2006 Crowdster Plus: no piezo sound

[noregretsguitar]

Tried to play my 2006 Crowdster Plus in church this morning. I only had a mono cable. With the mono cable plugged in, push button in down position, new battery installed correctly, switch in the up position, I had no piezo. I had no sound in up position. I switched to my back up guitar and was able to play set at church. At home, I had the same results. I even tried with my stereo cable with the push button up, but I still had no piezo. No warning. No Piezo. Please advise.

[Pietro]

uh oh...

doesn't sound good. I hope it gets resolved easily...

[tom]

I responded to your email before I saw this.
This is the crowdsters main flaw. The battery box's contact terminals can lose their spring and need to be rebent every few years. To repair,
Remove battery.
Remove rear coverplate.
Bend the two copper colored plates inward so they will put better pressure against the battery terminals. If you live in a damp place it would also be a good idea to squirt the terminals with doxit from time to time.
The mag pickups will still work even if battery is dead.

[Pietro]

You mean my favorite guitar.... has... gulp... a FLAW?

Say it ain't so.

This is good info to mentally store in the back of my brain.

[tom]

I'm afraid so. We opted for the convenience of changing the battery without loosening any screws over a snap on battery clip. We keep looking for a better box, but so far none has been found. Any time you have a spring loaded connection, there will be failures. Think about flashlights, they seem to be the bad example for this.

[noregretsguitar]

Problem fixed. Nice to know what to do if it happens again. Thanks for the prompt response Tom. I apologize for this being posted several places before emailing you. I just wanted it to be fixed before next Sunday. Panic mode. Excellent customer service. Blessings!

[tom]

i completely understand panic mode. when it's broke you gotta get it going again. in emergencies, email is the fastest way to reach me.

[CoKid]

I had a panic attack last week and wound up calling in. Roy set me straight. Turns out my C+2's volume control was being loaded down by my preamp.
I though the volume pot may have gone bad or something. Had an acoustic only gig coming up in a couple of days and totally forgot that I'd switched out a an LR Baggs preamp for a Radial Z-Pre a day or so before. I was having a complete brain freeze and then came the panic attack. I mean, I didn't even have the presence of mind to try plugging directly into the mixer. I just choked man! When Roy suggested that I try plugging directly in I felt like a complete idiot. Why didn't I think of that? After fussing around a bit I was able to do one or to things to correct the problem. I could set either the Strobostomp 2 tuner or the Eventide Timefactor that I had in the chain to buffer mode. Problem solved.

The symptom was that the volume control was fine all the way up. Turning down from '10' to say '8' lowered the volume just fine. From '8' down there was next to nothing.

It was nice talking to Roy though. :D

[ClayCromer]

The Crowdster is still the coolest guitar ever made!!! It's probably healthy that I know it's not perfect now....got to keep it real. Thanks for sharing the info on the forum, Tom. That's good to keep filed away like Pietro said.