A2E DIY conversion - very light triggering. What's wrong?

[user1821938]

I used an elevator bolt on an aluminum stock bar and this foam cone:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NSTY8DD/
It's rather spongy like weather stripping.

Anyway, I'm only getting very light triggering when hitting the head very hard with a stick (which I created out of solar screen mesh). I do get full triggered midi sound when I tap the piezo directly. I got these piezos: https://www.ebay.com/itm/354906959552

I put thick doublesided rubber tape on the elevator bolt and attached the piezo to that. The foam cone comes with very thin adhesive tape on the bottomof it. I also positioned the foam cone about 1.5 mm above the rim.

Here's a couple videos I took using the midi audio synced with the video. You can hear that when I hit the piezo on the side I'll get the full volume but if I whack the foam directly very hard it just returns a light hit at most. Same with the head.

head on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3WkBFoO_o

head off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMU3VSlda4A

Any ideas where in the chain might be causing issues? I'm new to edrums in general nevermind DIY, just got finished buying a bunch of supplies to do this project and at a standstill now very frustrated. I'm using an EAD10 module which plugs into my laptop via USB. I'm also using EZDrummer3. Appreciate any help.​

[Hellfire]

I used an elevator bolt on an aluminum stock bar and this foam cone:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NSTY8DD/
It's rather spongy like weather stripping.

Anyway, I'm only getting very light triggering when hitting the head very hard with a stick (which I created out of solar screen mesh). I do get full triggered midi sound when I tap the piezo directly. I got these piezos: https://www.ebay.com/itm/354906959552

I put thick doublesided rubber tape on the elevator bolt and attached the piezo to that. The foam cone comes with very thin adhesive tape on the bottomof it. I also positioned the foam cone about 1.5 mm above the rim.

Here's a couple videos I took using the midi audio synced with the video. You can hear that when I hit the piezo on the side I'll get the full volume but if I whack the foam directly very hard it just returns a light hit at most. Same with the head.

head on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3WkBFoO_o

head off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMU3VSlda4A

Any ideas where in the chain might be causing issues? I'm new to edrums in general nevermind DIY, just got finished buying a bunch of supplies to do this project and at a standstill now very frustrated. I'm using an EAD10 module which plugs into my laptop via USB. I'm also using EZDrummer3. Appreciate any help.​

It's hard to tell from your video, but does the piezo over hang the elevator bolt at all? I ask because normally on commercial edrums the adhesive pad on the bottom of the piezo is smaller than the piezo itself (about 75% of the diameter of the piezo). This allows for more flex on the piezo to increase the signal. The other thought I had is maybe the ceramic on that piezo is cracked. Have you tried a different piezo?

[Sharkuel]

Fantastic, thats what I am talking about! Hope your build is far more reliable than what Alesis offers.