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Guitar Hero World Tour Cymbal Fix

Step 3Ensure functional piezoelectric element.

Ensure functional piezoelectric element.
The most complex, but thankfully the toughest part of the cymbal is the piezoelectric. Lets make sure this most important part is functional.

You will find white silicon covering the connections to the piezoelectric element. This must be removed. My finger nail worked fine. I'm sure a small tool would work fine too, just take care not to damage anything.

Get two lengths of wire, thin stranded wire will be fine. I have bags of the stuff. Strip a half inch on both ends of both wires. Solder an end of each wire to the solder pads where the other wires are connected to on the piezoelectric. ( You likely won't be able to solder else where on the piezoelectric, it won't stick. ) I needed pretty high temps on my iron to do this. I will refer to "your" red wire as the wire you soldered to the pad that has the original red wire, and "your" black wire as the other wire.

Now you should have two wires connected to each terminal of the piezoelectric. Using some tape, connect your black wire to the base of the cymbal plug on the drum kit. Then connect your red wire to the tip. Again, just use tape, and put some pressure on it.

Make sure mii freestyle is running as in step 1. Now while everything is connected tap on the piezoelectric with your finger. If you register hits. If not, play around with the taped connection a bit ( It can be finicky. ) This should work... The piezoelectric elements are pretty much indestructible. If you can't get it to work, test for shorts with a multi-meter... Once you have this working, proceed to the next step.
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10 comments
Dec 28, 2009. 1:27 PMwebsherpa says:
Same issue here and this instructable was very helpful in pointing me in the right direction (gotta love the Internet), though my fix was rather more simple since I used a continuity meter to test for continuity between the piezo and the female socket. 

There is a very, very small amount of copper connecting the black ground plate to the female socket's pin. mine had a hairline crack which is probably a stress crack that widened and opened the cuircuit  very shortly after we started playing the cymbal.  I would consider this an engineering defect, the PCB was etched with too narrow a connection here at a high stress point.  In any case I just scratched off some of the green resist from the PCB and used a bit of copper braid wire to create a "stitch" between the pin and the board (on the side opposite the hairline crack).  Even a solder bridge (extra solder bridging the gap) would work for some time.
Apr 11, 2009. 6:53 PMeasyeee says:
Easiest way around the whole, "broken/snapped wires at jack input" =

Situation
U don't have a spare Male 1/8th jack.
U know how to solder, got the gear.
Butchered the old Male jack or other.
Can't be bothered stuffing about.
Want a somewhat permanent fix.

Simply use some wire (e.g vehicle speaker wire) to lengthen existing snapped wires. maybe another 50-100mm or more. measure twice, cut once.
Remove underside rubber protector from offending cymbal.
Neatly cut speaker wire to length. Both ends.

Cut Cymbal side as close as possible to jack.
Strip back maybe 10mm or more.

Speaker wire same as above.
Use Earth, black line along speaker cable, for Earth connection.
Positive for Positive.

Solder speaker wire ends directly onto Chip.
There are 3 solder points for this operation.
Very bottom is earth.
Top left is power
third is connection unused in situation I bypassed(buggered jack point)

eg; of solder point orientation.
Power Connection
1 1
Earth
1

2 Internal wire from Drum-kit end is Power
3 External wire is Earth.

Before soldering test correct orientation of wires using MII play.
If incorrect fix it....
Solder the correct ends together. Problem solved.
Put it all back together.

There are some basic steps not included like splicing wires together etc, if u can't do the basic I think u maybe in the wrong place

either that or I am.
Cheers

Jan 22, 2009. 6:37 PMsolutions engineer says:
Great guide. Fixed my defective Cymbal pad! Thanks for sharing.
Jan 15, 2009. 11:48 AMhammerhead300 says:
Thanks for the guide. I have a few lengths of female-to-male audio extension cable with 3.5mm jacks that I'm not using, I'm wondering if it'd be possible to solder the female jack directly to the piezoelectric and forego the small PCB. If you can help me with this, I'd really appreciate it, I've been bummed about my drum kit not fully working since I bought GHWT and really want to get it fixed.
Jan 8, 2009. 11:26 AMgamerfreax says:
sorry for asking tons of question. but can i use any wire?
Jan 6, 2009. 9:28 AMgamerfreax says:
Hi, could you please take a picture of the whole cymbal cause this makes me confused
Jan 7, 2009. 2:40 PMgamerfreax says:
on the other picture where did you put the tape?

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