Resurrecting a dead Piezo

Started by FreeTime, September 04, 2016, 08:57:14 PM

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FreeTime

I put away a Peavey AT200 a couple of years ago, when I tried playing it one of the strings had no output when in autotune mode. I learned that the AT200 has a piezo bridge; each saddle has its own element a la Godin. Everything checked ok,  but after an hour its destined for the junkpile because the G string still isn't sounding. Thought I might salvage the bridge and tapped the saddle (same slap for fixing vertical hold on CRT TVs of yore), gently but with authority, with the tip of a terminator. After 3 or 4 taps surprisingly it came back to life.

I don't know if it started working again because of lousy contact (its still working after a few hours) or maybe during a couple of years of no use a charge accumulated on/in the piezo crystal and it had to be 'hyperflexed' to re-zero it.

Anyways, if you have a dead Piezo out of warranty its worth a tap, gently but with authority.

whippinpost91850

Ah hints from the RCA field manual :)

gumbo

Amazing how many frozen Beige-Box Macs of old used to respond to being lifted 6 inches above the desk and then dropped    :o

..used to scare the pants off the watching audience, but it worked..   8)
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