Does Pi Zero Have built-in-audio component?

Question

I am looking to buy a Raspberry Pi Zero for my retro gaming project. I am asking wherher the Raspberry Pi Zero has any built-in internal audio speaker in the chip itself or not?

If there isn't, is there any way to make the chip give out a BEEP-sound without any additional components. Like for example raising the clock rate of the CPU until it gives out audible noises?

Answer 1

There's no particularly good way to make the board as-delivered make sound. Audio by default goes out over HDMI (which is the best option IMO).

You can pop a relatively simple lowpass filter and amp on the alternate function of two GPIO pins for PWM (cheap and not horrible audio). I did a project like that for a little gag gift I have a co-worker last year. See adafruit's site for details.

Alternatively, you could hook up an I2S codec or just use a low-end USB speaker with built-in codec.. You might even be able to jam the zero into the speaker chassis itself if the dimensions are right :-)

Answer 2

For simple beeps, I use the pigpio library. This library enables hardware-timed PWM on all GPIO. The only drawback (a minor one imo) is that it requires you to load a daemon before calling the library. Just connect a piezo beeper between the slected GPIO pin and ground.

import pigpio
from time import sleep

pig = pigpio.pi()
BEEPER = 25 # GPIO pin for the beeper (can be any GPIO 0 - 31)

def beep(freq,ms): # generate a beep at the specified frequency and length (in milliseconds)
    pig.set_PWM_dutycycle(BEEPER,50)
    pig.set_PWM_frequency(BEEPER,freq)
    sleep(ms/1000.0)
    pig.set_PWM_frequency(BEEPER,0)
    pig.set_PWM_dutycycle(BEEPER,0)

beep(1004,250) # quarter second of 1004Hz tone

Answer 3

Basically no, you either need a buzzer for simple BEEP stuff hooked to one of the GPIO or using HDMI adaptor that contain an audio jack. for more complex, a bit permanent solution you can build one of pwm based audio like what Bj Black already mention