Arduino project: use an active buzzer

Mar 25, 2021

Learn how to make a sound with an Arduino and an active buzzer, wiring it to a digital pin and toggling it HIGH and LOW with digitalWrite() and delays.

~~~

In this project we’re going to use the Arduino to generate a sound using an active buzzer.

First connect the buzzer to a wire:

Active buzzer component with red and black wires attached to positive and negative terminals

Buzzer connected to longer wire with red positive and black negative leads for Arduino connection

The buzzer has a + pole, I used the red wire for that (a good habit).

Then connect the - wire to GND on the Arduino, and the + wire to a digital output pin, in this case I picked pin #9:

Arduino Uno board with buzzer wired - black wire to GND and red wire to digital pin 9

Now we switch to the Arduino program. To generate a sound we need to write a HIGH value to the buzzer + pin, delay for a tiny amount of time, for example a millisecond, then write a LOW value on the same pin:

int delay_ms = 5;
int buzzer_pin = 9;

void setup() {
    pinMode(buzzer_pin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
    digitalWrite(buzzer_pin, HIGH);
    delay(delay_ms);

    digitalWrite(buzzer_pin, LOW);
    delay(delay_ms);
}

Load the program on the Arduino and the buzzer will emit a low sound.

Try changing the delay_ms variable value to change the sound.

You can then go fancy by making it play different sounds, with a program like this:

int buzzer_pin = 9;

void setup() {
    pinMode(buzzer_pin, OUTPUT);
}

void play(int ms, int delay1, int delay2) {
    for (int i = 1; i <= ms; i++) {
        digitalWrite(buzzer_pin, HIGH);
        delay(delay1);
        digitalWrite(buzzer_pin, LOW);
        delay(delay2);
    }
}

void loop() {
    play(100, 1, 1);
    play(100, 2, 2);
    play(100, 1, 1);
    play(100, 2, 2);
    play(100, 1, 1);
    play(50, 2, 1);
    play(100, 3, 2);
    play(100, 4, 4);

}

Tagged: Arduino · All topics

~~~