Is 4kHz too high a beeper frequency?

[Winfield Hill]

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sun, 19 Apr 2020 10:53:38 -0700, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly in the health-care
industry. It's got 115 SMT parts, so I've spent extra time struggling
to chose the smallest practical part choices. It has a beeper. The
CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4
kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible, to hear for some users?

On the basis that by the time I'd hit 45, i'd lost everything over 11kHz
I'd say yes, for many it could be a problem.
I wouldn't chance anything over 2kHz IIWY.

 

[piglet]

On 19/04/2020 6:53 pm, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Almost everyone should be able to hear it but for some it will be so
high pitched or faint that they may not recognize it as something important.

Can you buzz it on and off at 300-400Hz?

piglet

 

[Pimpom]

On 4/19/2020 11:23 PM, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

I'm afraid it would be. Being able to hear a certain frequency is
not the same as catching it easily when you're not waiting for
it. I haven't had my hearing tested but, although it's still
good enough for me to enjoy music, I sometimes fail to hear the
small beeper in my DMM. It seems to buzz at around 4 kHz too.

 

[Winfield Hill]

piglet wrote...

On 19/04/2020 6:53 pm, Winfield Hill wrote:
I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Almost everyone should be able to hear it but for
some it will be so high pitched or faint that they
may not recognize it as something important.

Can you buzz it on and off at 300-400Hz?

Yes, will that help enough? We'll be driving it with
a microcontroller, so we can wobble frequency, or do
almost anything. Hmm, will I be able to hear it? OK,
asked my phone to make 4kHz, high but I hear it fine.
Maybe I'd better place several choices on the prototype
PCB, which won't be laid out for minimum overall size.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[amdx]

On 4/19/2020 12:53 PM, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

My hearing rolls off prety quick right at 4kHz.
I had a friend working on my computer and the beeper was
beeping, and ask him why and he said he could hear it.
It is much lower than 4kHz.
He had the memory in the wrong slots, that what caused the beeper to
sound.
Mikek

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 19/04/20 18:53, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Healthcare can be a noisy environment, in terms
of speech, hiss, and many other beeping devices.

What other noises are there in the environment?

If people can hear the noise, then will they be
able to determine the direction it is coming from
and then locate /which/ specific device making
the noise?

This cries out for a quick-and-dirty experiment
in a representative setting. Unfortunately such
settings are likely to be no-go zones for the
foreseeable future.

4kHz is above the audio band for speech, of course.
I doubt I could hear it, but then I'm deaf anyway.

 

[John S]

On 4/19/2020 12:53 PM, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

My vote is for a lower frequency beeper, if possible. I'm not sure I can
even hear 4kHz anymore.

 

On 19 Apr 2020 10:53:38 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com>
wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Annoying if audible. It's really hard to localize those nasty piezo
buzzers.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard

 

[Ricky C]

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 1:53:49 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

One of the many problems I have with electronics is beeping. 4 kHz is audible to me, but not as loud as other sounds and I find the position of my head can make it disappear.

I find it extremely annoying. I tend to want to break things that make that sound. I especially hate things that beep as press buttons. The beeper gets extracted one way or the other.

The worst are things that are missing and make an intermittent, high pitched beep. When I find those things I destroy them and then try to find where they came from and make sure no more ever make it out.

I know where you live.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 4/19/2020 2:37 PM, Winfield Hill wrote:

piglet wrote...

On 19/04/2020 6:53 pm, Winfield Hill wrote:
I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Almost everyone should be able to hear it but for
some it will be so high pitched or faint that they
may not recognize it as something important.

Can you buzz it on and off at 300-400Hz?

Yes, will that help enough? We'll be driving it with
a microcontroller, so we can wobble frequency, or do
almost anything. Hmm, will I be able to hear it? OK,
asked my phone to make 4kHz, high but I hear it fine.
Maybe I'd better place several choices on the prototype
PCB, which won't be laid out for minimum overall size.

Use a lower frequency like A440 and ring-modulate it with some
percentage of a couple octave up like 0.2. see how that sounds.

Keep an analog synthesizer handy in the lab for experiments like this...

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 1:53:49 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?


--
Thanks,
- Win

Have you considered having a LED in parallel with the beeper?

Dan

 

[Winfield Hill]

dcaster@krl.org wrote...

