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  • Thanks so much @goldilocks (+1) - I have a few questions regarding your statements about my buzzer wiring/setup. When you say "Realistically it looks a bit beefy to be controlled this way. You would be better off feeding it 5V toggled with a transistor." I'm not following you 100% here. Are you saying I need to use the 5V power pin, or are you saying that its a bit beefy/overkill to drive the buzzer from a GPIO pin and from the software? Thanks again! Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 0:36
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    The other way around; the buzzer looks a bit beefy to attach to a GPIO. They aren't intended to power things, they're intended for signalling or sensing. Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 12:17
  • Thanks @goldilocks (+1 again) but have a look at Page 2 of this CanJam EduKit tutorial...the buzzer is wired directly to a GPIO pin. So is the buzzer in that tutorial really just that different from the one in my question? Or is the tutorial total nonsense and unsafe?! I guess I'm looking for the path of least resistance here (no pun intended): Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 17:13
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    That's a smaller piezo; they are common and inexpensive. I think I've done that before...I'm not an expert on electronics, BTW, my answer was mostly to correct you about the pull-up, pull-downs. So looking around a bit, I think they do have resistance, and can be damaged by overcurrent (you won't do that with a GPIO to your large buzzer), and conversely could draw too much. Unless you can find someone who's used a buzzer like that on the pi w/o a resistor, I still think you should use a resistor. Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 18:18
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    Also, a buzzer and a piezo aren't necessarily the same thing. It may not work without more voltage; the thing I mentioned about using a transistor is you use the transistor as switch, controlled by the GPIO, to sink or source a separate power supply (e.g., the 5V rail on the pi) to the buzzer. Commented Sep 21, 2017 at 18:22