Why does the music on a child’s toy sound ‘flat’ when the batteries are going flat?
In: Physics
Every electronic needs X amount of volts to run, kids toys usually use 2x AA or AAA, which would supply 3 volts of electricity.
If the speaker in the toy runs on 3V, and the batteries begin to wear down and only produce 2.5V, then the speaker will still work, but will be weaker than if it got it’s proper supply.
It’s easier to see with lights. In a torch, it gets dimmer the flatter the batteries get, because the voltage needed to light up the LEDs is diminished
When making sounds, the electronics need to have a reference to time, this is provided by something called an oscillator.
The oscillator gives out a very fast pulse which the audio chip can use to time the sounds.
“Okay so I need to play a 2000Hz tone and I have a 20,000Hz oscillator signal, I’ll flip my tone every 10 clock cycles.”
In audio equipment, these oscillators are generally more expensive, and are fed a stable voltage, because varying pitch sounds awful to our ears. In toy electronics, these oscillators are cheap and do the voltage regulation themselves, so when the voltage drops below a certain point they can start to slow down a lot, making the audio pitch drop.
On top of this, more expensive equipment will monitor the voltage and not allow it to run if it’s below a set threshold, cheap toys skip this component so things start going wrong.
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