Switch for an audio jack with microphone.

[AllenB]

Hello All

I'm new here and don't have a lot of experience with electronics and need some help/advice/pointers for a project I'm starting. It seems I have a spare iPad Mini and was lopoking to create a bezel stand for it and convert it into a softphone using skype. Most of that should be easy to do with my skillset in woodworking but the one thing I can't wrap my wits around is the audio component. I have an old fashion handset that handles the audio and microphone for the jack but once its plugged in, the sound goes though the handset and not the iPad speakers. So, to make this work I need some sort of switch that will allow me to hang up the headset and switch the spekers to another input jack so I can configure a microphone/speaker to handle the audio and allow it to ring. It will also allow me to use it as a conference phone handsfree. What I'm thinking is something like this:

male mic/audio jack -> switch -> 2 female mic/audio jacks.

Does anyone have any advice on how I would build something like that?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Allen

 

[the great potato]

OK so you want to basically use it as a Skipe Speaker phone? Like you want to plug in the Mic and headphones you have ( to use the mic) but it cuts out the speakers? thats what your saying?? im just trying to get a better understanding of what you mean. Im thinking if thats the case you could use a Y spliter (with Mic of corse) and then use the mic normaly and run another wire from the other end of the Y, to a small amp or radio for the audio. Just the thought i had for something simple. I dont have any experience with any I-electronics, I use windows Phone and a windows 8.1 tablet, but im guessing its along the same sorta thing when it comes to the Headphone jacks. but with the set up i mentioned the Headphones would still have audio but would also have audio over the 2nd. So really ... you could have it set up that you could speaker phone or turn off the radio (or what ever the 2nd line gos to) and use headphones for privacy. Does it have Bluetooth at all? a bluetooth headset is only like 5 bucks and totaly hands free, just for an idea.

 

[AllenB]

That's pretty much what I'm after but I really need some sort of switch to go between the hands-free speaker/mic and the handset (it's really a handset like you would see on an old rotary phone but the cord has an end on it to plug into a combo jack lie you find on a cell phone or tablet. The i device doesn't really matter at this point as I'm just looking for a way to physically switch the audio/mic port. I'm creating a base for it so it will actually look like a speakerphone with a display on it and I want to have a physical switch that I can use with a button so when I lift the handset it sends all the in/out to the handset and it switches back the in/out to the speaker/mic in the stand when I hang it up. I'm going to build the mic and speakers for the hands-free mode into the base itself so it won't be a separate device.

 

[the great potato]

ok so it sounds like your kinda wanting something like what i made for my computer, i made it so i flip 2 switches and i can change from speakers to headphones. Something of that sort ... you can prob buy a switch box of some sort and then mod it to work with a pressure switch vs a dial switch. You could build it yourself as well but ive made a few audio video switches and everyone of them deff lost audio quality, they do work decently but i guess the ones you buy have the farite filters and all that on them. 100% im sure you could build this yourself, i see no reason why you couldent. but im thinking it might be hard to find a switch that will change all the wiring at once. you looking at what 5 - 6 wires if the speakers share a ground or not. i may be overthinking it a bit, but i have a tendency to not use the KISS method till i go over all the harder ways first.

 

[Audioguru]

A speakerphone needs a transmit/receive manual switch or a voice-switching circuit to avoid acoustical feedback howling.