Mark the hole before drilling the guitar. Endpin jacks are a stronger and more professional solution, but will also probably double the cost of this project for you.įigure 1. Be creative! You will probably want to mark the spot with pencil first, then take the tip of the drill bit and twist on the mark by hand (not in the drill) to make a small indentation in the wood, as seen in Figure 1. It is, however, up to you where you choose to put it. I recommend marking the hole about halfway through the curve on the end of the guitar. There is a block of wood there and the provided jack will not work in this position. This is where the pin that holds the strap is located. Unless you are handy with a soldering iron and have an endpin-jack on-hand, do not place your hole in the end of the guitar. Mark where the hole will be in the body of the guitar. Here is a picture of the finished device, ready for installation (Kumpf, date unknown): You may want to make sure it is working by plugging it into an amp (with a guitar cable) and lightly tapping on it. Your piezo pickup device should now be ready to install.Place a large drop of hot glue on the back side of the piezo element (where the wires connect) and then press the foam on until the glue cools. Cut a piece of foam the same size of your piezo element and about 3/8" tall. Optional: We have found that a small piece of medium density foam improves the performance of the pickup over a large number of frequencies.On the other end of the shielded wire, connect the signal wire to the signal tab on the 1/4 in audio jack and connect the shielding to the ground tab. On one end connect the signal wire to the center of the Piezo element and the ground/shielding to the metal/brass surface of the piezo element. Strip the ends of the shielded audio cable. You are now ready to solder the device together.Bending the element may cause it to break or lose some of its sensitivity. Be careful not to hurt the metal device inside. Now that you have the Piezo Buzzer, you need to carefully break it open and get out the piezo element.It will be attached to the inside of the guitar body, and, as the body vibrates, the sound will be turned into an electric signal by the Piezo buzzer element. This is exactly how we will use the Piezo Buzzer element in this project. If sound waves push and pull on the conductors, an electrical signal is created and can be output to an amplifier or recording device. The beauty of the Piezo element is that it also works in reverse. When a sinusoidal signal (audio) is applied, the conductors are pushed and pulled very quickly, creating sound waves. This in turn bends the metal conductor layers. When a voltage is applied across the crystal layer, the crystals pull on one side and push on the other. Piezo elements are made from two conductors separated by a layer of piezo crystals. Also note that you do not need a fully functional buzzer device, just the piezo element. In other words, they are pretty cheap so go for a good one. Sometimes the Piezo Buzzer packages don't have that much information on them, but you want to find things as close as possible to the information listed above in the Materials and Equipment section. You can find these for just a couple dollars at your local parts store (Radio Shack).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |