Embedded, 2-Pole Neck P'up for the E and A Strings

[CheshireCat]

To begin with . . .

Okay, I'm not sure if many of you remember from before, but I was working on an octave divider for my guitar.

Well, the idea was that I wanted to make a dedicated pickup that would only pickup the E and A strings, which, when octave-divided, would be like having a Low E and a Low A off of a bass guitar, which would effectively extend the range of my guitar for special applications and what not.

Now, before I press on, please, no posts about how you don't think it will work, or posts suggesting that I try to do MIDI instead. I've already researched this extensively, and ultimately the only thing that will tell me if this will work or not is me actually wiring it up and doing it, albeit taking a lead from the existing Neck (in the body, not embedded in the Neck) pickup that I have, and seeing how it works. But, that said, everything else has clicked thus far.

As for MIDI, I'm already going to have MIDI and I want to make this push-button simple (or rotary-switch crank simple, as the case may be) and not have to do a tap dance all over my MIDI controller to patch in the bass bit, nor tie up any MIDI patches on that. I have a perfectly functional circuit from Craig Anderton that I can mod a bit, and also some preamp circuits and what not to fine tune the bass sound and feel. Either way, I'm doing this.

Also, why the neck? Because there isn't any more room on the body. The neck is the only place I can go to now, because if I tried to squeeze this into the body, it would make a huge mess of things, best case scenario. So, the neck it is.

So, the question is, what is the best way to create a two pole pickup and will get embedded in the neck?

My original conception was to make a humbucking pickup by getting two pole piece magnets from StewMac.com and do the whole 180/360 humbucking loop-de-loop on them, with one flipped over and both reverse wound in opposition to each other and so on. That way I'd just wire them parallel or series and then drill two holes into the neck from underneath, not going all the way thru, and then meet those two channels from the top with a smaller set of holes, so the pole pieces can protrude from the neck at the 20th fret. I have a half-scalloped fretboard, and never play at the 20th fret on the low E and A strings, so it's not that big a deal, and it would actually look kinda cool, ithink.

At least, that's the idea I was toying with.

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering, I would run the two leads out of the side of the neck and they would end with a microheader, which would then plug into a microheader socket on the inside of the guitar. A hole just large enough to allow the microheader to pass thru would channel from the neck pocket to the side cavity, where the rest of the circuitry is awaiting the leads. That way, it'd be a snap (literally) to unplug the pickup for when I needed to do maintenance on the neck and so on (bolt-on).

Okay, that all said, to the matter at hand . . .

So, as I'm working this out in my mind, I notice that in order to get any good windings on the poles, it would be pretty tight wiring to try and fit the pole pieces in the limited amount of space I would have, and still keep the poles aligned under the strings. It would be tight to say the least. In fact, it's possible that the assembly for the Low E string might protrude out the side of the neck. Granted, it would be invisible, being that it would be on the side of the neck pocket that is completely obscured from sight, but that's still a little too loosy-goosy for my taste. I'd want it to be cleaner and tighter than that.

I thought about using perhaps a larger slug between the two of the strings, kinda like the size of the pole pieces for the Music Man Bass humbucking pickups, and just have one pole piece between the two strings, so that in theory the pole piece would pickup both strings equally, and, hopefully, effectively. Of course, that'd make it harder to do the humbucking effect. I'd have to work out some sort of stacked arrangement.

Interestingly enough, if I was working with a middle pairing of two strings, and didn't have the edge of the neck to contend with, then it'd be a veritible slam dunk. But I digress.

So, that's the challenge. What would be the best pickup design for an embedded, two pole pickup that hopefully had some humbucking properties to it, or one big pole with humbucking properties to it?

Incidentally, I thought about something like one discrete pole with a t-bar going across the top of it or something, to catch more of the aperature of the two poles.

I'm open to suggestions.

Any ideas?

Chesh

BTW - I'm piping it into a PA2, so I can get some boost on it . . . up to 20db's, just in case the limited amount of windings I can use might be a mitigating factor.

[jhng]

I'm afraid I have no useful comments on pup design, you're miles ahead of me there. But I would like to say that I think it sounds like a great idea!

You could also, presumeably have a pup that hangs over the A & E strings upside down and clips on like a capo? That would be a cool removable option. (I'm a bit reluctant to chop a chunk out of the neck on my strat!).

