...

[@Ferreira019760]

@ just google nucleo board. They are dev boards from ST microelectronics, quite useful and good value for money. I have the nucleo-F756, pretty decent board actually, and goes for a little more than €20. Try from Digikey when you need something else so you can get free delivery. Hope you like those, arm processors and they are widely used in the industry. The IDE is free, and they make available loads of tools and resources. Please note that this is a more professional line, and I advise you to program in C unless you know very well what you are doing in C++. If you need any further details I’m happy to assist you.

[@killpidone]

Any links to project files and BOM? Seen nothing in description.

[@ELECTRONOOBS]

@@killpidone i will post the full tutorial page later today. I didn't had time to finish it..

[@killpidone]

@ELECTRONOOBS okay cool, just your video you said they'd be in the description so that's why I was confused.