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Lemon Juice Guitar
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Inventor
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Joined: Oct 13, 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:18 pm    Post subject: Lemon Juice Guitar
Subject description: My next heavy-mod geetar project
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OK, so I sent my guitar off into the universe by giving it to a guitar player that I didn't even know. You know, let it go and see what happens. Well I'm inspired by Joe Walsh's new album Analog Man (highly recommended) and decide it's about time to build me another geetar.

I've got some small amount of chops doing this with my first guitar which had that funky pickup system developed by myself and Dr. Justice (LTNS man). And i decided to make some freaky-assed fucked up weirdomatic guitar like only a sick psycho like me could perv up in his mind.

Of course I will gut the body completely, throwing away the factory pickups and putting in the supermagnet pickup system. This time there will be no transformer, instead a string of opamps and maybe some CMOS, Lunetta style, will process the sound. I'll just not have a pick guard at all probably and paint the interior, mount some breadboards in it and run them off of a lemon juice battery.

Yeah man, The guitar that runs on citrus. Some copper and zinc bolts, a sponge attached, and pour a margareta or pretty much anything with acid in it on the power assembly, maybe just squash a lime on it.

I've struggled over how to power a guitar with onboard electronics, and I figure this way will do nicely. Much better than 9V batteries, solar cells, etc. all with their issues.

Project is scheduled to commence in October so for now I'm just going to listen to Joe Walsh and rock on...

Les

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wmonk



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PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:28 pm    Post subject: Re: Lemon Juice Guitar
Subject description: My next heavy-mod geetar project
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This sounds plain awesome Les! Very Happy

Inventor wrote:
And i decided to make some freaky-assed fucked up weirdomatic guitar like only a sick psycho like me could perv up in his mind.

Laughing


Inventor wrote:

Yeah man, The guitar that runs on citrus. Some copper and zinc bolts, a sponge attached, and pour a margareta or pretty much anything with acid in it on the power assembly, maybe just squash a lime on it.

Remember you would need to have a few in series to get the required voltage. And I don't think it will hold very long on this kind of electrochemical energy. But let's see!

Cheers,
Woody

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Uncle Krunkus
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 5:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hey Les,
Great to see that, as usual, you're out there on the cutting edge, exploring new ideas.
Well, at least it looks like the citrus fruit are going to be on the cutting edge anyway! Very Happy
If you do need to add a number of cells, I'm wondering if you could just have some copper and zinc "spikes" sticking out of a convenient spot. Then you could literally just impale a lemon etc. on the two spikes. When it goes dead, pull it off the spikes and put another one on. You know that potatoes will work also yeah? They may need different electrode material, but I think 1 copper and 1 zinc would still work. I think it comes down to differing valencies in the electrodes elements, but I can't quite remember. I know potatoes have a salt of silver in them.
By the way, Mark (who makes the harps) told me to thank you heartily for your guidance and inspiration on the piezo/ECM pickup. He's very happy with the results.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hahhaah! good to hear from you both! Yeah I figured an array of slightly sharpened copper and zinc plated bolts would do the trick. Using bolts would allow me to secure them to a piece of painted wood yet still allow them to be removed for service. I was thinking of putting a sponge at the base of them so that it could run on any juice OR a fruit multiskewered like that.

It will be cool to squeeze the lemon and hear the sound change, heh! I figure I'll mount it on the bottom side at the horn. Oh, it will be a strat - and a nice one, an American made $400 new strat. And yes, potatoes work, I once had a potato clock that worked like that.

The guitar circuitry is all high impedance so I think it will last for a while, the clock did anyway but an LCD without backlight and enough CMOS to make a clock together don't use much power. Should be OK I think.

Les

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Uncle Krunkus
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Just make sure that each "cell" is separated. Otherwise, the potential will be neutralised through the common electrolyte. You should get about 1V5 from each cell AFAIR.
The FET stage at the front of the Ruby amp is a simple, low power pre-amp that could easily be re-biased for low voltage operation.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Oh, good point. Actually now that I think about it, 1.5V would be enough to run some of today's low voltage opamps and the guitar signal is 0.5V max, so there's really no need to get more voltage than a single cell out of it. That keeps it simple and we all like simple!

Les

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Uncle Krunkus
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Yeah, definitely!
Keep it simple, you only really need a gain of 2 or 3db, but maybe try to incorporate something else, like an oscillator which modulates the guitar based on squeezing the juice! Laughing Laughing Laughing


Sorry dude, that was just so funny, I almost fell off my chair when I read back over what I typed! Rolling Eyes

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Stream Operator


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PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Yeah, the crowd's gonna react to the sound I make when I squeeze my lemon on stage!

Les

p.s. datasheet for opamp attached.


lmv951.pdf
 Description:
1.5 Volt Opamp Datasheet

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 Filename:  lmv951.pdf
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elmegil



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PostPosted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Watch the juice run down your leg? Wink

Never thought I'd see a led Zep reference here, but there you go. Sounds like an entertaining project....
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 6:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I think I'm getting away from the Lemon Juice concept and just going for a 9V battery design. What I'm envisioning now is an American Strat gutted and set up with the Own Your Tone invention pickup system, plus a transmogrifier built into it. The tone and volume pots are replaced with delay clock and gain of the trsnsmogrifier. Now I just gotta figure out what design of transmogrifier to use.

Les

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