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How to wire lots of piezo tweeters?

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URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=37216
Printed Date: 29 March 2024 at 10:20am
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Topic: How to wire lots of piezo tweeters?
Posted By: 2bitNum
Subject: How to wire lots of piezo tweeters?
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 4:11pm

Hi,

Im helping a friend to build his sound system, we are both newbies in speakers and wiring stuff but we are learning as we go along with the build.

We have two boxes with  ten piezo tweeters each and need help on wiring them.

How should we wire them? 

The piezos specs are: 
impedance: 8 Ω and have a 4.7uF 50v CAP solder on the negative pole(is that needed on all of them?)

What amp would you recommend?

Thanks for your time.




Replies:
Posted By: trance addict
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 8:02pm
For your ears and for your audience, do yourself a favor :  avoid piezosOuch

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"There are two kinds of fools,

One says-this is old and therefore good.

The other says-this is new and therefore better."

-Bob Katz


Posted By: djscooby
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 8:09pm
the best thing to do matey is throw em in the bin you can get good comps cheap enough now


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Well my wife has kicked me out saying it's over due to my obsession with speakers don't know watt I'm gonna do with no ohm to go to


Posted By: Jake_Fielder
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 8:13pm
Well they have bought them already so thats not helpfull really, im not saying i like them but some successful systems use them.

Do you know what series and parallel means regarding wiring?
If so, do two in series, wireed in parrallel with another series pair, if you want to keep it 8r.

Or you could/should really, search the forum as this has been asked before,

(select "any date" when searching)


Posted By: levyte357
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 8:49pm
Originally posted by Jake_Fielder Jake_Fielder wrote:

Well they have bought them already so thats not helpfull really, im not saying i like them but some successful systems use them.


+1

PM Rensaab/Tekasis/HMSS/Ligwa & other "RootsnCulture" regulars..

Or even better, put question in Roots and Culture section...


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"Who am I? I'm the guy who does his job.. You must be the other guy".


Posted By: cilla.scope
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 9:02pm
Wire them in parallel ... across the mains ;)


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My girlfriend thinks I'm a stalker.
Well, she's not exactly my girlfriend yet ...


Posted By: haloweenhamster
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 9:45pm
u beat me to it i was goin to suggest across the mains
but they r almost indestructible 


Posted By: Jake_Fielder
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 10:45pm
Perhaps this person could have searched, but christ, he (i assume) is starting a sound system and has asked a question, and is being more polite than most new people on here. Why not help a little?

Read these threads, you should find some good info on here,

http://www.forum.speakerplans.com/piezo-link-up_topic25866_page2.html - http://www.forum.speakerplans.com/piezo-link-up_topic25866_page2.html
http://www.forum.speakerplans.com/wiring-piezos-help-needed-please_topic15188_post145370.html - http://www.forum.speakerplans.com/wiring-piezos-help-needed-please_topic15188_post145370.html
http://www.forum.speakerplans.com/how-should-i-power-4x-piezos_topic13406_page3.html - http://www.forum.speakerplans.com/how-should-i-power-4x-piezos_topic13406_page3.html

Strange daze puts it well in a previous thread;
Originally posted by strange daze strange daze wrote:

If ya gonna use piezos, just buy a premade box...
They are not really recommended to be honest tho..
The Motorolas are okay, but most piezos are very fatiguing on the ears, harsh sounding....but cheap.
Save up and get some proper compression drivers buddy :)


My first sound system was a box of piezos in the shape of a face and 4x15" emminence boxes, run off a hi-fi amp with no crossover, still it was loud enough for the 20-50 people that came to our little parties, and to be honest no body even commented negativly on the sound. I had more fun then than i do now, running a system 10x the power and price, with 10x the number of people attending... and probably 10x the sound quality!


Posted By: Dougies Music
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 10:58pm
+ 1 for being helpful. We were all new at one point.....

Although I do think it's a good idea to point out the serious drawbacks of using piezo's

He asks about amps suggesting there's a bit of cash to spare? In which case, might be worth splitting the budget slightly and replacing the piezo's with some comps and horns?

Best use of the budget.....?


