PIC Audio

[toofastdave]

Is there a push-to-talk button anywhere that you could hack into to trigger a PIC into making the sound for you? The 'push' would arm the PIC to make the sound, and after the 'push' has been held for X seconds, it would actually be armed, then the 'release' would trigger the PIC to make white noise for X ms.

Naaw, it's all hands free. The unit has to be in the helmet and there is no way to constantly keep pushing a button...especially when you are talking, holding stuff (blasters) and moving around. The armor is pretty complicated and you can't have any wires showing anywhere. You have to interact with the people around you so it would be very distracting to have to keep pushing the button everytime.

OK. I have a couple of ideas. Give me a few days to try this one for you. We use the ISD5008 voice recorder IC all the time. I have never tried this but I will check to see if I can modify a program to output the incoming audio directly to the speaker. If so, it's a piece of cake. Releasing the activate button will have the PIC set the ISD chip into playback mode and jump to a memory location that has a prerecorded sound effect (of your choice). If the ISD won't allow this, there is another route to go but at this point I have very limited experience with a new ISD chip the ISD1700 series. With this chip, the incoming audio automatically outputs through the speaker during record indicating you have reached the end of the memory array. In theory, the chip could be addressed purposely to the end of the array. Incoming audio outputs through the speaker. When the button is released, the PIC puts it into playback mode and jumps to a location with your prerecorded sound effect. Again, I just began dabbling with this device and, being a different animal than a '5008, may take LOTS of time figuring out this one. Again, give me a few days to try the '5008 way.

Does this chip have a logic pin that indicates when it is receiving audio? If so, you could eliminate the switch and have the PIC monitor the login state instead of having a switch. The unit I am looking at doesn't have any switches except to program it... I'm not really asking anyone to build this for me but I don't have ANY experience with audio so a little help would be great! Maybe suggest a chip that could do something like this or a combination of chips. I know you mentioned the ISD series. I could DL some of the data sheets to look them over.

Thanks!
Dave