When playing a waveform on my piezo, I hear a lot of noise.

Question:

I am playing a waveform using a Boreas driver on my piezo actuator and I hear a lot of noise. What is causing this?

Answer:

Noise can be caused by many things. Audible sound is caused by air pressure changes reaching our ears. Haptics being vibration in nature is prone to inducing noise in the air. It is therefore important to control the factors leading to any noise to mitigate it.

The main contributors to noise are the waveform shape, the electric signal generation, but also the mechanical design and assembly where the piezo resides. Please consult our application note on Audible Noise Reduction that goes into these topics in detail.