Experiment #5: Amplifier design using Op amps: A sound

system
 In this experiment students will be using an op amp to act as a preamp to boost a signal to an
self amplified set of speakers. First students will need to select two resistors and measure their
actual resistance to calculate the gain of the op amp. The resistors we chose were R1 =
0.9851k Ohm and R2 = 5.028K ohm. The formula to calculate the gain of the op amp in the non
𝑅2 5.028𝐾
inverting is: 𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 = 1 + = = 6.1
𝑅1+𝑅2 5.028𝐾 + 0.951𝐾
After calculating gain students will build an op amp in the non inverting mode with an
input voltage from -1v to 1V and a supply voltage of +- 5v. Then students will increment the
input voltage in 0.1v increments and monitor Vout to find the smallest Vin that creates the
largest Vout.

Vin Vout Av_meas

-1.0056v -3.635v 3.614757

-0.9047v -3.635v 4.017906

-0.8171v -3.635v 4.44866

-7.099v -3.635v 5.120439

-0.6094v -3.142v 5.155891

-0.5154v -2.408v 4.672099

-0.3951v -1.831v 4.63427

-0.1958v -1.119v 5.715015

-0.0116v -0.6382v 55.01724

0.00507v 0.0357v 7.04142

0.1037v 0.6348v 6.121504

0.2088v 1.280v 6.130268

0.3030v 1.855v 6.122112

0.4060v 2.483v 6.115764

0.5045v 3.084v 6.112983

0.6028v 3.686v 6.114798

0.7122v 4.230v 5.939343

0.8130v 4.230v 5.202952

0.9950v 4.230v 4.251256

1.0255v 4.230v 4.124817

 The smallest Vin-max that produces the largest Vout-max were 0.7122v and -0.7099v.
The Vin-min that produced a Vout-min was -0.0116v and 0.0057v.

From the data above, we calculated the actual gain from this formula “slope of the graph below”:
𝐴𝑣𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠 = 𝛥𝑉𝑜𝑢𝑡 /𝛥𝑉𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟 |𝑉𝑖𝑛 | <− 0.1𝑣 = (0.0357 - 0.0382) / (0.005 - 0.10) = 6.104 , which is
approximately the same as the theoretical gain. From the data above, the values of 𝑉𝑖𝑛 which
the op amp responds linearly is -0.7099 < V < 0.7122.

After generating a Vout_min and Vout_max with DC, students will use a function generator (FG)
to produce a 1khz, 0 offset, Hi-Z sine wave and find the Vin that produced the largest
undistorted sine wave output. With our setup we found that a 1.2v input created a 3.6v output
without clipping the top and bottom of the sine wave.
The 1.2v Vin is largest voltage value that lay in the linear response region of the op amp just
before saturation.

Next, we replaced the FG with a microphone and we steadily hummed into it to monitor the om
amp response “Vout” on the OS channel 1. We also monitored the microphone signal in the OS
channel 2. From the graph below, Vout_max is 59 mV, and Vin_max is 12 mV. The frequency of
Vin and Vout is 83.33 Hz.
Next, we used the same setup earlier, but we connected the op amp output to a self-powered
speaker to be able to hear the amplified spoken sound from the microphone. At first with R2 =
5.028K ohm we could not hear any sound from the speaker, thus we increased R2 to 100K ohm
to increase the op amp gain. With R2 = 100K we were able to hear the amplified sound in the
speaker. The new calculated gain Av_new = 87. Below is a grpah of the microphone signal and
the amplified signal. From the graph below the V pk-pk = 1.5 V and the frequency is 83 Hz.
For the next step, we added a 10K ohms potentiometer between the output of the op amp and
the speaker to act as volume control by decreasing/increasing the output voltage. When we
adjusted the potentiometer, we were changing the ratio for the speaker gain. The highest
volume of the speaker didn’t increase by the potentiometer, it stayed the same because the
potentiometer only controls the range of the output voltage and don’t increase it.

After testing the effect of the potentiometer of increasing/decreasing the speaker sound, we
adjust the potentiometer to output the highest volume and then we move the microphone near
the speaker to hear the echo feedback loop. Unfortunately, this is where our experiment starts
to break down. While we were able to get an audible noise from the speaker while adjusting the
potentiometer, when we held the microphone near the speaker, we were unable to get
feedback. Changing the ratio even further to make a louder speaker, we still were not able to
generate a feedback signal from the speaker. Because of this we were not able to generate a
waveform for step 10 in the experiment. There should be a feedback because the sound from
the speaker would bounce back to the microphone and so on which will create a loop.
Conclusion:
In this lab we learned about the basic operation of the op amp and how we can you use
a non-inverting one to amplify the voltage input signal. Amplifying the input signal is useful and
is used in many electronic applications like amplifying the voltage signal of the microphone to
produce the sound captured by it in the speaker. We can control the ratio of the amplification by
changing the values of R1 and R2 that are connected to the OP AMP as in the circuit below.
The larger R2 resistance is, the more the signal is amplified which is given by this equation:
Vout/Vin = 1 + R2/R1