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 1:53:49 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Have you considered having a LED in parallel with the beeper?

Yes, there's a controller-operated LED, the buzzer
is to supplement that. The process takes several
minutes; users probably don't look at dark LEDs.
Hmm, it could start a ramp-up blinking process.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[bitrex]

On 4/19/2020 10:06 PM, boB wrote:

On Sun, 19 Apr 2020 14:17:39 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 4/19/2020 12:53 PM, Winfield Hill wrote:
I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?


My hearing rolls off prety quick right at 4kHz.
I had a friend working on my computer and the beeper was
beeping, and ask him why and he said he could hear it.
It is much lower than 4kHz.
He had the memory in the wrong slots, that what caused the beeper to
sound.
Mikek


Some have nulls in their hearing spectrum and some, their HF response
just rolls off like Mikek's. If it is not a piezo beeper, you could
have two tones at once or alternating to make sure it is nticeable.

I think that around 3kHz is the most sensitive pitch for most people.

Also, lower frequencies, say, below 500 Hz are going to take a larger
transducer and higher power.

a square at say 500 Hz and square at 2000 Hz (four octaves up)
ring-modulated to give it some sums and differences and a "metallic"
edge to cover the frequency bases more thoroughly

 

[Phil Allison]

Winfield Hill wrote:

----------------------

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

** Only those with severe hearing loss.

I would not expect that from *workers* in health care.


..... Phil

 

[bitrex]

On 4/19/2020 9:28 PM, Winfield Hill wrote:

dcaster@krl.org wrote...

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 1:53:49 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Have you considered having a LED in parallel with the beeper?

Yes, there's a controller-operated LED, the buzzer
is to supplement that. The process takes several
minutes; users probably don't look at dark LEDs.
Hmm, it could start a ramp-up blinking process.

Can you store a short PCM sample in the uP?

This audio library "Turbo Risers" has all sorts of buzzes, bloops,
swooshes and beeps (y'know, for the music the kids listen to these days
there's an audio demo) with some parts that could definitely be cut down
to a short loop and make a nice attention-getting tone.

<https://preview.tinyurl.com/yd379fwe>

 

[boB]

On Sun, 19 Apr 2020 14:17:39 -0500, amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:

On 4/19/2020 12:53 PM, Winfield Hill wrote:
I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?


My hearing rolls off prety quick right at 4kHz.
I had a friend working on my computer and the beeper was
beeping, and ask him why and he said he could hear it.
It is much lower than 4kHz.
He had the memory in the wrong slots, that what caused the beeper to
sound.
Mikek

Some have nulls in their hearing spectrum and some, their HF response
just rolls off like Mikek's. If it is not a piezo beeper, you could
have two tones at once or alternating to make sure it is nticeable.

I think that around 3kHz is the most sensitive pitch for most people.

Also, lower frequencies, say, below 500 Hz are going to take a larger
transducer and higher power.

 

[John Doe]

Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com> wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Of course some people cannot hear high frequencies.
That 4K is the frequency of crickets here.
The 4K slider on my PC's equalizer (for a high-quality security
microphone sitting outside) completely eliminates them.

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2020-04-19, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com> wrote:

I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.

https://www.digikey.com/products/en/audio-products/alarms-buzzers-and-sirens/157

cursoring through the frequency options and watching the number of
matches suggests that around 3kHz is most common frequency for this
type of thing, but upoon selecting "medical" the highest frequency
available was 2.075 kHz.

--
Jasen.

 

[Ricky C]

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 9:29:07 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

dcaster@krl.org wrote...

On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 1:53:49 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
I'm finishing a design for a small instrument
that will be used by people of all ages, mostly
in the health-care industry. It's got 115 SMT
parts, so I've spent extra time struggling to
chose the smallest practical part choices. It
has a beeper. The CUI CSS-0578 is smaller than
most, only 5x5mm, but it wants to run at 4 kHz.
Is that going to be hard, or even impossible,
to hear for some users?

Have you considered having a LED in parallel with the beeper?

Yes, there's a controller-operated LED, the buzzer
is to supplement that. The process takes several
minutes; users probably don't look at dark LEDs.
Hmm, it could start a ramp-up blinking process.

The piezo is 4 kHz because of a resonance. Connect a sounding surface to it and let the mass lower the resonant frequency to something not so annoying.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209