Piezo Element Repair

[David Carter]

I've got one of the melded arrays glued up for my four DR200's, and even though I tested the piezos before cutting and gluing the array, one of them has developed a problem since then. I popped the element out, and the cone is detached like in the image below (although this image is not mine--I borrowed it from another post)...



I'm planning on gluing the cone back on, but I have another question. See the dark foam ring that fits behind the cone? In my case this ring is loose and fell out when I took the piezo apart. So, my question is should I glue it to anything or should it float freely behind the cone? I hope this makes sense. I don't have a camera handy, but I can provide pics if needed.

[David Carter]

Anyone? I'd really love to get this taken care of so I can wire up the array and use it to test my filter wiring. I've got two of the four DR's all dressed up and ready to go--they just need the drivers and arrays wired up.

[LelandCrooks]

The felt floats I'm pretty sure. A spot of hot glue will reaffix the cone. Been awhile since I had one apart.

[more4me]

All of my Piezos have had the piezo-element free floating.

[David Carter]

Thanks guys! If anyone has any additional comments, feel free to add them. It will be this afternoon before I get a chance to work on this.

[Scott Brochu]

you said there was a problem with one of them; what was the problem that you noticed? DId it not make a sound after it did earlier? or? Just want to know what to look for when I do mine.
Thanks

[David Carter]

you said there was a problem with one of them; what was the problem that you noticed? DId it not make a sound after it did earlier? or? Just want to know what to look for when I do mine.
Thanks

Before I cut and glued the piezos, I ran white noise through all of them and only used the ones with good strong output. But after all the cutting and gluing (but before wiring the elements together), I ran the same white noise through them again. This time the one piezo in question had very soft, muffled output. When I unscrewed the element and popped it off, the cone was detached and the foam ring fell out.

[pwfirst]

I used super glue gel for mine but hot glue should do the trick too. Phil

[mike james]

David, I have used a small dab of 5 minute epoxy with good results on piezos. I used 5 min epoxy on a 10" bass speaker where a seam came unglued. And months later it is still working great in a 4-10" bass cab.Those speakers get a work out too!

[David Carter]

Thanks to all. I'm a bit nervous about this because it's my first attempt at repairing a piezo. In the past, I've always just discarded the bad ones, but this one went bad after being glued into a melded array, so I've got to do something, and I don't have a bunch of extra elements sitting around. I had a hot glue gun handy so I tried a dab of that a lunch time today. I have not been back to check on it yet. I'll test it tonight and report back.

[mike james]

If you can I would mark the back of that piezo. So that if later you have trouble with the hot glue breaking loose, you will know where to look first.

Can't wait for more pic's in your DR200 thread. You sure do nice work David.

[David Carter]

Yes, I marked it. The hot glue worked, but everything inside is still much looser than the other ones I've opened up and looked at. Anyway, when I ran white noise to it to test it last night, I'm getting the SPL now. The pitch is off a bit compared to the others, but at this point, I'm tired of fooling with it. I'm using it like it is and moving on.

Thanks for the help everyone.