So, I got this idea into my head (years back) where I wanted to hear soil, fungus, non-human sounds. I want to collaborate with these organisms and sounds. This started more ventures into electronics, and moooore workshops at Interaccess, creating sensors and later working with slime mould.

This week I got excited over a little circuit I stumbled upon off Andreas Siagian’s blog. Which is essentially this here,

So, based off of Andrea’s circuit I thought I would make one of my own, as well as draw up my own design. I biked over to Creatroninc, bought all the parts and made this:

Admittedly nervous about the surface mount soldering.. I put the little piggy together. Here are some images showing part of the process.

etched board

Parts listed on Github

CMOS cd4093, 100nf capacitor, Peizo buzzer, LED, 9v battery snap…

Ok so, I soldered everything down and……..

The LED works. Those 2 little pads in the upper right, when touched are suppose to make the oscillator oscillate – which is currently (haha) not happening. I have checked all connections, solder points = nada. So, I took this buzzer off to see if it even worked- it does. Soldered down another and still = nope. No sounds.

Do I lack capacitance?! What am I missing here?

Meanwhile, here is the image I altered to fit my drawing/traces.

Did I make my sensor pads too small?

Regardless, I learned a lot putting this together. 1. I need to make this work. 🙂

Anyone out there with any advice or suggestions as to what might be going wrong here, please comment below. Thanks for looking.