Hastings

[CheshireCat]

jhng said:

I'm afraid I have no useful comments on pup design, you're miles ahead of me there. But I would like to say that I think it sounds like a great idea!

You could also, presumeably have a pup that hangs over the A & E strings upside down and clips on like a capo? That would be a cool removable option. (I'm a bit reluctant to chop a chunk out of the neck on my strat!).

Hastings

Interestingly enough, someone suggested that last night at a restaurant I was at. I thought about that idea, but do indeed want it embedded.

Still, interesting idea. Hmmmmmmmmmmm . . . *mental gears turning*

Chesh

[JohnH]

Heres a completely different approach. It is half baked, and not developed but it is very interesting and remember that you read it here first.

Instead of inducing a signal in a new pickup, induce a signal in the strings. As the strings vibrate, they are moving through magnetic fields created by the normal pickups, and any other magnets that you may choose to place in the vicinity. A small but significant voltage is induced between the ends of each string. This is the ultimate low impedance pickup.

Before you think I have been eating too many potato snacks, try this at home:

Wire up your highest gain amplification - everything at 11 (we need that extra bit), which might comprise a booster pedal, and/or high gain amp setting. Take the lead from the amp, don't plug it to the normal socket on the guitar, but instead use alligator clips to connect the tip and sleeve, to the tuning machines on the head of the guitar, on the low E and A.
strings. This creates a circuit from the A machine, down the A string, through the bridge, up the E string and back to the E machine. Pluck the strings - you get a very audible, although not very loud sound. Some hiss but not much hum if your amp is good, we have shorted out induced hum with this low impedance arrangement. The sound comes only from E and A, nothing from other strings.

That demonstrates the principle - but theres a few problems with this particular arrangement:

• If you fret both strings - it shorts out the signal!
  
• It is super-low output
  

(BTW - turn the amp down BEFORE your unclip the alligator clips - otherwise it is fright-night)

A more practical arrangement that would allow the frets to be used would be instead, to somehow isolate the strings from each other at the bridge, and take the signals from the bridge end, having just a connected link between strings at the head.

Although the output is very low, it is also very low impedance. That means it is highly suitable for boosting of voltage by a step-up transformer, prior to amplification. However, with the right high-gain preamp in the guitar, there is enough signal without this to drive a simple octave divider.

You can also place extra magnets under the strings to get more output.

Now this concept could be used to make a complete pick up arrangement, but I doubt it would be worth the bother. But I think it may well have legs for Chesh' octave divider pick up for just two strings, because it completely ignores the other strings, and the hiss that gets developed by the pre-amp with enough gain, can be filtered out before it goes to the octave divider. .

Cool idea?

John

[UnklMickey]

johnh said:

...Before you think I have been eating too many potato snacks, ...

...A more practical arrangement that would allow the frets to be used would be instead, to somehow isolate the strings from each other at the bridge, and take the signals from the bridge end, having just a connected link between strings at the head.

Although the output is very low, it is also very low impedance. That means it is highly suitable for boosting of voltage by a step-up transformer, prior to amplification. ...

John,

i don't think this is at all "crunchy".

i think you hit all the right buttons, with the step-up transformer, and insulating the strings at the bridge.

but, how about 2 transformers, 1 for each string, common connection at the head.

and 2 octave dividers.

that makes it simpler for the dividers, since there is only one note at a time being processed by each divider.

AND you can play bass harmonies.

[JohnH]

Good thought Unk! If Chesh is still thinking of something like the divider circuit that we discussed a few months ago, then it is happy to get just a single signal and cant do chords. But with this double arrangement, you could thrash away as you like. This could be a killer...AC/DC in full flight, with one chord on one guitar!

it would need a seperate return wire down the neck, connected to the top of the E and A strings. One thing I wondered about, is what fretting the strings would do, and whether this would mix the signals. But I think it is OK, the induction is only in the vibrating part of the strings which would be sperate.

Im not sure if a transformer system will be needed or not. If it is, then a small mains transformer (or one for each string), used backwards might be about right. It would be one designed to go from mains voltage down as low as possible, to get as much step-up as possible when used in reverse.

But with the other approach without the transformers, advantage could be taken of very low impedance, to do a bipolar-based circuit that did not worry about low input impedance. A couple of 2N548C stages, with zero or very small emitter resistors might do it, then filter off everything above say 500hz before clipping to a square wave and feeding the octave divider.