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http://www.dougiesmusic.com - http://www.dougiesmusic.com


Posted By: jonny2bad4509
Date Posted: 18 March 2010 at 11:17pm
Why is people so negative sometimes the guy clearly state that he is new to the business and needs help, he ask a question if you know you answer if you dont then dont tell people to bin there stuff cause non of us started out as expert

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Bomeranks Sound The Party Sound


Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 19 March 2010 at 1:25am
What brand and model piezo are they?
 
If it has a cap on it it is likely to have a transformer built in (like a LeSon), and must be treated differently from a regular piezo.
 
http://www.leson.com.br/tlc6.htm - http://www.leson.com.br/tlc6.htm


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djk


Posted By: 2bitNum
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 6:37am
double post sorry


Posted By: 2bitNum
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 6:49am
Hello everyone,

Thanks all for your replies,

@Jake_Fielder

thanks for the links, i searched the forum the past few months on most of the problems we had so far in building the system and all problems were solved except wiring this piezos. In searching the forum i ve read many posts about how awful piezos sound but the piezos were already bought and a box was build by my friend without much research done. The good thing is that he also bought compression drivers so we are covered sound wise.  I would like to wire the piezos and hear how they sound and maybe then bin them or burn them as other have stated already. 

As for series and parallel wiring, done some web research and came up with this wiring 

 
will this work? if yes what amp will do without burning a hole in our pockets and end up blown?
 
@ djk
I think they are the cheapest you can find, all i was told is that they are 8 ohms and 25 watts each
and the brand is Marksonic, model dmp-1535. 


Posted By: levyte357
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 10:39am
Originally posted by 2bitNum 2bitNum wrote:

will this work? if yes what amp will do without burning a hole in our pockets and end up blown?
 

Seems the combined power handling of that box is approximately 450W (25x18)
I have the perfect amp for you.

Matrix STR1500 - 750W per channel @ 4 ohms.

So you would have a little under double the power required to drive 1x cab per channel.

If you have comps with 100W power handling,  you would have enough power to drive 2x comps per channel with humongous headroom.

The amp will probably do 3x comps per channel with enough headroom, as 2.66 ohms stereo loading with signal input of 1khz+, does'nt draw much current.


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"Who am I? I'm the guy who does his job.. You must be the other guy".


Posted By: rich_gale
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 11:32am

good piezos will and usually do outperform most compression drivers when used for their correct purpose. - especially when used with a capacitor and 10/15w resistor. 

 
as above.  search series/parallel speaker wiring on the net.  it will explain how to wire them to maintain a useable total impedance.  i wouldnt be too worried about making a very low impedance total circuit.  you gonna be dealing with above 4-5khz which wont put stress on any amp (even when driven below the minimum impedance of the amp.   


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REFLEX ALL THE WAY.... (however, im playing with horns again...) That ok Mister Valiant? :)


Posted By: billso
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 11:38am
I currently have 10 motorala piezos running as the top end in my system.
How i went about it after much research was to wire a 20w 40r resistor in series with every piezo and then connect them all in parallel.
I you are planning to use two boxes of ten i would recomend 80r resistors.
The piezos are activly crossed at about 8k above jbl 2" comps.
If i had £200 to spend i would probably just buy some jbl bullets but i think its amazing how much £20 worth of piezos add to the system.
I would still hold fire untill djk gets back as he is the expert on the matter.


Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 11:42am
Originally posted by 2bitNum 2bitNum wrote:

Hello everyone,

Thanks all for your replies,

@Jake_Fielder

thanks for the links, i searched the forum the past few months on most of the problems we had so far in building the system and all problems were solved except wiring this piezos. In searching the forum i ve read many posts about how awful piezos sound but the piezos were already bought and a box was build by my friend without much research done. The good thing is that he also bought compression drivers so we are covered sound wise.  I would like to wire the piezos and hear how they sound and maybe then bin them or burn them as other have stated already. 

As for series and parallel wiring, done some web research and came up with this wiring 

 
will this work? if yes what amp will do without burning a hole in our pockets and end up blown?
 
