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It's noisy

A project log for Electroglottograph

Listen to your vocal cords

marek-materzokMarek Materzok 10/09/2015 at 13:070 Comments

I have the electroglottograph circuit prototyped on a breadboard. It works - you can clearly see the signal, but it's very noisy. And that's only when a man's vocal cords are being probed - the signal taken from a woman's vocal cords is much weaker (probably due to the larynx being smaller in women), and it's almost completely hidden by noise.

The circuit shown on the project's page is actually one of the later iterations of the project. Previous versions included:

All these changes did not do much to reduce the noise. Where does it come from? I don't know. Does it come from the supply (I currently use a 9v battery regulated by a 7805)? Maybe, but in this case better decoupling in key places should make some difference, but it does not. Is it radio noise? Maybe, but the cable used for the probes is already shielded and twisted, and I tried shielding the entire prototype circuit; no real difference. Is the voltage-to-current converter this noisy? I'm not an expert, but I tried calculating the theoretical noise level, and it's lower than what I observe.

I'm currently abroad and do not have access to my scope, so I cannot look for the noise more directly. I also do not have soldering equipment, so I currently can't check if this is just a breadboard issue. If somebody has more experience building these kinds of circuits and has some idea about the possible source of the noise, I would gladly hear about it.

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