This could work!.
John

[UnklMickey]

johnh said:

...it would need a seperate return wire down the neck, connected to the top of the E and A strings. ...

would it?

or could one (or all) of the other four strings be the common feed to the headstock end?


even with a 6v to 120v step-up i'd guess the impedance would still be way lower than a pickup.
definitely worth investigating the transformer approach.

[CheshireCat]

Very interesting so far. I am definitely processing this.

Oh, and John, this octave divider is very much like what we talked about a few months ago. It's evolved a bit, and has grown a few IC's since we last spoke, but it is definitely a continuation of that concept!

Cool stuff! Keep going!

Incidentally, I originally wanted the magnetic pole pieces to protrude from the neck in the valley of the 20th fret scallop. This idea would still tap into that.

Chesh

[JohnH]

unklmickey said:

would it?

or could one (or all) of the other four strings be the common feed to the headstock end?

even with a 6v to 120v step-up i'd guess the impedance would still be way lower than a pickup.
definitely worth investigating the transformer approach.

I think it would - because otherwise the other vibrating strings would all add their induced input to the return signal, spoling the seperation of the E and A that is wanted.

Agreed about investigating the transformers- they could be quite small. so long as they dont pick up hum, being inductive elements in themselves. For this bass aplication, I think it may be easier to deal with the hiss from a preamp with huge gain, than amplified hum from these transformers, since the hiss is high frequency and is further from the bass notes that are wanted.

John

[UnklMickey]

johnh said:

....I think it would - because otherwise the other vibrating strings would all add their induced input to the return signal, spoling the seperation of the E and A that is wanted....

yeah, i thought right past that.

(D'oh-slap courtesy Doug)

[UnklMickey]

so, getting back to not yet defined issues:

• wire to head end connects to strings possibly through metal nut.
  
  
• bridge saddles E and A insulated from bridge OR non-conductive material.
  
  
• insulated, conductive, individual tail stops for E and A. each one goes to separate transformer or direct to separate pre-amps.

[JohnH]

The insulation is a small but vital feature. Short of all non-conductive bridge hardware, how about a short tubular sleeve, in a hard plastic material such as perspex, over the strings as they rest on the bridge saddles and pass through the tail stop, plus a plate of it for the bullet to pull against. It would depend on the type of bridge.

Chesh - As for the embedded magnets - its worth trying without them, using just the magnetic fields from your main pups . The signal I got when I tried it as described above, I believe would be good enough with filtering, even to make my fuzz-divider work, and it sounds like you have developed this further since then.

John

[UnklMickey]

johnh said:

...how about a short tubular sleeve, in a hard plastic material such as perspex, over the strings as they rest on the bridge saddles...

that's an idea worth looking at if all other possiblities are locked-out.

the reason i'd hesitate to do that at the bridge, they would tend to creep, especially during initial tune-up. if they are too far back, the string shorts to the saddle. if they are too far forward, it changes the intonation and damps the string vibrations. however, in some bridge designs, it may be the only way.


unk

[CheshireCat]

unklmickey said:

so, getting back to not yet defined issues:

• wire to head end connects to strings possibly through metal nut.
  
  
• bridge saddles E and A insulated from bridge OR non-conductive material.
  
  
• insulated, conductive, individual tail stops for E and A. each one goes to separate transformer or direct to separate pre-amps.

I'm using a GraphTech GHOST System eventually, and I believe that the black saddles are non-conductive.

I'd probably create a jumper between the two tuning machines for the E and A strings, and then tap the two strings between the bridge and tailstop, tho, actually, I could even insulate the strings at the tailstop and then run two leads from the tailpiece straight into the body, especially since the bridge and tailpiece assembly (TOM) is recessed into the guitar body the way Warrior used to do (or still does). Either way, that would actually be pretty simple.

If I wanted to get cute, I could also run the leads from the strings straight into the guitar body, or create some sort of post or portal that the strings would pass thru. Either way, I could easily work with that.

As for the transformers, can all this stuff run off of a 9-volt battery? What about running the leads into an EMG-PA2? I'm also doing custom circuitry on this. What about using a battery driven IC op amp?

Also, what kind of sound quality would this produce in terms of quality, natural sound?

Chesh

[ChrisK]

Well,

One could modify a Lace Alumitone PU for this purpose. It's an aluminum frame that goes around two bar magnets and into a step-up transformer. You could use two square magnets and make your own frame. Just reuse the internal Lace transformer. I've tried out a set of these in one of my Strat copies, they have wide freq response.