@ djk
I think they are the cheapest you can find, all i was told is that they are 8 ohms and 25 watts each
and the brand is Marksonic, model dmp-1535. 


The configuration above does not match with your stated 10 piezos per cab as it appears to be 2 sets of 9.

Would suggest you wire the 10 in 5 sets of 2 in series then parallel them all down. This would work out thus 16+16+16+16+16, parallel would then be 16/5 = 3.2 ohms per box. This should be well within the comfort zone of most amps. Behringer EP1500/2500 are readily available quite cheap and both would do the job.


Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 12:33pm
Marksonic, model dmp-1535.

I need a link to something, Google comes up with nothing.


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djk


Posted By: Jez_3phaze
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 1:29pm
@2bitNum
 
As Jake said. Not sure how many units per box, as your diagram could mean 9 or 18?

I'll assume 9 as shown
Now I'm no expert... Before someone shoots me down!

But one thing I can see on your diagram is the Piezo on its own at the bottom will get more power than the rest.

 
You may need to compromise ohms to achieve power shared equally between all units.
The diagrams are just a idea not statement! Maybe someone has a better idea :-)
 
javascript:void%280%29;" rel="nofollow - javascript:void%280%29;" rel="nofollow -


Posted By: 2bitNum
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 2:42pm
Sorry my mistake with that picture, i want to wire ten units in one box

this what i wanted to post

@Jez_3phaze

im very new at this so i will probably go with what you guys suggest . In your 10 Units diagram

what does the "8" stands for in the middle of 1st and 3rd speaker?

@djk

i goggled "marksonic piezo" and found this  http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/219816102/piezo_tweeter_tweeter_tweeter_speaker_super.html - http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/219816102/piezo_tweeter_tweeter_tweeter_speaker_super.html  it looks the same and its the same size



i opened one inside not much info in it but maybe someone knows.


Posted By: Jez_3phaze
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 2:54pm
The 8 stands for 8 ohm resistor. Im still thinking of a better way to equal out 10 units, but have'nt come up with anything yet. I hope you got  the bit about equal load? Thats why I put the resistor there, each Piezo will get equal power.Smile-J


Posted By: Jez_3phaze
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 6:14pm

Like These!



Posted By: rich_gale
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 6:33pm
resistors also allow a passive crossover to effectively work as if it were running a moving coil driver.

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REFLEX ALL THE WAY.... (however, im playing with horns again...) That ok Mister Valiant? :)


Posted By: GEB
Date Posted: 20 March 2010 at 11:12pm
Didn't think piezo's loaded an amp, arn't they usually like 1000ohms or something?


Posted By: Jez_3phaze
Date Posted: 21 March 2010 at 12:20am
Yes thats what I always thought. But "djk"'s reply has a possible link to the manufacturer, http://www.leson.com.br/tlc6.htm - http://www.leson.com.br/tlc6.htm
it show that they do indeed have an impedance at about 2Khz to 20khz.
The original topic post said they were 8 Ohm? I don't use them, so I took it as read!Confused
 
Maybe someone will help clear this up.
 
 


Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 21 March 2010 at 12:46am
[QUOTE=2bitNum] Sorry my mistake with that picture, i want to wire ten units in one box

this what i wanted to post
[QUOTE=2bitNum]

The configuration above shows 2 sets of 4 series up which would be 32 ohms each and 1 set of 2 series up which would be 16 ohms. These are then paralleled down to give a final resistance of 6.4 ohms. The problem is that the set of 2 will receive twice as much power as the sets of 4 and at least one of them is likely to be damaged.

What I suggested before would share the power equally and running at 3.2 ohms per channel would be no problem to amps capable of running down to 2 ohms per channel, especially at high frequencies.


Posted By: Centauri
Date Posted: 21 March 2010 at 12:47am
Have a look at http://www.pulsardevelopments.com/products/detail/piezoan.html - this article .  The cheap piezos don't get anywhere near as low as 8 ohms, and don't have anywhere near as much sensitivity as the ones in _djk_'s link.  I would suggest 5 groups of 2 series connected piezos with all the groups in parallel.  Also not a good idea to use a separate amp to run piezos, as it could cause the amp to become unstable due to the capacitance.

