Talk:Transducer

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2020 and 14 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bgrant14.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Initial posts
A correction: *acoustical* energy is an instance of *mechanical* energy. Our auditory system converts the mechanical vibrations to an electrical signal we recognize as sound. Just as *light* energy is electromagnetic energy, *acoustic* energy is simply mechanical energy. There is no transformation of mechanical to *acoustical* energy from the cone to the air. If you held your head to the mechanical cone in a vacuum chamber, you would STILL hear the sound. This is because the mechanical vibration of the cone travel from the cone to your head and resonates. Your ears pick out the vibration and will convert it to the electrical signal we recognize as sound if it's of an appropriate frequency. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.12.148.193 (talk) 01:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

One concern of mine, is that the most common use of transducer is that of a pick-up for an acoustic instrument, while these fall under this category, it should probably be mentioned in this article that unless you use this sort of equipment, people are likely to be referring to musical instruments in every day conversation.

bI feel it is very confusing to potential readers who are trying to understand electricity, electronics, physics etc., to have the following included in this page:

These devices do NOT "Convert one form of energy to another".

Transformers, for example, merely change alternating current power from one voltage to another. Transistors CONTROL electric current, they don't convert it. Etc. Etc.

If someone has a strong opinion to the contrary, please express it here soon.

Regards, Terry King  terry@terryking.us

---( following up for removal....)-
 * 1) Electronic. These components change one electrical parameter in response to another. By some definitions these are electronic components, not transducers:

* diode * gyrator * varicap diode, varactor diode, tuning diode * negative impedance converter, NIC * Schottky diode * transistor, Field effect transistor (FET) * Transorb * tunneling diode * varistor * voltage-dependent resistor * Zener diode


 * 1) Electrical... These components change one electrical parameter in response to another. By some definitions these are passive electronic components, not transducers:

* capacitor * inductor * transformer * resistor


 * 1) Mechanical:

* gear

Agree!! Get rid of it --Ekko 17:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Just like a transistor, a switch is not a transducer. An ideal switch has no energy involved in going from off to on.  I am removing it. -Athaler 18:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I give you the right definition for transducer: A device for converting energy from one form to another for the measurement of a physical quantity or for information transfer. Now I tell you that the electrochemical transducer voce should be coss out because not conforming to definition.


 * Agree. This list has become bloated beyond all usefulness. --Heron 19:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've done it. I hope I haven't been too bold - but the revert link is always there if you don't like my version. --Heron 20:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

This article doesn't admit the existence of biological transducers, such as the eye and ear. Grassynoel 09:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * While I agree, I'm not sure how to categorize them beyond "biological". What form of energy are neural signals?  From my limited neurobiology, I seem to remember that individual neurons store the signal as electric charge imbalances, but the signal is transmitted between them as a chemical signal. -Athaler 18:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Mechanical and electrical engineering
In cybernetics and systems engineering, there is a notable and well-documented usage of the term "transduction" in the Viable System Model, which refers to the transformation of signals or information. The editors of this page evidently wish to restrict this page to the transduction of energy. This restriction may be valid within some forms of engineering, but is not valid across all forms of engineering. For the sake of clarity, therefore, I am therefore changing the hatnote (and the disambiguation page on Transduction from "engineering" to "mechanical and electrical engineering". --RichardVeryard (talk) 11:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Why Aren't Electrical Generators Called Transducers
Why do machines that convert kinetic energy into electrical energy included in typical lists of transducers? I see no reason they should not count, except a single arbitrary limitation to the definition. --Kaz (talk) 01:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC) its because machines which convert mechanical energy into electrical energy will have changed one kind of energy to another and that is why they are called transducers[kansiime augustus,user talk,mbarara university] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.0.18.250 (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

From the definition here the operative word is "signal". Generators do convert energy, but without regard to any signal that may be encoded in the energy. Transducers change the energy, but keep the signal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.207.235 (talk) 06:06, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Transducers in Computer Science
According to my Computer Science Theory textbook (An Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata 4th Edition - Peter Linz), a transducer is a "more general automaton, capable of producing strings of symbols as output". However, I'm not sure how to include this information on this page. Perhaps a disambiguation page is in order to provide links to the various appropriate pages? ThomasOwens (talk) 01:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * As a follow up, the section Finite_state_machine should be linked to on this page. I got here looking for that information. Somehow, people that get here need to be aware of that section. ThomasOwens (talk) 01:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Piezo Ultrasound link
This link http://www.americanpiezo.com/products_services/transducers/transducers_background.html to "Utrasonic Transducer Background, Materials and Examples" has been added and taken away from External links. The page has some useful information and is not without merit, but I think it could be best employed as a reference to back up technical details presented in the article about Piezoelectric sensors. This Transducer article doesn't go into enough piezo detail to require a reference. Binksternet (talk) 23:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Is the definition satisfactory?
The article starts off by saying that a transducer transforms one form of energy to another. A photoelectric cell is such a device. However this is not listed in the applications. The French article says that a transducer is a device that converts one physical signal to another. This is not the same definition!! Feraudyh (talk) 14:15, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Etymology
If someone could be so kind as to explain the etymology of the term, that would be useful. I make this request because in electronics, many names are based on existing things (for example, transistor comes from TRANSference resiSTOR, modem = MODulator/DEModulator, CMOS = Complimentary MOSFET [Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor], and transceiver = TRANSmitter/reCEIVER.) So, I'm curious of transducer has a similar origin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.207.235 (talk) 05:59, 19 October 2018 (UTC)