Can I safely remove the buzzer from a Philips air purifier?

Question

I am trying to silence my air purifier (Philips AC5659/10). I think it uses a piezo-buzzer (front & back of PCB visible on page 4 of this document). In a similar vein to this question, I would like to know if it's safe to just remove the disc, leaving the inside of the buzzer disconnected?

I have tried tape and putting some silicone, but it's barely muffled. So I am verifying if it's OK for this circuit to just remove the internal disc without replacing it with anything. — Karol J. Piczak, Jan 08 '22 at 22:56

DKNguyen · Answer 1 · 2022-01-09T00:58:19.473

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I did this with my toaster oven because it was ear splitting loud. Unplug the device, take a flat head screw driver just pry it a bit at the bottom of the black cylinder. If it's anything like my piezo was, and they look very similar, it's a plastic cylindrical cap on top of a plastic tube base that houses a piezo disc inside. The cap popped right of and I took the disc out essentially leaving an open circuit in its place. Wasn't even glued in place.

edited Jan 09 '22 at 00:58

answered Jan 09 '22 at 00:51

DKNguyen

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That's exactly what I did. I've removed the piezo disc. I am only contemplating if leaving an open circuit there could have some residual effects. From what I get from this question: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/297304/how-can-removing-a-piezoelectric-speaker-buzzer-damage-a-circuit this could be an issue with transformers, but I don't think that's the case with this PCB. However, my electronics knowledge is fairly limited, so I am looking for some confirmation from experts in this area. – Karol J. Piczak Jan 09 '22 at 01:04
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@KarolJ.Piczak It's fine. Designers usually aren't spiteful enough with deep enough pockets to put in circuitry to detect whether the piezo is open/functional or not to disable the entire device. – DKNguyen Jan 09 '22 at 01:04
I did not expect to find any specialized circuitry to detect this kind of tampering. I was more concerned with what potential physical side effects could happen assuming that this circuit wasn't designed for such a situation. But I've managed to strip the piezo disc, leaving it open as in the picture, and so far it seems to be working fine. – Karol J. Piczak Jan 09 '22 at 23:37

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 09 '22 at 23:41

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I can now add an empirical answer to this - I've removed the piezo disc, and everything seems to be working fine so far, totally silenced.

answered Jan 09 '22 at 23:41

Karol J. Piczak

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Can I safely remove the buzzer from a Philips air purifier?

2 Answers2