Further, If'n you just want to sense two strings, buy two piezo saddles for your bridge, and a preamp, and avoid the "wrenched neck" (which may happen if you remove material from a stressed beam).

[UnklMickey]

if the graph-tech saddles are non-conductive, that's on less issue to deal with. however you do it you want the string ends at the tailstop to be two separate electrical connections. if you do use transformers, they won't be to provide power. their purpose will be to take the tiny voltage generated by each string, and increase the voltage. the more i think about it, the more i think a good choice might be subminiature output transformers wired "backward" (string feeds the secondary, primary provides the output signal). they are reasonably small.

as far as the sound quality, John will have to help you there.

i looked at the most recent posts before posting this, and Chris's idea for piezo saddles seems good too.
probably easier to implement.


unk

[CheshireCat]

Well, first, I can't do piezo because I'm already doing piezo. The GraphTech GHOST System takes it's signal from a piezo bridge pickup. Perhaps I could pull two leads from the two saddle pieces at the GHOST preamp . . . I could ask Lea if that was possible. That's a thought, but I don't want to complicate things with that. I want to keep that simple.

I'm not following the whole wrenched neck thing. Basically, I have a bolt-on, and any wood removed would be an absolute minimum, much akin to having a thicker screw or two in the wood. (Don't say that last phrase in mixed company!) Remember, this will be at the 20th fret, between two of the three screws I have on that side of the neck. The neck has five screws overall. What exactly do you mean by "wrenched"?

Chesh

[JohnH]

On the sound quality with string induction; It is a clear enough signal, but my test did not prove whether or not it is capable of developing into a good pure sound to listen to clean. But I think it will be fine for driving the divider. Id recommend trying that test I did, and play with some magnets (use a spare pickup, or prise some off the fridge door)

I also think that double idea of Unks is well worth following - even though it needs twice as much kit, and a head to body wire link for the return. The dividers will track much better with a single signal, and it will totally free up your playing, allowing chords to be made.

For preamps, any will do if they have high gain. But there should be a way of optimising them to take advantage of not needing high input impedance, and to use that opportunity to have less noise or a simpler circuit. I am not sure - i think it would need some ideas tested on a breadboard.

John

[CheshireCat]

johnh said:

On the sound quality with string induction; It is a clear enough signal, but my test did not prove whether or not it is capable of developing into a good pure sound to listen to clean. But I think it will be fine for driving the divider. Id recommend trying that test I did, and play with some magnets (use a spare pickup, or prise some off the fridge door)

I also think that double idea of Unks is well worth following - even though it needs twice as much kit, and a head to body wire link for the return. The dividers will track much better with a single signal, and it will totally free up your playing, allowing chords to be made.

For preamps, any will do if they have high gain. But there should be a way of optimising them to take advantage of not needing high input impedance, and to use that opportunity to have less noise or a simpler circuit. I am not sure - i think it would need some ideas tested on a breadboard.

John

Then what do you think of my idea of jumping the tuning heads and taking the leads from the two strings at the tailstop?

Also, assuming I go ahead with the embedded pickup idea, can I use a rare earth magnet on the bottom of a steel "t-piece", for lack of a better term, to magnitize it, or should I stick strictly with alnico or ceramics? I was thinking a small but powerful rare earth magnet, like neodymium boride, would be effective in driving the whole pickup from the magnetic aspect, assuming, of course, that it was a small little magnet. Kinda like the ones at Radio Shack . . . their version of the rare earth magnet.

I also like the idea of being able to do both strings at the same time. Interesting idea.

Chesh

[CheshireCat]

Also, a thought just occured to me. I have some thin steel rod . . . like really thin. If I was to make a squared off U shape out of it, drill two holes and feed it in, making in effect a raised bar magnet pickup, and then if I embedded a small copper coil in between the two rods in the center of the squared "U", would that work in terms of the coil being within the magnetic field? I could cap each end of the rod with a mini rare earth magnet. That would greatly cut down on any routing at all, and it would be rather small, unobtrusive, and innoculous, and I could also run the bit of rod off the side of the neck and back in, thus maximizing coverage of the low E string.

