LAVA ME 2 – Freeboost Broken / Not Working

[Whisperin' Dave]

I thought I would post this somewhere as I could find nothing to help me with this problem on the internet.

A couple of years ago I purchased a Lava ME 2 as a travel guitar. I was quite impressed with the acoustic sound and the extra oomph using the onboard Freeboost system, which uses the back wall of the guitar as a soundboard speaker.

The guitar has been great for travel. Small size, tough, lightweight (including very light hardshell case), will fit in an aircraft overhead locker if you want to hand carry it, decent sound, hard wearing, no worries about heat and humidity (can be left out in the sun on hot days with no harm done).

Unfortunately, 2 months after the 2 year warranty expired, the Freeboost system stopped working. Something inside the guitar was broken and rattling around.

I could find absolutely no information on the internet to help with this fault and LAVA were no help at all (They just told me to contact the seller).

It was impossible to get my hand into the guitar to reach the thing that was rattling around but I could see it when I held it up the light. It was connected to the preamp unit by a cable with a small jack plug. I unplugged it and just yanked it out, breaking off a couple of small soldered wires in the process.

After a bit of research I identified the broken part as an audio exciter of the type used in flat panel speakers.

The exciter was not repairable. After measuring its size and searching the internet I identified what I thought would be a suitable replacement from RS components:

Tectonic 41mm dia 2W nom Full Range Audio Exciter, 8Ω, 300 Hz → 20 kHz
RS Stock No.: 876-5266 / Mfr. Part No.: TEAX19C01-8

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/speaker-drivers/8765266

I removed the broken part and soldered this on to the end of the cable and plugged it back in. The exciter has a self adhesive pad on the base so I just stuck it back on the inside of the guitar in a place where I could reach through the soundhole.

It worked! So I now have freeboost back.

I took some photos but unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to add them to the post.

[casualmusic]

Excellent solution.

It’s great that the designers use generic multi purpose parts available from electronics parts stores.

Cheers.