Physically, the only way to get acceptable response with a large group of piezos is to mount them as a vertical line, preferably with the plastic horns trimmed top and bottom to allow closer spacing.


Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 21 March 2010 at 9:34am
The dog ate my homework (error message when I tried to post).

The figure #s I will reference in this post are here:

http://www.pulsardevelopments.com/products/detail/piezoan.html

The Motorola/CTS  KSN 1005 (orange squeezer) tweeters use the 0.13µF bender element, and are about 62R at 20Khz, increasing to about 250R in the 5Khz region (fig.7).

Unknown tweeters should be measured for capacitance for best results, most I have seen are about 0.1µF, or about 82R at 20Khz.

The LeSon (and a few others) have a matching transformer to make them more sensitive, and are outside the scope of this post.

The first thing to do is select a series resistor, I usually use one the same value as the capacitive reactance at 20Khz (50R~100R), 3W~10W capacity. For a 0.1µF bender element (the $1 generic piezo), 82R/5W is fine.

As Centauri suggests, hook them together in series pairs, and then hook the five pairs in parallel (fig.14). For a 0.1µF bender element this would give about a 0.25µF total load with about 32R8 in series, or about 64 ohms at 20Khz.

Crossovers (fig.10)

A passive crossover is possible with a few added parts. For our example of ten series/parallel connected tweeters we know we have about 0.25µF in series with 32R8 for the impedance. This is a far cry from a resistive load, so a normal crossover will not work. The easiest solution is to try and make the load look resistive. A 0.254mH inductor has about 32 ohms of reactance at 20Khz, about the same as our 0.25µF capacitor. If we wire a 33R/50W resistor in series with the 0.254mH inductor, and put that combination in parallel with the tweeter load of 0.25µF (in series with32R8), the the amplifier will have what looks like about a 33R resistive load to drive.

A 12dB/7Khz crossover for 32R might be 0.5µF and 1mH. Lower crossovers may be possible, but they will require a steeper slope, and a notch filter for the bending mode resonance (the impedance peak in the fig.7 graph)

Be sure and buy some extra units when using generics, and sort out the ones with no or low output.



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djk


Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 21 March 2010 at 9:58am
These all have built-in transformers to boost the 1W/1M sensitivity:

http://www.leson.com.br/tlc1.htm

http://www.leson.com.br/tlc4.htm

http://www.leson.com.br/tlc5.htm

http://www.leson.com.br/tlc6.htm


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djk


Posted By: 2bitNum
Date Posted: 28 March 2010 at 3:18pm

Sorry for the late reply and thanks djk for the very helpful information. At the moment  we dont have time to wire the piezos but will do soon, one more question do we have to remove the cap that is already soldered on the piezos ?

Thanks for your time



Posted By: Nitz V1505
Date Posted: 28 March 2010 at 8:59pm
I wouldnt remove the cap, its there for a reason. What that reason is Im not sure but best to be on the safe side.

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LET THE BASS ROLL LIKE THUNDER
& THE TOPS LIKE LIGHTNING.....


Posted By: _djk_
Date Posted: 29 March 2010 at 2:12am
"I wouldnt remove the cap, its there for a reason. What that reason is Im not sure but best to be on the safe side."

Total hogwash !!!

Throw it away and do it right.

If you don't understand something, ask.


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djk


Posted By: Centauri
Date Posted: 29 March 2010 at 3:00am
Yes, it IS there for a reason - to satisfy the supplier's misguided belief that this will form an effective crossover....  As _djk_ has said, remove it.


Posted By: Nitz V1505
Date Posted: 29 March 2010 at 5:38am
Thanks guys!!! I did have a feeling it was some sort of hp filter.

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LET THE BASS ROLL LIKE THUNDER
& THE TOPS LIKE LIGHTNING.....


Posted By: Nitz V1505
Date Posted: 29 March 2010 at 6:37am
Could always change the cap to a black gate!!!!!!!LOL

-------------
LET THE BASS ROLL LIKE THUNDER
& THE TOPS LIKE LIGHTNING.....



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