PIEZO BUZZER INFORMATION PLEASE??

[dmitri]

I must admit that I might be wrong and soldering piezos may be easier than I thought. Probably I had too many piezos and couldn't be bothered too much soldering broken ones:)

[Juze]

I have already soldered one piezo and made it to a "take-off"-trigger. Soldering was definately not problem. I wish I could test my trigger somehow...

[jerzy]

You can plug it into sound card input:)

[Juze]

Wooot!?
But doesn't piezos generate voltage peaks, when they are pressed/hitted? So could that voltage peak brake my sound-card?
And, I have old 5.1 soundcard, it has outputs for 1.center&subwoofer 2.front spkrs and 3. rear spkrs. one input... So i connect the wires from "trigger" to input?

[denis]

yes you can directly connect it to your soundcards input.
Piezzo buzzers can also be used as a microphone. Try it mount it to a guitar body then connect to your input and record. Wow what a surprise, it's a terrible microphone=)

[baguette]

I tested piezos once even on the line input of my stereos.
You have to put volume quite high, then you hear it if you touch it gently or if you blow on it.

Concerning soldering piezos, I made the expierience that soldering could be an issue especially on small transducers since the metal coating on the top is thin. If you solder a thick wire, the vibration will make the solder with the metal coating break away from the piezo, especially if the wire fixing point is close to the piezo and it cannot bend.
But anyway, you can resolder it.

What I did in this case was only to solder one thin string of the wire, which can compensate vibrations better by bending.

BTW I didn't try it yet, but I am convinced that you can cut a large piezo in two (or even four) and use all of them separately. This could be a way to cope with too "hot" piezos.

[ignotus]

Concerning soldering piezos, I made the expierience that soldering could be an issue especially on small transducers since the metal coating on the top is thin. If you solder a thick wire, the vibration will make the solder with the metal coating break away from the piezo, especially if the wire fixing point is close to the piezo and it cannot bend.
But anyway, you can resolder it.

A drop of hot glue on the solder joints is a good idea to keep it in place

[baguette]

Concerning soldering piezos, I made the expierience that soldering could be an issue especially on small transducers since the metal coating on the top is thin. If you solder a thick wire, the vibration will make the solder with the metal coating break away from the piezo, especially if the wire fixing point is close to the piezo and it cannot bend.
But anyway, you can resolder it.

A drop of hot glue on the solder joints is a good idea to keep it in place

that's exactly what I thought. More specifically, also to glue the part of the wire which goes over the piezo on the piezo, so the bending force does not apply on the solder point

[ignotus]

that's exactly what I thought. More specifically, also to glue the part of the wire which goes over the piezo on the piezo, so the bending force does not apply on the solder point

Yep, exactly. You don't wan't to go too heavy on it though, otherwise the piezo won't flex properly when it's hit.

[gastric]

Here's a source for cheap piezos via eBay. Seller ships worldwide.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=020

Note they're a little larger than your typical 27mm recommendation. But the price is right and the seller ships fast. I currently have one stuck to an acrylic Pintech Visulite cymbal with 2-sided 3M mounting tape and wired directly to a dangling 1/4" jack to provide a bell sound that no longer works using the built-in Pintech piezos.