[simpits-tech] Headset adapter ideas

[Brian Sikkema]

Yeah, power for the microphone portion I'm not worried about (it's 
really just an electret microphone driver, so it doesn't need much). But 
one of the issues I ran into with the old one is that some people's 
sound cards were unable to drive the headphones with any decent volume. 
To help solve this problem I'm adding in a small circuit on the output 
side with a small adjustable amplifier for the headphones, to hopefully 
make it more universally compatible.

So on the USB version, the USB would end up powering the USB sound card 
circuitry (probably relatively small power draw), the electret 
microphone driver (also probably not much) and the headphone amp (this 
is where I'm worried).

One possible solution is to use one of the double-ended USB cords and 
use two USB slots for power. I have an external DVD drive for my laptop 
that does this, and truthfully I don't need to use both USB ports for 
it, but I at least have the option if it so happened one was not enough. 
>From what I've been reading on USB it could vary a lot computer to 
computer and hub to hub how much power you can actually get, and what 
happens when you pull more.

The most you can really be "guaranteed" from a USB port is 100ma at 5V. 
In theory you can get up to 500ma per port (per the USB spec) and some 
computers will happily provide much more - and some won't.

Decisions, decisions....

Brian

On 7/29/2013 2:32 AM, geneb wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Jul 2013, Brian Sikkema wrote:
>
> Sounds great Brian!
>
> The USB version could certainly pull power from the USB port - they can
> provide up to 1 amp per port.  Should be plenty to drive that little amp
> circuit that the headset uses.
>
> I'd REALLY recommend a power switch.  I always have to remember to unplug
> the battery in mine. :)
>
> g.
>