Ok, this next part is where some folks will get worried, because it deals a bit with wires and such. Those usually will work too, and if you happen to have one lying around, it can bring the price of this project down to even less than 2$! All we need to do now is provide a way to hook it up to your computer (or other sound device like a guitar amp or whatever).īy the way, you may have seen something that looks just like that in some other place, like a musical greeting card or a small toy that has sound effects built into it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the piezo element. When you have that out, you can carefully scrape off any excess glue around the outer edge with a knife. It isn't *super* fragile, but try to avoid bending it too much or denting the crap out of it. Ok, now it is time to get destructive! LOL Use a pair of pliers and carefully break away the plastic until the metal disk comes loose. Cut the wires on it off, leaving them as long as you can. If you lift up the circuit board, you'll see a sort of metal disk thing. Sometimes there's a little screw, but this particular type is just snapped together and you can carefully pry the back off it with a screwdriver. Take it out of the package (might want to save the batteries, if you have anything like a laser pointer or something they'd fit) and take it apart. Both were bought at a dollar store and yup, cost 1$ each. One is a little mic and earphone for use with computer to do things like online audio chats, the other is a little door/window alarm. If you go to your local dollar store (or similar cheap place) you can probably find the items pictured. It isn't hard, and there's really only 2 pairs of wires to hook together.īut first off you need the parts. I usually have made my own any time I needed one.Īs stated in the topic, you can make your own for about 2$ (or maybe even less). My electric violin has one, of course, but that is the only one that I actually ever bought. But I think that we can beat the lowest price anyone is likely to find by making one. Piezo pickups for violin are fairly popular and they can be bought in many places. Hopefully that keeps everyone happy who has an interest in this topic. Electrical tape can be used to help with this.Ok, since some folks here occasionally comment on how long my posts are when talking about a technical matter, I am going to break this down into shorter posts to explain the steps. Screw the strain relief back on to the jack.īe careful to not let any of the wires, especially around the capacitor, to short or become shorted when sheathed in the strain relief. Electrical tape and surfaces or wires that could contact something of the other polarity.Ĩ. Solder the black wire to the larger outer terminal.ħ. Solder the other end of the capacitor to the inner terminal of the jackĦ. Solder the shorter wire to the capacitor, making sure that it will be able to fit in the strain relief.ĥ. Don't forget to do this unless you really like to de-solderĤ. Feed the wires through the strain relief. Unscrew and remove the strain relief from the ¼” phone jack.ģ. Cut about 1/2” off the remaining red wire.Ģ. Just solder the red wire directly to the inner terminal.ġ. The pickups will still work fine without the filter. This step is optional but with a little experimenting, you can find your own personal preference. Solder a 10 nF capacitor in series with the pickups as a high-pass filter to help reduce valve noise with minimal effect on the trumpet's tone. Wrap the two bare ends together to form a mechanical connection. Strip the ends of the end of each wire to expose about 1/8th of an inch of bare wire.ģ. Cut the 2 wires to appropriate length, approximately 3/4ths of and inch.Ģ. Wire the pickups in series with a red wire from one pickup connected to the black wire of the other pickup.ġ. The rest of the items are relatively cheap except for the trumpet. My total cost for this was $3.99 for the phone jacks, and $1.99 for each piezo transducer. A 1/8th” jack could be used to connect to a microphone input on a computer for recording.įor the mute, I used a Stone Lined straight mute because it is inexpensive and has good mounting locations for the pickups. This is set up to be plugged into an electric guitar or bass amp. The phone jack can be replaced with any type of connector you need. More detail on how these work can be found at wikipedia. In short, mechanical vibrations of piezoelectric crystals creates a voltage with respect to the vibrations. These will be used as pickups to convert the sound to electrical signals. The piezo transducers are often marked as buzzers or elements. 2 – Piezo Transducers - Radio Shack 273-0073ġ – 1/4” Phone Jack - Radio Shack 274-0340
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