We are installing the Adafruit sound effects board, amp, and speaker this week. Then loading the sounds we created last week (and this week) into the board and setting it up to play whenever the mill wheel turns.

As the Adafruit sound board and the power amp run on five volts, we first need to drop the 12-volts the motor (and lights) run from to the needed five volts. Fortunately, this is a common problem because most digital devices charge from five volts and automobiles are 12 volt systems. And so there are hundreds of devices available that drop 12 volts DC to 5 volts DC. We used the DEVMO step-down power supply from Amazon. (2 for $14.99)

Then the Adafruit sound board. They offer six versions: a two-meg storage that holds one minute of WAV audio or around four minutes of OGG audio. ($16.35 on Amazon) It's also available in a 16-meg version that can hold eight minutes of WAV audio and as much as 16 (or more) of OGG. $26.55 on Amazon

For a bit more both boards are available with a headphone jack.

And as these boards can't power speakers, both are also available with a two-watt stereo amplifier that can drive two four-ohm speakers. ($34.56 for the 16 meg)

We chose to use an external power amp to save a few bucks. The HiLetgo Mini 3-watt power amp that also uses four-ohm speakers. ($5.19 on Amazon) We also bought a DROK Five-watt amp just to try out. A better but more expensive power amp. ($13.49 on Amazon)

At first, we used the USB connection on the DEVMO step-down power supply, but that gave us problems so we switched to the screw terminals.

And it WORKS!!

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