Also, another factor: I don't want to just drive the octave divider, but also add some of this pickup into the mix to beef up the low end of the guitar, given the fact that if I embed the pickup at the 20th fret, that will give it a great deal of bassiness, some of which I had to sacrifice initially to make other seperate issues work. On standby (no dividing effect) I was going to run a lead to the neck pickup lead out to volume, using a trimpot to set the amount of bassiness added.

Would the passive string induction pickup made from the E and A string provide a full spectrum signal, or would I need the 20th fret embedded pickup to create that bassiness?

Chesh

[ChrisK]

Well,

The wrenched neck was a pun, but I do have concerns about the removal of wood from the neck. I'd also make sure that I refinished (sealed) the wood.

I would use the two applicable piezo saddles. There's an individual buffer on each of the six to realize the 13 pin connector. Just rebuffer the two buffered outputs.

The use of a powerful neodynium magnet will cause "wolf tones" / "strat'itis" or whatever you want to call it. In essence, a powerful magnet will impinge the natural string vibration (sort of like when you get the PU's too close to the strings).

Again, I'd use the piezo's 'cuz they're already there.

[CheshireCat]

chrisk said:

Well,

The wrenched neck was a pun, but I do have concerns about the removal of wood from the neck. I'd also make sure that I refinished (sealed) the wood.

I would use the two applicable piezo saddles. There's an individual buffer on each of the six to realize the 13 pin connector. Just rebuffer the two buffered outputs.

The use of a powerful neodynium magnet will cause "wolf tones" / "strat'itis" or whatever you want to call it. In essence, a powerful magnet will impinge the natural string vibration (sort of like when you get the PU's too close to the strings).

Again, I'd use the piezo's 'cuz they're already there.

Well, the problem with the piezos is that they are going to drive an Acoustiphonic Preamp and a Hexpander Preamp. They aren't being summed down into one lead or anything like that. The GHOST System is very specific in it's assembly. Of course, I might get a custom preamp or something . . . perhaps I could do that . . . apart from that I don't know how I would extract the signals from the piezo elements. The leads from the saddles are microheaded and run straight from the saddles directly to the pins on the Hexpander Preamp.

Perhaps I could jury-rig some sort of microheader collar or something for the E and A strings. Is that what you meant?

Chesh

[UnklMickey]

chesh,


regarding the embedded pickup thought.

if you do go that route, consider using small diameter (3/32 or 1/8 diameter) round magnets instead of pole-pieces. you'll get lots more turns around them for the same outside coil dimension. i'd suggest something mild in the alnico family. danelectro pickups are a large 6 string oval magnet version of these. personally i'd do 2 for each string (humbucking). and keep the pairs electrically separate to drive 2 dividers. you could of course, use 1 for each string and wire them together and make that humbucking.


regarding string pickups:

the need for a wire up the neck makes that seem less attractive. but if you think about it, you already have an electrical conductor you might be able to use. using the other strings was a shallow idea, but think deeper.



regarding piezos:

if the piezos are already driving a 6 input mixer, rather than a common input to a single pre-amp, a pair of FET preamps tapped off of the E and A piezos would be very transparent.

EDIT: you posted more info before i finshed this post.
if the hexpander pre-amp has a multi-pin plug on the input, get a male and female pair, and create a short cable that you can use to y the E and A to also drive the new 2 channel bass pre-amp.


unk

[CheshireCat]

unklmickey said:

regarding the embedded pickup thought.

if you do go that route, consider using small diameter (3/32 or 1/8 diameter) round magnets instead of pole-pieces. you'll get lots more turns around them for the same outside coil dimension. i'd suggest something mild in the alnico family. danelectro pickups are a large 6 string oval magnet version of these. personally i'd do 2 for each string (humbucking). and keep the pairs electrically separate to drive 2 dividers. you could of course, use 1 for each string and wire them together and make that humbucking.

Well, I have some really thin rod I got to experiement with in regard to another project for the Utah. Looking at it, it occured to me that it could be shaped into a squared off horseshoe magnet in the form of a squared U, and then flipped over, prongs down (think of a staple) and then embedded into two very small holes in the neck. On the bottom face of the neck, each end would touch a rare earth magnet, the small ones that are approx. 1/8" in diameter. Then, I would have a pole-less coil centered in the middle of the U, so that while no pole would pass thru the center of it, it would be surrounded by the magnet, and thus should hopefully pickup on the string vibration. Think of it as kind of an inside out pickup. Mind you, this would all be in very close proximity to each other, like within a half inch.

