Simple piezo buzzer circuit--could I power it using a large battery?

Question

I am fairly new to electronics. I was thinking about a simple circuit and was wondering if it would theoretically work or not. Say I wanted to connect a 12V Piezo buzzer to a switch and a large battery (press momentary switch, buzzer buzzes, release and it stops). Say I wanted to use a large battery, like a lead-acid 12V battery found in a car. I realize this is probably a terrible circuit design and much better ones for buzzers already exist, but I want to know why it wouldn't be a good idea. My real question is this: if I have a 12V Piezo buzzer connected across a large battery, is this basically shorting out the battery by connecting the terminals together? Is it bad for the buzzer or the battery? Or would the battery's internal resistance allow this to work?

Edit: The piezo in question in question is a self-driven 12VDC 58mA buzzer.

Answer 1

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

Try this instead, connecting buzzer directly to battery is bad idea and i would not recommend you do that,the circuit that i have proposed has a 10 k resistance ,i am not sure about its value but it should be safe,when it comes to car batteries they produce a lot of current which is not safe for MCU or any other device so use a BJT with proper ratings to isolate the MCU or any other device

1)If the internal resistance of your buzzer is very small i will cause buzzer to explode as soon as you connect it to battery and battery will remain intact.

2)Batteries internal resistance will also be small so it wont allow your buzzer to survive.

Use V=IR or(I=V/R) lower the value of R more current flows through the load , if you short the battery ideally infinite current flows and melt the wire but if you connect a thick wire i will become very very hot (Disclaimer :Don't try this at home or anywhere on earth)

Hope this helps

Answer 2

You have basically two kind of piezo buzzers :

1. Basic ("external drive") piezo buzzers are a simple piezo disc (a plate of piezo material tied to a metal plate), usually mounted in an acoustic resonator. As Oleksandr R. said, it behaves mostly as a capacitor so if you power it with DC, you won't get any current through it and therefore no power (and no sound output). Those work by applying a (fairly large) AC voltage, and they work best if the frequency of the voltages matches the resonance frequency of the piezo disc, typically a few kHz.
2. "Self drive" piezo buzzers contain the necessary oscillating circuit in addition to the piezo disc. They take DC voltage input, and do the AC conversion at the optimal frequency before feeding that to the piezo disc. The "12V" you mention seems to indicate that it is this type you have.

In both cases, if it's a "12V" piezo, I don't see any reason why you souldn't plug it to a 12V voltage source. If it's the first type you'll hear a tiny "click" (the AC transient as you plug the DC) then nothing ; if it's the self driven type you'll hear it sound loud and clear.