Banjo Ray -

I thought this engyneer's explanation was that this bee can fly. I even threw in a (perhaps gratuitous) note to justify (maybe) why some people might find it useful.

As a (mainly) mando player, the "unpitched twank" note was in hopes of staving off - for serious banoists - what seems to have happened to the mandolin in my area. So many people think its "cute" that we now have many more "mandolinists" than musicians. Hopefully if they are allowed to make their little jokes about banjos, they'll stay away from them so things won't be so overcrowded when I get my banjo - as I do intend to do.

Shantieman -

500 watts ain't much. It's about on a par with the total of the little music lights that the string section clips on their music stands in the average symphony - and they all use batteries so they're chemical polluters too. The arc welder analogy refers to the supposition that the system would require rather low voltage - but substantial current, which is somewhat "inefficient" relative to other kinds of power, but not unworkable. It's hard to find a city block in my neighborhood where at least one guy doesn't have a portable arc welder in the garage.

A typical coffee pot probably pulls around 800 to 1200 Watts while it perks, and probably 300 - 500 watts "at idle" if it's one of those "keep-warm" kind. I'm personally gratified that the cited 500 watts is so close to my off-the-cuff estimate of a "couple of watts for each of 200+ strings.

It's a "theoretically workable" concept. (Although it's probably not the way I'd choose to solve the problem.) Whether it's a useful one depends on the "market analysis," which probably was at least informally done by the inventor - who probably encountered out of tune pianos in his previous life.

John