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Permalink Reply by Craig Mayhem on January 4, 2013 at 7:49am

If you have a guitar input, wouldn't that be the vehicle for getting the sound out of the tin?

What I'm getting at is there may be a different problem. The guitar jack should get any sound out of the tin that may be trapped by any Faraday cage action. Solders and wires are all good and not broken/crimped when closing the lid?

pics?

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Permalink Reply by Niels Vaillant on January 4, 2013 at 8:25am

Solders are not perfect :-) but functioning no shortcircuit and as soon as i open the lid i´ve got a signal again.

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Permalink Reply by Craig Mayhem on January 4, 2013 at 9:05am

are those things permanently glued to the lid? I ask because it looks like the wires/solder points are contacting the lid. I can't imagine why this would cause it not to work, just troubleshooting at this point. Maybe you're completing a short circuit when you close the lid.

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Permalink Reply by Niels Vaillant on January 4, 2013 at 9:29am

Well it should be pretty permanent and yes i know the solder is on the lid to i did this on purpose. The box is connected to ground. but this shouldn"t be a problem, it,s no problem when the lid and box make contact i still got a signal.

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Permalink Reply by Craig Mayhem on January 4, 2013 at 9:58am

Hrm. What if you temporarily put some masking or electrical tape around the lip of the box so the to pieces don't make metal-to-metal contact? (more troubleshooting 'cause frankly I'm stumped! It's what I would try next).

Beyond that I'm fresh out of ideas! Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Niels Vaillant on January 4, 2013 at 10:10am

i actually just tried that and beat me it works (wich i realy don´t understand because before that i temporary solderd a wire between the lid and the box to make sure thats not the problem and it still worked when i did) but it works now so problem not realy found but solved and in the end that´s what matters hope i manage to get some strings on it tonight ;-)  thanx a lot for your help

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Permalink Reply by Craig Mayhem on January 4, 2013 at 10:11am

Awesome!

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Permalink Reply by David L. on January 4, 2013 at 10:11am

I suspect that when the lid is pushed on it causes the long ouput leads to alter shape (or stress a solder point) and cause a short.  You could try some insulation tape around the jack socket terminals (or wiggle the wires to try and reproduce the problem with the lid off) to eliminate this as a possibliity

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 4, 2013 at 10:18pm

It is quite apparent that you short your circuit across the lid in the top pic. Don't forget the current will always follow the path of least resistance. I reccomend you carefully desolder the piezo on left in the top pic and flip the phase, because as you've done it here that left hand one will be non operational (unless the pic deceives me.. Do yourself a favour and get a couple colours of hookup wire! You can cut several meters from a dead computer or tv ;)

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on January 5, 2013 at 3:11am

On the cookie tin build i made i stuck the peizo on the neck through, picks up the sound nicely out of the box too.

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Permalink Reply by Sharecropper on January 5, 2013 at 4:51am

  Hi , Niels !   I believe the Phrygian Kid is correct .   If the hot wire from the jack is connected to the center of the piezo on the right , in photo, and then runs to the metal ring on the outside of the piezo on the left... which sits on your metal lid . That's the problem.      The jack is grounded to the other side of the box where the metal on the jack makes contact with the metal box(not a problem).    When you put the the box together the electricity runs directly from the piezo on the left to ground on the jack .   I think !  ha!ha!   You could, 1 rewire the piezo on the left, or 2 , cut the wires to the piezo on the left .put the box together to test this theory .... if that works...." flip" the wires where you cut them , solder them together and cover  with heat shrink tubeing .     I hope that helps .    For what it's worth ...... A Faraday cage stops electrical interference traveling through the airwaves , not electricity with in the Faraday cage or running to it by wires .   Electric guitars use a metal tape to serve as a Faraday cage .         That being said....I'm curious to know if  piezo in a metal box is less likely to suffer from the "electrical feedback"they are famous for . Electrical feedback is that high pitched squealing sound , that has nothing to do with string or box vibrations .    When you get the wiring figured out, I'd like to know if you are prone to this electrical feedback .  I don't have any piezos to try this experiment with !        Thanks Neil .          Sharecropper

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 5, 2013 at 10:47am

Whats going on..

Because you reversed the phase of the second piezo the left hand (in this pic) buzzer is permanently shorted out.  When you close the lid you (before you added tape) make a circuit from the offending solder point (marked red) to the sleeve of the jack, shorting the other piezo as well.

That said...  look I dont want to offend in any way, and it looks like youve done a great job on this axe..

but these piezos directly on the tin lid WILL NEVER sound any good, sorry.  Piezos emphasise all the wrong frequencies for this job, its difficult enough to get em sounding halfway decent on a nice warm cedar soundboard, but on a harsh, toppy steel one ? forget it..   If you really are committed to using a piezo i reccommend mounting it in wood to take the top edge off..  Mount in to the neck like Uncle Randy says, or sandwich it with softwood, pine, cedar etc..

what you really wanna try is this, trust me, ive made many many tin guitars..

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