I did toy with the idea of using the thinnest alnico pieces I could find, which would be the really thin ones on a Tele Neck pickup, but I don't know where I'd get those.

Ultimately, it occurred to me that I'd have to do just one narrow pole, and crown it with a blade two strings wide so that I could get some good windings on it without it being too close to the edge as to be an issue.

To make it humbucking, I would have an identical dummy coil underneath of it, embedded in the neck cavity directly under the magnet, which would be reverse wound and would hopefully cancel out the hum.

unklmickey said:

regarding string pickups:

the need for a wire up the neck makes that seem less attractive. but if you think about it, you already have an electrical conductor you might be able to use. using the other strings was a shallow idea, but think deeper.

Clever idea. Tho, ironically, it was that idea that first sent me on this mission in the first place. More on that later.

Well, I was thinking, what if we took the two string idea and flipped it over long ways, and instead of the terminals linking (terminating?) at the tuning machines, instead make the tuning machines the jumper, and pull the signal on both strings from the tailpiece? It would be easy to isolate it at the tailpiece, and I can easily embed a jumper at the tuning machines.

Make sense?

unklmickey said:

regarding piezos:

if the piezos are already driving a 6 input mixer, rather than a common input to a single pre-amp, a pair of FET preamps tapped off of the E and A piezos would be very transparent.

unk

Well, therein lies the rub . . . HOW exactly do I tap off of the piezos? I somewhat get the what, but the how is the tricky part. They are fairly self-contained within the GHOST system, the crystals being embedded in the saddles, and the leads connecting to the preamp thru a microheader. And, for that matter, the system is rather pricey and I don't want to jack with it in any way that might void the warrantee. I'm usually like warrantee, shmarrantee when it comes to other things, but not something like this. What did you guys have in mind?

Also, assuming that I went the embedded pole piece rout, if I had the steel armature, which would be magnitized by a proximic magnet, would it effect the magnetism if I was to have the piece chrome plated? Mind you, I wouldn't be plating the magnet it self, just the piece that it touches.

Chesh

[JohnH]

unklmickey said:

the need for a wire up the neck makes that seem less attractive. but if you think about it, you already have an electrical conductor you might be able to use. using the other strings was a shallow idea, but think deeper.

Truss you to think of that one Unk!
J

[UnklMickey]

strings:

remember, if you want to keep the signals from E and A separate, you need a common ground connection at the head end, and the tail end of each string provides the signal




piezo:

if the piezo connection plugs in to the hexpander, and you can get the same kind of plug and jack, you might make a short cable to go between. all the pins get wired straight through on the short cable, plus you tap the E and A signals to send to your dividers. since you won't be changing any of the ghost hardware, it all would still be original and in-warranty

[CheshireCat]

unklmickey said:

strings:

remember, if you want to keep the signals from E and A separate, you need a common ground connection at the head end, and the tail end of each string provides the signal

Oh, they're seperate. I thought they were part of the same circuit, or were supposed to be.

unklmickey said:

piezo:

if the piezo connection plugs in to the hexpander, and you can get the same kind of plug and jack, you might make a short cable to go between. all the pins get wired straight through on the short cable, plus you tap the E and A signals to send to your dividers. since you won't be changing any of the ghost hardware, it all would still be original and in-warranty

Hmmmmmmmmm . . . . so, basically, make what would amount to a microheader collar for each of the E and A strings, and that in turn would get sandwiched between the microheader and the pins? Hmmmmmmmmm . . . actually, as long as everything plugged together, it wouldn't matter how big they were . . . that is, the collars. That would probably be easier than fabricating a new embedded pickup. And that might also be easily solved with a trip to Altex Electronics, or a call to Lea. Perhaps he could put something together for a small fee using the materials on hand that he uses for prototyping various circuits and preamps.

Chesh

[dunkelfalke]

why not just taking two additional small piezos and glueing them to the two saddles?

as far as i see you already electrified your guitar and you can buy preamps that are very small.

i am thinking about this:



(30 eurocents)

and this



($22 or so)

[UnklMickey]

dunkelfalke said:

...i am thinking about this:



(30 eurocents)...

hi Falke,

is that right? 3 piezos for less than a Euro! that's an experimenters dream.
i went to the conrad site to look around, but it's in German. i don't even know how to navigate there.

[dunkelfalke]

piezo elements are pretty cheap, 30-60 cents per piece.

if you want i can try to buy some at the local conrad shop and mail them to you