Hi. I am looking for a thin and small speaker I can use for a portable arcade machine project. I want only mono, preferably with the ability to add a volume dial somewhere inline. I have a pi3b and my LCD panel runs from an LCD hat so not sure how to add a speaker to the setup. It needs to be thin so it can fit in the lid of my unit next to my screen. Any suggestions? You can see my cardboard prototype lid in the image where the screen will be and the space next to it is for the speaker.
How deep is the lid? This may do:
There is also this one
Your going to need an audio amplifier of some sort. Or a DAC with speaker level audio out. The audio out of the Pi’s analog audio jack is low level audio. It will drive earbuds OK but has to be amplified to drive a speaker. Something like this would work
Thanks. The last 2 are what I was looking at but I don’t understand how to wire then up when my LCD is sitting on the gpio header? Also, how will I be able to adjust the volume? Or would it be fixed to one volume level?
I used this audio pigtail cable with the stereo version of the amp I posted. You plug it into the analog audio out jack on the Pi.
You’d just use two wires of the three Tip or Ring and sleeve, sleeve being ground.
I used the stereo (dual) version of this for volume.
I wired it between the Pi output (pigtail cable) and the amplifier input.
You can also just adjust it via the speaker icon on the status bar.
Thanks. So would the pigtail provide the power to the amp which would drive the speaker? I’m unsure on how to get power to the amp.
The pigtail is to get the audio signals from the Pi to the amp. You should be able to power the amp from the Pi (5V).
How do I attach to the pi power when my screen is sitting on top of all the gpio pins? That’s the bit I’m struggling with.
One way to get access to the GPIO is to use a proto hat with a stacking header.
11mm header is the stacking header
You solder the header to the Proto Hat so the female header is in the bottom and the male pins on top. You plug that into the Pi then put your second hat on top of it. Then solder wires to the proto boards +5V and Ground connections to get power to the amplifier board. If you here you’ll see pictures of a build I used one and how I did it. Its a link to my Public One Drive folder.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AjOYwiwlwDtpgsVj0KxSiXTcBZlfOQ?e=ItwLsi
The pins on the “2x20 pin Female GPIO Header for Raspberry Pi” are long enough that you could stack the screen and use the area below the board to solder the wire to the exposed pins.