Mic emits smoke

[Nilbog]

OKay, so I have these miniature electret condenser cardioid microphones that I was trying to turn into a small field mic I could use. They're goosneck mics (http://www.astatic.com/commercial/827.htm) you can see them there. So I seperated the mic from the goosneck and the XLR connection and had two wires. okay, this seems simple enough, but I need a power supply. It says they need 9 to 52 volts. I, thinking logically, aquire a 9 volt battery. Maybe some of you can already see where this is going.
I hook up the 9 volt to the two wires and hear a popping noise, and thick white smoke starts coming from the holes on the mic casing.
What did I do wrong? What should I have done?
-Nilbog

 

[Prism]

Most condenser mics I've taken apart use 3 wires. When white smoke starts coming out of your mic, I wouldn't count on being able to use it anymore. Probably a transistor burned out..if it even uses transisors. If not, then you probably just got a short-circuit.

Isaiah

 

[Wil Davis]

...I hook up the 9 volt to the two wires and hear a popping noise, and thick white smoke starts coming from the holes on the mic casing.
What did I do wrong? What should I have done?
-Nilbog

mmm, sounds (smells) to me like a classic case of letting the magic smoke escape. For more documentation, see the MIT Jargon file:

http://www.cs.hut.fi/~tri/misc/mit_jargon.html

Look-up "magic-smoke", "smoke-test" and "let the smoke out"

- Good Luck!

- Wil

 

[Nilbog]

Well, there are three wires (out of the XLR connection), but there are only two wires coming from the mic, then some kind of transformer or something, does something to the third wire (but I have no idea what it does), so the actual mic only has two wires coming from it.

Man, I took in a lot of that "magic smoke" and didnt feel a thing. What a jip.

-Nilbog

 

[panang]

i thought white smoke means new pope.
anyway -- i imagine the actual capsule takes only two volts, and the circuitry you got rid of drops the 12-to-52 volt phantom voltage down to that.
you could ask the manufacturer to identify the mic capsule they used, and get the specs on that.
regarding circuitry a really helpful web site is:
http://www.utad.pt/~acunha/Apoio/Software/Microfones_de_electreto/microphone_powering.html