Acoustic Drums to Electronic

This is a little different than my first conversion. There are differences in the style of cross member and the piezos I used, I will be converting the bass drum, cymbals and Hi-hat also. This is what I have done so far.

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I used 1"x2" wood for the cross member and adjustable pizeo sensor support.

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Assembled wood cross member with adjustable sensor support.

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Roof truss clip. Purchased at Menards $0.49

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The roof truss clips are attached inside the drum shell where the lugs connect. They will support the cross member.

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I used double sided 3M tape to attach the cross member to the roof truss clips.

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These Radio Shack Model: 273-073 piezos work just as well as the ones I used in my first conversion project. It just takes a little work to get at them.

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Break off the tabs with a pair pliers. You will then be able to use a small screw driver to pry off the back cover.

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I used a needle nose pliers to carefully break off as much plastic as I could from the bottom. (Shown by the arrows.)

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I carefully broke away the the plastic from the top with a needle nose pliers.

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After I removed as much plastic as I could, the piezo disk was easy to remove from the remainder of the plastic. I did this with all the piezos with the same results. No ruined piezos.

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I soldered longer wires to the piezo leads, used heat shrink tubing to cover solder joints, secured wire with cable ties. Piezo Sensor is attached with a circle 3M double sided foam tape cut to the size of the ceramic part of the piezo.

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I cut the foam sanding block into 1 x1 x1.5 foam blocks with a miter saw and peeled off the sanding surface.

The sanding block foam worked so well in my first project. I chose to use them again for this project.

If you don't want to use foam blocks. You can also make foam cones from the foam sanding blocks.

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A circle of 3M double sided foam tape the size of the ceramic is used to attach foam block to sensor.

I adjusted the sensor support so the foam block is 1/8 above the rim of the drum shell.

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Soldered wires to the 1/4 jack. Insert the 1/4 jack through the vent hole and tightened down. Put on somewindow screen mesh heads. One down and three to go.